Page 183 of Made in Love and Blood

“You kinda just did,” he told her, “and I didn’t want that. It’s not an issue, it helps me. You asked why I can’t sleep. Adderall. That’s why.”

“It’s a side-effect?”

“Amongst other things.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Exhausted,” he replied, picking up the book he’d been reading once more, “but I’ll hit the bed soon and nothing’s waking me up for at least a day. That’s how this shit usually rolls. It takes a while to get used to. When I do start sleeping on Adderall, just know I talk a lot in my sleep. I call it my Adderall dreams. They never make any damn sense. Don’t worry about it, okay? It’s a normal thing for me.”

“Okay.”

But she did worry. A little.

“How many days has it been since you slept? Like really slept, Nico.”

He swallowed hard. “Like three, or so. I get an hour here or there, but it takes nothing to wake me up.”

“And then it takes forever to get back to sleep, right?”

“Basically. Anyway, I had something else for—”

“Yeah, yeah. In a minute.”

Frankie crossed the room, climbing onto the foot of the bed and crawling up to him to settle between his bent legs. He eyed her curiously, a small smile playing at his lips while he slightly lowered the hardback copy of The Silent Patient that he’d brought home recently.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Three days ago,” Frankie informed him, “what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you slept. You said it was three days ago. And I thought about it, I remember. I couldn’t even get you up when the takeout came. So, what happened?”

Nico’s brow dipped lower. “I mean, I got back from a two-day trip to Chicago, got to your place, took you to bed because—”

“What happened in bed, Nico?”

His gaze darted sideways, and then slowly came back to her as the memory flooded back. “You...”

Frankie leaned her head against his thigh, kissing just below the hem of his black boxer-briefs. His skin tasted like the soap from the shower earlier, and him. Always him. “Me, what, Nico?”

He reached down to push her wet hair back from her face. “Babe.”

Her arm curled around his thigh, fingers stroking and teasing. Her other hand drew circles along his lower stomach.

“Hmm?” she asked. “What?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Knocks you out every time, doesn’t it?”

Nico’s voice came out thick; deliciously dark. “It does something to me.”

“Something you need.”

He didn’t reply.

Again, she kissed his inner thigh. He’d started getting hard the moment she found herself between his legs, but now his erection strained prominently against the fabric of his boxer-briefs.