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God, he really was making it hard to keep my guard up around him. If I wasn’t more careful, I was liable to get my heart crushed all over again.
Once we were both dry, he carried me back into the bedroom, pulled the covers back, and laid me down. He moved around the room flipping off the light before returning to the side of the bed and crawled beneath the comforter with me. He flipped me around so my back was to his chest and wrapped his arm around my waist so that we were spooning in the dark.
“You’re staying?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Alma, wherever you are, that’s where I am.”
But for how long? The question creeped in, making my chest constrict.
The fact of the matter was that whatever was happening between Roan and me, it was temporary. Because his life was in Nashville, not here, and I was never going back. Too many bad memories had ruined that town for me, and I had no desire to deal with the ghosts that lingered.
25
ALMA
Iwas dreaming of Roan, of his long, strong body wrapped around mine as we shared my bed. But that couldn’t have been right. Roan was back in Nashville where he belonged, and I was here in Hope Valley, living the life I’d built for myself after he’d smashed my heart smithereens.
But the dream felt so damn good I never wanted to wake up. Dreaming Alma was peaceful, content. She could have stayed in that bed forever with the only man she’d ever loved.
Unfortunately, a sharp, sudden jerk yanked me out of the dream and back into reality. At least in reality, Roan was actually in my bed. And as I stretched my legs, I felt a twinge that reminded me of everything we’d gotten up to the night before. How incredibly he’d used my body, over and over. After the bath, we fell asleep cuddled together, but I’d lost count of the number of times he’d woken me up in the night with his mouth or his fingers. I had so many orgasms the night before I was going to need to drink an entire case of Gatorade today to replenish my fluids.
The violent jerk that had ripped me out of sleep happened again, and I cried out when I felt Roan’s legs thrash and kick me beneath the covers.
I rolled over to see what the hell was going on and yelped, “Oh shit!” Tortellini had decided it was time for his breakfast and was currently lying spread-eagle across Roan’s face.
I shot up and grabbed the cat, chiding, “Tortellini,no,” as I lifted him off of Roan’s face and plopped him onto my lap.
Roan thrashed, pushing himself up to sitting as he sucked in huge gulps of air. His wide green eyes were full of fear as he turned to gape at me, his chest still heaving like he’d just run a marathon at a full sprint.
“What the fuck was that?” he barked. I curled my lips between my teeth to keep from laughing at the sheer terror carved into his features. “Holy fuck, Alma! That goddamn cat almost killed me!”
“He didn’t want to kill you,” I assured him. “That’s just his way of telling you he’s hungry.” I rubbed a purring Tortellini behind his ears. “Actually, he only does it to people he likes, so you really should take it as a compliment. He was just being affectionate.”
Roan’s mouth fell open in astonishment. He blinked, then jabbed a finger toward the culprit. “That cat is a menace!” he shouted so loud Tortellini and I both jumped. “That’s not affection, Alma, that’s premeditated attempted homicide! That fat bastard is going to murder you in your sleep one night!”
I rolled my eyes on a snort as I leaned over and dropped my little guy back onto the floor. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” I said as I climbed out of the bed and moved to my dresser. I was in the process of pulling on a pair of underwear as I said, “It was totally harmless. He would have moved off of you eventually.”
Roan threw the covers back and shot out of the bed. He stood naked as the day he was born with his hands on his hips and his feet planted shoulder-width apart. “That’s it. From here on out, we sleep with the door closed. He can eat when we get around to putting his food into his goddamn bowl.”
A sensual shiver worked through my body, not only at the sight of all of Roan’s naked perfection, but also at the ease in which he made a declaration that basically said he had every intension of sleeping at my house for however long this thing between us lasted.
The tiny voice in the back of my head was yelling at me to set some boundaries, maybe him staying at my house wasn’t the best idea, but everything else inside me shivered delightfully at the thought, so I told that voice to go to hell.
For ten freaking years, I’d been holding myself at arm’s length from anyone and anything that could possibly get too close because I was terrified of getting hurt again. All that really lead to was a lonely life and very tired arms.
For the first time in a freaking decade, I wanted to do something for myself. And I was going to, damn it.
I tried to play it off as casual, turning to face my dresser as I replied, “If that’s what you want, sure.”
I didn’t want him to think my agreement to his terms meant something huge, but the truth was, Tortellini had always had free rein, so the fact I was willing to block him from my room, the very place he slept night after night, was, in fact, a very big deal.
I grabbed a T-shirt from one of the drawers, but before I could put it on, Roan was behind me, the heat of his strong body wrapping around me like a safety blanket as he reached around and took the shirt I’d been holding and tossed it aside. My eyes followed after it, going wide. “Hey!” I cried out in astonishment, but my objection died on my tongue when Roan bent, pulling my earlobe between his teeth and giving it a little nip that caused me to shiver.
“Wear mine.”
I looked back over my shoulder into those smoldering green eyes. He’d slipped his boxer briefs back on at some point, a spark of disappointment that he’d covered his world-class dick shot through me. Roan Blackwell was built to walk around naked all day, every day. It should have been a sin for him to wear clothes.
“What?”
