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“I would let you do anything to me, though,” he said, and when I turned back around, his eyes were closed. He was snug and cozy and fucking adorable beneath the sheets. “Say the word, and I’m yours.”
“You have no idea what you do to me, Jax,” I murmured softly.
And then he was asleep. Breathing evenly, just as he had done in the car. I headed out to the couch to crash, every cell in my body wanting more.
Wondering what exactly he was thinking when he said he’d let me do anything to him.
6
JAX
I woke up to a tapping at my ankles. At first I thought I was dreaming it, because when I opened my eyes, it was still dark in Charlie’s room and I didn’t see anything at the foot of the bed.
But then a minute later I felt the same tapping, over and over again. And then a soft thump as something jumped onto the foot of the bed.
“Oh,” I gasped, sitting up and seeing the silhouettes of two cats that had just lunged up onto the mattress. “Hi.”
I hadn’t known Charlie even had cats.
I lay back down and turned onto my side. I was tired enough to drift back to sleep until a few minutes later, when a chaotic cluster of mews and meows woke me again, along with the distinct feeling of one cat pouncing on my leg while the other came up and started making biscuits on my back, pawing at me like I was a piece of dough.
I groaned, knowing I was fighting a losing battle but trying to steal one more minute of sleep. They started wrestling with each other again soon after, and I knew it was all over. The cats had won, and I wasn’t getting any more sleep. My eyelids were heavy as I glanced at the clock on Charlie’s nightstand and saw that it was two o’clock in the morning.
I padded out into the hallway, quietly walking over to the living room. A hint of light came in through the slats in the window, and I saw Charlie laid out on the couch.
Just as I thought I’d successfully made it out there without waking Charlie up, the cats tore out into the living room, meowing at each other, following me, and leaping up onto Charlie at top speed.
He groaned. “Donut,” Charlie murmured. “Luca. What are you guys doing in here?”
Charlie sat up on the couch, seeing me and doing a double take.
“Jax?”
“Sorry,” I said, still half-asleep. “They, uh, pounced on me, and I wanted to come out here to see if they needed water or something—”
“Shit,” Charlie said, tossing off his sheet and standing up, heading over toward the small dining room near his kitchen. “Shit, shit, shit. I’m so sorry. I forgot to open the doors for them before I went to bed.”
I followed Charlie over to a set of double doors at the edge of the dining room. The cats charged through the open doors, tackling each other again along the way. The doors led to an enclosed sunroom surrounded by windows which let in moonlight from the backyard. The sunroom seemed to be exclusively for the cats, filled with two cat trees, toys, and plenty of food and water.
“Their names are Donut and Luca?”
Charlie covered a yawn, nodding at me, standing in the door frame. “They only want to hang out in here at night. If I forget to open the doors, they come find me in bed. Donut is the grey one, and Luca is orange.”
I rubbed at my eyes, watching them bound up one of the cat trees. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
He glanced at me. “I actually hadn’t fallen asleep.”
I furrowed my brow. “It’s been hours,” I said. “You can’t sleep?”
He shook his head and rubbed at the back of his neck. I could tell, now, that he looked exhausted. “Happens to me sometimes. Don’t worry about it.”
“Charlie, you take the bed,” I said. “I feel awful. I can crash on the couch.”
“No chance,” he told me. “You’re the one who was awake for 36 hours, or whatever. Go back to my bed.”
“Is that an order?” I joked.
“Hate you,” he said.
“No you don’t.”
A slight smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “No, I really don’t.”
“Just sleep in the bed with me,” I said, holding up my hand before he could protest. “It doesn’t have to be weird. We’ve already kissed. A lot, actually. And we’re definitely going to do more of that on camera if we’re pretending to be dating.”
“It’s fine, Jax.”
A yearning hit me suddenly, and I was way too tired to care about hiding it. “I want you to sleep next to me.”
“You really want that?” he asked, his voice quiet. “Or you’re just trying to solve me? Like I’m a problem, and once you give me the right therapist-type tools, you’ll have done your job?”
