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“Are you okay?” He opened one eye and looked at her. His voice was husky. There was a filter of early yellow light in the room, enough to see he was gorgeously tousled. Enough to make her feel pain totally unrelated to cramps. She’d only gotten him into bed because he felt sorry for her.
“Fine.” She stumbled to the bathroom, expecting he’d be asleep when she got back, but he was waiting.
He flipped back the covers and rolled to his back, laying one muscled arm out alongside the pillows and patting his chest. He’d called her my darling and baby last night and done everything possible to make her feel better. To make her feel cared for. Above and beyond, and now he was inviting her to a paradise of snuggle and she really shouldn’t. Especially if he was going to be back to brisk and business-like when the morning proper came. It would feel like whiplash again, and she might not be strong enough emotionally to take that right now.
He tapped his chest again. “Don’t think you’re going to get lucky.”
Cal Sherwood could break a girl’s heart. He’d broken Rory’s. Fin was standing here wearing Rory’s pjs, wondering if Cal would break hers, too. She’d tried to put D4D above her feelings for him; it was the smart thing to do.
“Fin, get in the bed.”
She got in the bed but kept to her side.
“Get over here, right now.”
“Do you have pain?” Because that was the only excuse she had to be in his arms this time around. It was smart not to feel for Cal, but it was also denying herself the sustenance she needed to live.
“Yes, it’s terrible. I’m shivering, and I need comfort.” He said that without a trace of a shiver and his eyes closed.
“You’re such a damn liar.”
He opened the one eye closest to her. “You and I pretend all the time. Get over here and pretend.”
She was weak. Emotionally fragile. She slid over the cooled sheets and put her head on his shoulder. She didn’t know what to do with her arm. She was a plank, and this wasn’t comfortable. But if she got comfortable it might mess her up forever.
“The way this works is you put your arm over my chest and you hitch your leg over my thigh.” He reached over and prodded her hip; her leg complied all on its own as if he’d tapped some reflex.
Her resistance died. She draped her arm over him. “You’re so bossy.”
“Go to sleep.”
“See.”
He nudged the top of her head with his chin. At least, that’s what she thought he did. It was conceivable that it was his lips not his chin, because she knew how this sleeping position worked. She knew about the bent elbow, the palm that could rest against a man’s heartbeat when you snuggled like this. She knew about the way a woman could tangle her legs with a man’s, how inventive you could get with a playful knee. But she didn’t know how that would work with Cal, and this was dangerously close to finding out.
“Did you kiss my head?”
“My lips were itchy.”
She tried to pull away; it was another reflex, one more suited to guarding her soul, but he gripped her close and this time his lips grazed her forehead.
“Still itchy, but don’t worry, I’ll be back to my irritatingly distant and generally abrasive, manipulative self in the morning,” he said.
She gave up thinking this was a bad idea, because it was no worse than what she’d done to him—using his body heat against her back, the weight of his hand on her aching belly to soothe herself. This was Cal seeking his own comfort; this was simply warm bodies coming together, and there was no reason not to enjoy it.
A couple of hours later, there was every reason to mourn it had passed. She woke up alone and the space beside her was crisp to the touch. She had a moment of panic when she thought he might have left her, but she spied his big overnight bag on the floor and his car keys on the dresser.
After that, it was only a matter of swapping remorse she hadn’t woken in Cal’s arms for a stoic acceptance that it was for the best. She took stock. She still felt tired and bloated, but the backache was gone, the savage pain in her belly. She was hungry and a little lightheaded but unlike last night, she was fully functional.
She took advantage of having the room to herself and commandeered the bathroom. Her hair was bird’s nest ready. Her face got warm thinking about how Cal had held her upright and dried it when she’d been too exhausted to bother. She re-styled it and then wearing the hotel robe, poked her nose in his bag. It felt like trespassing.
There was a pair of boyfriend jeans in there, looked like they’d fit. There was a white shirt, crushed, but not too badly, and loafers that were her size. This was beyond lucky. The loafers looked like they’d never been worn. She’d pulled last night’s underwear on under the robe, only to realize there was a satin pouch full of women’s underwear with the tags on in his bag. She was holding gorgeous pink silk panties her size when he walked in.
He wore sweats and the T-shirt he’d slept in, but now it was slicked to his chest. He’d been working out. His hair was wet, and he brought an earthy scent into the room, not at all unpleasant, but the prickle of stubble was unsuitably sexy for this time in the morning.
They stared at each other a moment as if each of them had expected to be alone. She stuffed the panties back into the bag, feeling heat flood her face. Kill me now, his body out of a suit, out of jeans, was so well constructed. She was gawking and showing a lot of leg since that’s where his eyes went, to the split in the waffle weave robe.
“How are you?”
