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It’s just easier to place when it’s sweet and soft and full of . . . more.
Comfort.
Sweet comfort in a way I’ve never felt. Comfort and security, like being rolled in cotton and silk and protected from the world.
His lips glide along mine, unhurried, kissing and moving, tasting and learning.
Like we’re discovering what this is, what this could be. Who we are when we aren’t at each other's throats.
And I am terrified because I really, really fucking like it.
The kiss stops, and we’re both breathing heavily as he moves back, pressing his lips to my forehead and just . . . holding me.
I breathe him in, a mist of sweat and salty air and lumber and charcoal, like the woods meet the ocean. From what Hattie tells me of him growing up in the woods, it makes sense, like the place he was born in is buried deep into his bones.
“I’m not sleeping with you tonight,” he says, the words like gravel.
“I know.”
“No, I mean, you get the bed.”
“What?” I try to pull my head back, but he doesn’t let me, arms wrapping around my waist tighter.
“You are a temptation wrapped in sin, and I can’t handle that tonight. You had a rough day. The first time I’m inside you, it won’t be fogged with high emotions.”The first time I’m inside you.His words send a shiver through me, causing a chuckle to run through him.
“See? That’s what I mean. Too tempting.”
“Where are you going to sleep?” I ask his chest, fighting the urge to look at his handsome face.
“Couch.”
“Ben, no, that’s not right. I can—”
“Absolutely not. My mom would gut me if she found out I made a woman sleep on the couch.”
“It wouldn’t be making me. I’m willing. Offering. Insisting, even.”
“No, Lola.”
“Ben—” He moves to pull back, to look at me.
“Please, Lola. One thing. Don’t fight me on this one fucking thing.That’s all I’m asking.”
Every molecule of my body wants to fight him on this.
Partly because he told me not to.
Partly because the idea of sleeping in his bed with him is strangely . . . nice.
It’s an idea I like.
But still.
I smile at him.
“Okay, Ben.”
And to be quite honest, I think those words shock him more than anything else that’s gone on today.
