“Cece, baby, are you okay?”
“I’m great. I’m just fucking great.” The carpet muffled her voice.
“Sit up, baby.”
“I don’t want to,” she said, her body already beginning to shake from the cold air. “Just leave me here to freeze to death, Briggs. Please.”
“C’mon, baby, sit up.”
With a groan, she sat up, leaning against the wall and pushing her hair out of her eyes.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Just my pride,” she said, but she winced when she rubbed at her knee.
He wanted to touch her, wanted to push up the pant leg of her pajamas and check her knee for himself, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t touch his own fucking mate, and it was killing him.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, but didn’t move.
He sat beside her, making sure he didn’t touch her as he leaned against the wall. “You can sleep in my bed again. I’ll lock the door to keep the plants out.”
“You can’t keep sleeping on the floor,” she said. She looked and sounded a bit weepy, and Briggs desperately wanted to pull her into his lap and comfort her.
“I don’t mind,” he said. “It’s more important that you’re safe and getting some sleep.”
Her bottom lip quivered as tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he said.
“I want to say that I don’t normally cry this much, that it’s just because of everything that’s happened the last few weeks, but that’s a total lie,” she said before sniffing. “I’m an enormous crybaby.”
He grinned. “There’s nothing wrong with crying.”
“Oh yeah? When was the last time you cried?” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks.
“Last month,” he said. “Hudson made me see that dog movie with him.”
“Oh my God,” she said. “The one where the dog nearly dies after getting lost in the woods?”
“That’s the one,” he said. “I full-on wept in the theatre when he was reunited with his family.”
Her smile was watery, but genuine. “Are you telling me the truth?”
“Hand to God,” he said. “Ask Hudson.”
They sat for a few seconds before he couldn’t stand to see her shiver any longer. “Baby, I want you to sleep in my bed tonight, okay?”
She sighed and then nodded. “All right.”
They climbed to their feet, and he said, “I’ll grab your blankets, go crawl into my bed.”
She walked slowly to his room, and he grabbed the blankets from her bed. The plants hanging from the ceiling brushed lightly against his head in soft caresses, but when they tried to follow him out the door, he growled lightly.
“Stay,” he said, glaring at the slowly growing vines.
They quivered and twisted before retreating, and he headed toward his bedroom and the mate he desperately wanted to touch but couldn’t.
