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“It’s okay!”
“No, it’s not,” he says in the sexiest creaky voice ever, sitting up in bed.
“It definitely is,” I whisper, touching his chest, where I can feel his heart racing. “I’m sorry for waking you up so abruptly. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He scrubs both hands over his face. “Why areyouapologizing?” Gunther asks, shoving the blankets aside, then covering himself again from the waist down.
Hm. Still at a full salute.
“Evidently, I make your blood pressure go through the roof. That’s why,” I say, my hand patting his bare, rippled back. He does not move away from my touch.
Instead, he leans into it. Just a hair, but I notice it. “You were sleepwalking, and when I got you back to bed, you didn’t want me to leave. So I stayed.”
I hope he can hear the smile in my voice. “I’m glad you stayed.”
He grunts, telling me he’s still ashamed of what he did.
“I shouldn’t be in your bed. My bed…with you. I let it get too far.”
Now I’m sitting up. “Too far? Nothing happened. Unless you’re a really, really stealthy somnophile. Which I doubt very much. Not with that big of an admiral captaining the ship.”
It takes him a second to get what I’m referring to.
“Fuck, Sara. I shouldn’t have taken advantage,” he says, inching away.
“Taken advantage? You didn’t do anything of the sort. I was in one of my crazy sleepwalking fugue states, and you helped me stay put. You did the right thing. It’s my fault for not telling you I’m prone to those, but I haven’t had an incident since my mother’s death, so I didn’t expect it to happen with you. Besides, you’re a good snuggler.”
Maybe the sleepwalking wasn’t about grief after all. Maybe it was me processing major changes in my life. And maybe, just maybe, my body and my mind are getting ready for major life changes involving Gunther. He’s fighting so hard against what he wants, though. So I shouldn’t push.
I see his head turn to the side. “You should go back to sleep. I’ll leave you be.”
I want to throw myself at him, cling to him again, and beg him not to go. But that’s not who I am. If he doesn’t want to be with me, I should leave him alone.
“Gunther?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for taking care of me.”
He turns his body an inch more as he studies me over his shoulder. “I haven’t done much of anything but boss you around and weasel my way into your bed. But you’re welcome, I guess.”
I cluck my tongue. There’s no convincing him he did the right thing. “I meant it when I said you were the nicest person since my mom died. I maintain that opinion, Gunther.”
I can’t help myself. I like saying his name.
“I doubt I’m the person you think I am.”
“It’s true.” I lean forward, my eyes raking over the skin of his broad back in the moonlight. “All my relatives were super nice to me when my mom got sick. Many visited her bedside. My uncle Logan even stepped up to care for me when I was sixteen when Mom was too weak to look after me. Even though they’d been estranged for years, he moved us out of her house he called a ‘hovel’ to a room at his house with 24-hour care, paid for. But after the funeral, everyone turned ice-cold when I started giving away my inheritance. Uncle Logan included.”
Gunther turns toward me, one leg sliding back onto the bed. “Wait, you gave it all away?”
I nod. “Most of it. I kept just enough to serve as a safety net in case things go sideways. And they always do. But my mom set the example. She was an heiress who never lived an heiress lifestyle. So I donated most of my inheritance to things my mom believed in: the community care center where she volunteered with single moms less off than herself. She lived in an average neighborhood in the city, and used public transportation. She never told the people she volunteered with who she was, that she was the Bonnie Peters, half-sister of a senator and had inherited the Peters’ fortune. I, on the other hand, was a fuck-up while she was alive.
“I never made her proud. So after she died, I donated about seventy-five percent of my inheritance to the Community Care Center, and I work there, too. Well, I volunteer because they don’t have the funding to pay me. But I might be able to get paid with a grant after I build the community garden. That’s what I really want to do. I want to start those all over the city.”
In the dark, Gunther stares at me with an intensity that makes me self-conscious. “She is proud of you. Wherever she might be, she’s watching over you and smiling.”
I huff a tired sigh. “If you believe in the afterlife.”
