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I lie back and let a smirk touch my lips. “I’ll sleep right here. Unless you’re going to move me?”
She climbs onto the bed, into my arms. Pulling her into the embrace feels like the most perfect thing I’ve ever done. She fits there, feels right, correct. It’s like pieces of the universe are slotting into place, all tumbling together into the exact right configuration.
“What are you thinking about?” she murmurs.
“You’ll laugh if I tell you.”
I sift my fingers through her hair, making patterns and enjoying the way she moans with each one.
“I won’t. As long as it’s not about her.”
“You’re the only woman I ever want to think about, to be with, to be near. I swear.”
“So…”
“I was thinking that I’ve felt like a puzzle my whole life, with a bunch of pieces missing. Maybe the pieces didn’t ever exist. Maybe they were just a silly dream. But then I met you and, finally, I feel like I fit together. I know, I know, it’s cheesy as fuck. But I can’t help it. That’s how you make me feel.”
“It’s not cheesy,” she whispers, kissing my chest so I can feel her lips through the fabric of my shirt. “It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me. I feel it too. It’s crazy. It should be impossible.”
I squeeze her closer, my eyes closing, heavy exhaustion weighing me down. I’ve never been able to fall asleep easily, too lost in the past or in thoughts of work, but with Callie, it’s like I don’t have to worry about anything anymore. She’s right here – safe in my arms, the most important person in my life.
“Are you going to sleep?” she whispers, with a quirk in her voice.
“Are you teasing me?” I tickle her side softly, eliciting the sweetest giggle. “Gonna call me an old man because I’m drifting off before ten PM?”
“You’ve been working for almost two days straight. You have to work tomorrow. I think you’ve earned a little sleep, Conrad.”
“Lie here with me,” I growl, with a thrum of command making my words almost feral. “Until I drift off. And then tomorrow, I’m taking you out. And after that…”
My words fade as sleep drags me down, as I sink into it more freely than I have in years, probably since I was a kid.
And after that, I’m going to claim you. I try to say. I’m going to own every inch of you, make you mine. I’m going to plunge into your virgin hole until your young fertile body has no choice but to swell with my seed.
But then sleep grabs ahold of me, whisking me away on a cloud of dreams about Callie and our future.
Chapter Fourteen
Callie
“Callie.” His voice is a gruff welcome force, penetrating the darkness, penetrating the heaviness hovering around me. “I’m going into work.”
“What time is it?” I reach sleepily out for him, missing the warm solid presence that’s been pressed up against me all night, his solid muscles reassuring me any time I jolted awake from a nightmare about dad’s car crash.
“It’s early. Go back to sleep.”
I giggle. “So why did you wake me, huh?”
Even with my eyes closed, I’m sure I can feel him smiling. It’s a force that dances across the short distance between us, coursing through me, infusing me with light.
“Because you wouldn’t let me go,” he says, his breath whispering warmly over my cheek. “You were holding onto me like you never wanted to let me go.”
“I don’t.”
“I feel the same,” he snarls. “If I had my way, I’d stay with you all day. It kills me, being apart from you. It makes me want to never go into the hospital again. But if I don’t, I’ll be letting people down. I haven’t missed a shift in over a decade and I don’t intend to start now. But know this, Callie. It kills me being away from you, okay?”
Reaching up, I touch his face, feeling the firmness of his tightly clenched jaw. I’m in that hazy in-between state where sleep keeps trying to drag me back down, and opening my eyes feels like an impossible challenge.
“Okay, Conrad. I’ll see you later.”
“For our date,” he says firmly, and then lays a soft kiss on my cheek, sensation flitting warmly all across me. “And what comes after.”
I nod, smile, but the words cast a deep shadow over the warmth of the exchange.
And what comes after, they bounce around my head as Conrad leaves the room, shutting the door behind him, probably to get showered and changed.
What comes after is sex. That’s what he wants.
To claim me like he said.
But what if I’m not ready to give him what he wants?
As sleep drags me back down to its hazy depths, a nasty unfair thought spikes inside my mind.
Alexis would be ready.
“Wait, what?” Simone stares at me from my cell phone screen, her eyebrows halfway up her forehead. “You’re staying there? That’s the fanciest neighborhood in the whole city.”
