Page 169
That’s when I notice the bed. Or, more specifically, what is missing from it—sheets.
The waterproof mattress cover stretches over the mattress beneath us, mostly concealed by a soft tan throw blanket. Another blanket is over both of us, thick and soft and slightly twisted around our legs as though somebody spent the night kicking it around.
Rabbit is wedged between my chest and Adrien’s side, her bent ear flattened beneath my hand.
“You, um… slept here?” The question escapes before I can decide whether I want to ask it.
Adrien presses a chaste kiss to my head. “Sure did. Not the whole time, since you’ve been out since before dinner yesterday, but I’ve been here when I can.”
“Oh…”
Adrien studies me for a second, then his hand returns to my hair, fingers sliding carefully through the strands. “I told you I wouldn’t leave you.”
Did he? I can’t remember.
After the accident, after the crying, after—
Everything.
I lower my head again because looking at him feels too vulnerable, only this time I don’t press my cheek fully against his chest. I hover somewhere near his shoulder, pretending I’m interested in Rabbit’s fur.
My legs are warm beneath the blanket. The cotton shirt I don’t remember putting on is soft against my skin, loose enough that nothing pulls when I curl onto my side. Adrien radiates heat beside me like some oversized human furnace, and every few seconds his fingertips drag across my scalp in a way that makes my eyelids want to close again.
I could stay like this forever.
My body stiffens.
Adrien notices immediately. “What is it?”
“Nothing…” I murmur.
“Kammie.”
My stomach flips.
I am never going to survive that name if he keeps saying it like that.
“I’m okay.”
“Sweetheart, what happened just now?”
“I just…”
I don’t know how to explain that I realized I like waking up next to the man who abducted me and found that upsetting for reasons that seem obvious.
So I stretch instead, and freeze when I see both my arms in the air above me. Both of my wrists are bare.
Why?
I sit up too quickly. The blanket falls into my lap in a soft heap, and cold air hits my shoulders. Rabbit tumbles off my chest and lands face-down near Adrien’s knee.
Adrien’s hand leaves my hair. “Easy.”
I barely hear him.
I whip my head toward the headboard, and there are my pink cuffs, one side still looped through the attachment point, the other hanging loose against the wood.
“You took it off.” My voice sounds strange—hoarse and higher than usual.