Chapter 28

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

EDMUND

Our limbs are strewn haphazardly across the bed—and each other—both of us are exhausted and satiated as the sun begins to peek over the horizon.

My fingers dust along the lightly marred flesh of her outer thigh, repeatedly tracing an imaginary line from her knee to the slight dimple of her ass cheek next to the handprint I left behind.

“What the fuck have you done to me, little rose?” I pose the question more to myself than to her.

She was spot on in Vegas. I don’t do this.

Ever.

I don’t cuddle. I don’t bother with pillow talk.

Fuck, I’ve never stayed in someone’s bed long enough for my head to hit the pillow.

Yet here I am. Post-fuck. Sprawled across this gorgeous woman’s bed with her limbs draped over me. Completely fucking satisfied and still unable to pull my hands from her.

“I’m not the man you want me to be.” I continue to stroke along her skin.

“I know,” she whispers lightly against my chest.

“I’m not good for you.”

“I know.” Her tone is soft and solemn.

“I will never be good for you,” I grip her thigh when she lifts her head to find my gaze, “because there is no good in me.”

With her elbow propped on my chest, her fingers trace along my jaw, playing with the short hair of my beard as she softly disagrees, “I don’t believe that.”

“You should.” I brush my fingers through her hair and lay her head back on my chest.

She doesn’t have the faintest idea who I actually am.

How could she?

I haven’t let her.

“I’m not saying you’re a saint,” she leisurely runs her fingers along the ridges of my abs, “but there is some good in everyone. No matter how minuscule.”

“Maybe you’re right,” I surmise, vaguely liking the idea that she sees something in me that I don’t see myself.

“This. Right now,” she takes a deep breath as she nuzzles herself firmly against my body, “this is good, Eddie.”

Gripping her thigh and wrapping my arm around her, I pull her tightly to me as I silently place my lips against her forehead.

This will never be enough for her.

We both know it.

Even with the sun blaring through the window, she falls asleep on me. This is generally when I slip out the door. But not this morning. I can’t bring myself to pull my hands away from her body.

I watch her sleep as her soft, feathery breaths blow across my chest. Her warmth and the sun basking over my body eventually cause me to drift off as well.