Low, he adds, “If you want to,willyou?”
“Yes.”
Quietly, breath running against my skin, he says, “Are you going to?”
Every place he’s touched buzzes. “No.”
“You’ll be able to sleep here, with me?” he asks.
Sleep?Freeing the sheets from my grip, I reach for him, plant my fingers against the t-shirt covering his chest, let his heat soak into me. “We’ll be…sleeping?”
His head lifts, and the look in his eyes is nothing short ofstarved. “Do you…want to do something other than sleep?”
Red erupts in my cheeks, and I lose all my gall. Humming with sudden anxiety, I whisper, “Do you…not want to?”
“If you don’t want to, why would I want to?”
My heart sinks. “You don’t want to?”
“Not if you don’t.”
“But if I do…?”
“Do you?”
I chew my lip, practically gnawing. “Well, I don’t know.”
Breath leaves him, and it almost seems…relieved? “Then you don’t.” Pressing against my chin, he frees my lip as he forces them to part. “We went over that.”
“Right.” Yes. We did. Oh so long ago. If I don’t know what I want, then the default answer isno. I’m being a horrible person. I don’t even know what I’m doing. I just… I just wanted him to look at me, so badly, and now he is, yet now I’m chickening out. I exhale, wincing. “I’m sorry.”
“I need you to tell me if you want to stay here tonight. I always want to be around you. But I need you to not resent me, so I need you to only be around me when you want to be. Does that make sense?”
That makes a lot of sense. I drop my gaze, toward his body. The planes of his muscle press against the fabric of his shirt. I’d be an idiot to not want to be around him, in any capacity. “Stay here tonight…to sleep? Just sleep?” I ask.
“That’s right. I’m not prepared to say either of us is ready for anything else, emotionally, but I am at your mercy.”
My heart seizes with how painfully gentle an idea that is. For the first time in my life, I feel as though I am in control.
“I could sleep right here…in your arms?” I whisper, looking back at his eyes.
“Command me to the extent of your desires, Clara. I’ll do anything for you or to you that you want. Which means I will also carry you to your room if you wish.”
I do not wish to be carried ever again, actually. My nose wrinkles.
He chuckles. “Or I’ll let you walk there, but I’ll escort you and kiss your fingers as I bid you adieu.”
An excellent option, to be sure; however, I’m very comfy cozy here, and the idea of commanding him sends a thrill through me. Command him how? To what extent would I have the nerve?
Drawing my touch up to his cheek, I revel in the way he shudders, sinking deeper and closer as his eyes half lid. I comb through the dark strands of his hair.
He is my first friend.
Do I risk that and ask him to kiss me?
Am I going to take the chance on starting something likekissingin his bed?
Careful, shaking, I lift my knuckles before his lips and whisper, “Kiss?”
