“I’m okay. Really.”
And in that moment, despite everything happening in my life, it’s not a lie.
I reallyamokay.
Actually, I’m better than just okay.
I’msafe.
***
Despite my best intentions, I fall asleep curled up on the couch, watching the flames dance on the grate and listening to the murmur of Chase’s voice as he orders his lawyers to work their magic and stop the presses before they can further derail my life.
I don’t know how long I’m asleep, but it feels like hours later when I stir awake in Chase’s arms as he carries me through the dark apartment and settles us back in his bed, beneath his zillion-thread-count black sheets. I’m so exhausted I can’t even crack open my eyes or lift my head from where it rests against the warm skin of his chest.
“What did the lawyers say?” I murmur, my voice barely audible over the thundering of his heartbeat, directly beneath my ear.
“Shh, sunshine. Go back to sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
He breathes the words into my hair, his arms banding tighter around my back so I’m snug and warm against him. I feel one hand slip up under my t-shirt, and seconds later, his fingers begin to trace soothing circles against the small of my back. The other hand slides up to caress the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck and his fingers stroke through the hair there, offering comfort in the simplest of ways. His touch is absentminded, totally natural, with none of the forced intimacy of my past conquests – like it’s something he’s done a million times before without even having to think about it.
He touches me like a habit.
I’m startled by how much I like the idea of making habits with Chase.
It should scare me — how easy, howperfectit feels, being with him. All of this should have me running for the hills. In the past, this exact thing — a guy pushing past the physical connection to real emotion —hassent me running for the hills.
But here, in Chase’s bed, drinking him in with every one of my senses, I can’t pretend not to feel it — the intimacy of the moment. The sweet, beautiful, heart-aching simplicity of a hand in my hair, of arms wrapped tight around me. There’s nothing sexual about his touch — only comfort, compassion between two people who care for one another. And still, with just the trace of his fingertips on my skin, he reaches deeper into my soul than any man has ever done before, even in the throes of the best orgasm of my life.
Seriously— it should freak me out.
It freaks me out that itdoesn’tfreak me out.
I sigh as all the tension slips out of me and I relax against him, my limbs like water. I’ve never done this before — just slept with a man, in the most basic form of the word. My one-night stands either fled in the cover of darkness or hung around just long enough to make things awkward in the morning. And Ralph… well, after he finished — regardless of whether I’d even comeclosein the two minutes he spent pumping away with the impatience of a boy inflating his bicycle tires — he’d roll to the other side of the bed, as far from me as he could get, and start snoring loud enough to make my headboard shake.
So romantic.
Hesitantly, I wrap my arms around Chase’s body and snuggle closer.
“You’re good at this,” I whisper sleepily.
I feel his body still beneath mine. “What, sunshine?”
“This.” I squeeze my arms tighter. “Us. You’re good at it.”
He’s quiet but, after a few seconds, I feel his lips press against my hair.
“Only because it’s you,” he murmurs, making my heart turn in my chest.
“I’ve never done this before.” My words are practically inaudible, but somehow, he hears me.
“I know, sunshine.”
“I might be bad at it.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, I’m starting to get that.”
My eyes crack open and I shift against him so I can meet his eyes. Even in the dark, I see they’re soft and warm.