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“What are these?”
“Painkillers. Strong ones. They’ll put you to sleep.”
Evie watched me. I knew she couldn’t see the details of my face in the darkness. I kept the curtains drawn, so only the edges were lit with the moonlight forcing its way into the room. She continued to watch me, holding the painkillers in her palm cautiously.
I sighed. “There’s nothing I can say any more to convince you I’m not trying to hurt you. But if I wanted to drug you, I’ve had many chances before now.” When she continued to stare at me, I sighed again, realizing perhaps that wasn’t the best comfort for her to hear. Not taking an opportunity to hurt someone didn’t make you a good guy, and as far as she knew, I was simply biding my time. It killed me to know she lived her life so on edge and cautious of everyone. I knew she had to be, but I didn’t want her to be. I huffed out a heavy breath again, not a sigh of frustration but resignation. “Please, Evie, you need to sleep.”
She waited a beat longer, her eyes darting around my face, perhaps searching for familiar features she couldn’t see before she popped the tablets into her mouth and accepted the glass of water, taking a few tentative sips. Her eyes never left my face, which still couldn’t have been more than a shadow as I helped her lay back down and tucked her in.
Clutching the blankets to her chin, she stared at me even as her eyelids began to droop. It broke me that there was fear in her eyes. She wanted the pain to go away, but she was fighting sleep now, afraid I may have poisoned her or given her something so I could take advantage of her. Sleep means more weakness, and weakness is danger.
I debated what to do.
Should I hold her hand?
Should I leave her alone?
Would that scare her more?
I settled on sitting on the edge of the bed, and hesitating for only a moment longer, I began to stroke her hair, curling the blonde locks between my fingers and brushing them out of her face before tracing the line of her jaw with my thumb.
“You’re safe with me, Evie,” I whispered.
The tear slid down her cheek as she fell asleep.
It destroyed me.
As I must have fallen asleep, I chastised myself for it.
What if she had woken up and seen me still there, sitting on the edge of her bed? No doubt she’d have thought the worse, and any trust I had earned from her would’ve been shattered.
That is, assuming I had any trust from her to begin with. Despite letting me bathe her, that could’ve been born more from desperation than trust. She was hard to read.
I didn’t sleep much at the best of times, but exhaustion must have caught up with me if I had dozed off while still sitting. I watched her sleep for a moment, rolling the kinks from my neck. She was having a restless sleep, twitching and grabbing at the sheets that had been partially thrown off her.
My fingers brushed her collarbone as I moved to tuck her in again, and she sighed in her sleep.
When I had helped her bathe earlier, I had told her I wouldn’t look, I was a caregiver, a healer, and I didn’t see her like that.
Lord knows I wanted it to be the truth.
But there was fire between us whenever I touched her, burning embers that lit up my fingertips and threatened to consume me whole, stripping me of my status and bringing me crashing to Earth.
Which, for a moment, I thought I’d give it all up if I could just have one night with her. Just one night to touch and feel her freely, run my hands over her body, entice those sighs and moans from her lips, feel her under and around me.
I cursed quietly when I realized my body had responded to the thoughts, and I adjusted my legs. Although she was asleep, she couldn’t see me anyway. She didn’t even know I was here. She continued to twist and shift under the sheets, and as I moved to brush the hair from her face, her hand shot up and gripped my bicep.
I froze.
Evie was still asleep—the drugs had made sure of that. She needed the rest.
When I tried to pry her fingers from my arm, desperate to remove the distracting heat from my skin, shewhimpered.
And God help me if it wasn’t the most beautiful sound.
As I moved to stand, she grabbed my wrist with her other hand and yanked at me. Unprepared for the attack, I was pulled forward on top of her. I scrambled to untangle my feet from the sheets, freezing again when she moaned in her sleep as I braced myself over her body.
My breathing became rapid as her expression softened, and she gripped my arms, still pulling at me.
