My lips curled into a smirk. She noticed and gave me a playful smack on the back.
“Alana, Alana… If you wanted a second round, you could’ve just said so,” I murmured, my voice still scratchy with exhaustion and something much deeper.
She rolled her eyes and pushed my head back down onto her chest. “You know what I’d like? To put on some clothes.”
I groaned, burying my face deeper against her skin. “Ugh, why would you say that? You’re ruining a perfect moment.”
She chuckled again, but I could tell she meant it. I slowly lifted myself off her and sat up, reluctantly. “Fine, but only if you promise to stay the night.”
“You’re too funny, Eden.”
I frowned slightly, watching her as she reached for the blanket and wrapped it around herself like she hadn’t just been completely comfortable lying beneath me. “What’s so funny about that?”
“I shouldn’t stay,” she said simply, her voice quieter now. A little guarded.
I walked over to my closet, trying not to let the sting of her rejection show. “Why not?”
Alana didn’t answer right away. I could feel the hesitation in the silence stretching. When she finally spoke, her words were careful. “You know why.”
Not really. Or maybe I did and just didn’t want to admit it.
I pulled out a pair of boxers and one of my hockey jerseys, holding them up in her direction. “Just one night.”
When I turned around, she was sitting up in bed, blanket pooled in her lap, her gaze fixed on me like she was trying to solve a puzzle she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to.
“We agreed on the terms,” she said finally.
“We’ve bent those before,” I pointed out gently, walking back toward her.
Her eyes dropped to the floor, and for a moment, she looked so far away from me, like she was already halfway out the door. “I don’t want to blur things more than they already are, Eden.”
“You know what really blurs things?” I asked, stepping close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin. “This. Us. Every time you touch me like I mean something and then act like I don’t.”
She flinched, barely, but I caught it. “Feelings complicate things,” she said.
Yeah. No kidding.
Her arms tightened around the blanket like it was armor. “If we make this more than it is… if we let it feel real, even just for a little while… someone’s going to get hurt.”
Too late.
I didn’t say it, but it echoed inside my head.
Instead, I gently lifted the jersey. “Here,” I said. “Something to sleep in. And don’t even argue. One more night won’t kill you. It’s not the first time you’d stay over.”
She hesitated again before slowly letting the blanket fall away. My breath caught the moment I saw her again in full view—vulnerable, unsure, beautiful in a way that made my chest ache.
“That’s not going to fit me,” she said, motioning toward the jersey without meeting my eyes.
I blinked. “Why wouldn’t it?”
Her shoulders tensed. “Because I’m not small.”
Not this again.
No, she wasn’t. And thank God for that.
She had curves that made my hands itch to explore them all over again, hips that fit perfectly beneath my palms, and a softness I could melt into. And yeah, she had more to her than the girls who usually ended up in my bed—but I’d never wanted anyone like I wanted her.