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I let myself fall asleep in his warm embrace.
* * *
I can't help it.
When I wake up the next morning in a bed that's not mine or Amelia's or Kate's, or even some random's, I momentarily panic.
I actually fell asleep. Like deep sleep. Judging by the amount of light flooding the room and illuminating the various sketches and drawings littering the walls, I slept right through the morning until midday.
There’s a hard chest warming my back, an arm locked around my waist, a face buried in my neck. A familiar fresh scent washes over me, and I have to force myself not to press my nose to the muscled arm my neck rests on, inhale deeply, and fill my lungs with a big gulp of that smell. God, he's like one of those air fresheners you hang in your car.
But what really makes me panic, wanting to sniff a man I barely know?
For all my lamenting and complaining and avoiding sleepovers over the years, this doesn’t feel half bad.
I’m lying here, unsure where I end and he begins, listening to his soft, sleepy breaths and I’m considering letting myself be lulled back to sleep instead of hightailing it out of here.
Shit.
As sneakily as I can, I try to extract myself from the tangle of limbs.
I barely manage to move an inch before the arm around me tightens and a gravelly voice murmurs in my ear, “Where do you think you're going?“
My escape efforts screech to a halt. I stiffen, and I can’t tell if it’s because I’ve been caught trying to flee or because of the hot breath hovering over the sensitive spot on the crook of my neck. A memory from last night of his teeth grazing that same spot, him biting down and sucking hard enough to leave a mark floats to the surface. I mentally slap it away. I'm already naked and crushed in his arms; I don't need to be all hot and bothered too. “Nowhere?”
Jackson hums sleepily as he nuzzles my neck, evoking an involuntary sigh. The hand splayed on my belly coasts upwards, thumbs brushing the underside of my boobs in a tender move. “Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”
I wait for the usual feeling of disgust that pet names evoke in me to rear its head. Just like last night when he whipped out that word, it doesn’t. Instead, my heart does a weird little pitter-patter thing in my chest, insides nothing short of gooey.
I am a weak woman.
So very weak.
One night of orgasms and my entire ethos shatters.
I attempt a weak protest but my resolve is putty in his hands. Big, strong hands that he uses to flip me over and yank me even closer so my face is smashed against his chest, the content grumbling sound he makes vibrating under my cheek. All thoughts of escape eddy from my head as he strokes the length of my spine lightly, soothingly, until I’m damn near purring like a cat.
Sending up a silent 'fuck it' and going against pretty much every instinct I have, I give in. I fucking snuggle the man that is all lean muscles yet still soft and cuddly. His heart thrumming steadily soothes me, and I don’t know if it’s that or his husky morning voice or the warmth spreading from him to me or a combination of all three but slowly, my panic ebbs.
Hard to freak when you're this damn comfortable.
Before sleep can claim me again, I reel back slightly, tilting my chin so I can look at the man beneath me. I didn’t do nearly enough looking—or touching—last night. I was too caught up in all the looking and touching he was doing. So, I’ll get my fill now while he’s dozing and docile before whatever alternate ego I met last night comes out to play again.
Closed eyelids hid those intensively rich brown irises. A few wild wisps of messy hair frame his face, and I can’t stop myself from reaching up and tucking a silky strand behind his ear. At the contact, his eyes flutter open lazily, lips curling upwards in a soft smile that has my heart doing that silly thing again.
I don't let his gaze deter me. Slowly, I trace the slopes of his cheekbones, the dip in his chin, the crinkles beside his eyes. When my pinky brushes the corner of his mouth, his lips part to nip at me playfully, the corner of his eyes crinkling and his cheeks dimpling.
I can’t quite decipher his expression. Content, for sure. A little drowsy. But there’s something almost confused about it. Disbelieving, maybe. It twists and becomes something else when I continue my gentle exploration lower.
A low, throaty sound rumbles in Jackson’s chest as my hands brush against his lower stomach, nails scraping along the ridges and grooves of his abs lightly. He tenses beneath my touch, a hiss of air escaping clenched teeth. I don’t try to hide my smirk—God knows he was plenty smug last night, I think it’s my turn—and it widens when my hand trails lower and lower until I find him half-hard and straining against his sweats.
“Luna,” he murmurs my name, half a groan, half a warning. “What’re you doing?”
“What we didn't do last night.“
Instead of, you know, ravishing me or something equally debaucherous, Jacksonlaughs.
He fuckinglaughs.
