Page 107 of A Love Like Candle Light

“Yes, I can. But I don’t want to.” She hides a yawn behind her hand.

“Sure, you would never,” I tease her with a chuckle earning a playful swat at my arm. While her conditioner does its thing, she picks up her shampoo and stares at me, grimacing at how high she has to lift her arms to reach my head.

Grinning, I lean down and offer her my head. Within moments, her fingers are in my hair, working in her honey-scented shampoo.

“I like this,” she declares in a whisper and with the tiniest smile. “You smelling like me.”

“Do you now?” I arch my eyebrow.

“A little. Okay, maybe a lot” She nods and gives me a sweet grin. “But I also really like it when I smell like you. I might or might not have slept in the shirt you wore when you stayed over after the bonfire for like… a week.”

“You did?” My eyes widen. That’s… new information. The kind of information to keep me awake for hours, replaying this conversation in my head. More hours daydreaming about her running around her home, only wearing the shirt. Even now it brings a stupid grin to my face. Fuck. Nobody in Wayward Hollow will ever let me hear the end of how much I’m head over heels for Kylie.

“Yeah.” She nods and motions for me to get under the stream and rinse out the shampoo. Closing my eyes is a mistake, though. Because there is the picture, right in front of my closed eyelids. Her in the oversized shirt, pulling the collar over her nose and—

“Seriously? That’s making you hard again?” I open my eyes and stare at her. Naked. Wet. Yeah, not exactly a sight to make my dick calm down.

“Of course it does.” I clear my throat and swipe a strand of her wet hair out of her face. “Babe, your sheer presence is enough to make me hard. Doesn’t mean you have to do anything about it.”

“Good.” She hides a yawn behind her hand. “I might be really fucking in love with you, but I’m also really fucking tired.” Another yawn. “I’ll make a mental note for the future though. Me wearing your shirts gets you hard.”

I rinse out her conditioner, then quickly reach for her shower gel and soap the two of us up. I’m not going to elaborate how little she has to go out of her way to make me get hard. Hell, when I’m not spent from what was the best sex of my life, her breathing in my direction would probably be enough for my cock to show interest.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

As soon as the last suds are off us, I turn off the shower and wrap her in one of her giant towels, then grab another one for myself. We dry ourselves off quickly, both desperate for bed, this time to sleep and then we walk back to her bedroom hand in hand.

She climbs in first. As soon as I’m in bed beside her, she scoots closer and snuggles in, her face right next to mine on the pillow as I pull the blanket over both of us and then snake my arms around her.

“For the record,” I mumble and push a strand of her wet hair out of her face, “I’m still really in love with you even when we’re not about to fuck.”

“I know,” she mumbles sleepily. The moonlight casts her room into a dark blue glow, barely light enough for me to see her fighting to keep her eyes open. “I’m so in love with you too, Erik.” She nudges her cheek against my collarbone.

My arms tighten around her and I press a kiss to her forehead. But she’s lost the fight of keeping her eyes open, her breathing already evened out.

I smile into the darkness. This feels surreal. I’m not sure what I did to deserve this love, to deserve her, but I’m not going to question it.

Because I’m happier than I ever thought possible.

Chapter 37

Erik

I sit in my car, fingers drumming against the steering wheel, staring at the blank brick wall in front of my parking spot. I've been parked for twenty minutes already, right on the other side of the street from the bookstore Lilith apparently works in. Or Maya, whatever name she goes by now. And I've been a nervous wreck.

Fuck, I should've asked Kylie to come along after all. I don't even have a plan. Do I just waltz in there and say, ‘Hi, not sure if you know of my existence, but I'm your little brother?’ Does she even work today?

I stare into nothingness, all possible scenarios running through my head. My phone buzzing in my hand pulls me out of the spiral.

Kylie: Thinking of you. Good luck. Love you.

I take a deep breath and let her words wash over me. I can almost hear her voice in my head. My fingers hover over the keyboard, my heart beating in my throat.

Erik: I'm scared.

I tap out the words, but hesitate before clicking send. My finger trembles so much I accidentally do.

Fuck.