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“Oh. Are you sure?”
He nodded again. “I don’t need to shift and run every day. It just feels better when I can. It’s part of who I am.”
“Okay.”
He wanted to make a joke about the night before, about how lucky he’d been to see her naked. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
She’d been too nervous about it.
Instead, he had a better plan. He stripped down to his underwear and settled on the couch, ready to sleep. He listened as Valentine shampooed her hair, humming one of her favorite songs under her breath. She didn’t open the door to blow-dry her hair, and he knew he was to blame for that.
By the time she opened the door with a cloud of steam, Nero was fast asleep.
At least, that’s what he led her to believe.
“Nero?” she whispered. “Are you really asleep, or are you trying to trick me into taking the bed?” She waited a few seconds. “Nero?” She sighed. “You know that’s not fair,” she whispered. “It’s not likeIcan carry you to the bed. It’snotfair.”
He thought she would go off to bed, but she didn’t.
All of his senses told him that she stood over the couch, watching him sleep. It was hard not to smile at that. There were very few reasons why a woman would watch a man sleep, and all of them boded well for him.
That’s when he felt it.
The brush of wet hair against his side.
Valentine reached over and ran her fingers through his hair. “You really are a sweet man, Nero,” she whispered so softly he had to strain his shifter ears to hear her. “But you’re not for me. You’d just leave me, too, and I couldn’t handle it.”
She moved away, and when the bed creaked, his eyes snapped open. He wanted to talk to her. Tell her she was wrong. Tell her that she was his mate and that he would never be able to walk away.
But he had been asleep. Or pretending to, at least.
She wouldn’t be too happy if he had tricked her. Again.
Sleep was hard to find that night also. And once again, it was his fault.
* * *
Nero was up firstbecause he had barely gotten a few hours of sleep. He did his best to creep to the bathroom, but the door creaked something awful when he closed it behind him.
Even the shower spray felt a little too loud.
He showered quickly and wrapped a towel around his waist to dry off. He scanned the bathroom for his travel bag.
He smacked himself on the head. It was on the floor beside the couch. With a murmured curse, he opened the damn creaky door and padded to the couch.
“You can turn on a light, you know,” Val said from the bed, startling him.
He wasn’t exactly startled, but he hadn’t been expecting her to be awake. The ridiculously small towel could barely fit around his waist, and distracted by her voice, he let it drop.
Right down on the carpeted floor.
Given that he’d thought about Val in the shower … but had forgone the rub and tug that would have made him feel better … he was hard.
Again.
“Holy shit!” Val cried, clapping her hands to her eyes. “Are you always turned on?”
“When you’re around, yes.” Why lie? He was too tired to be suave.
