Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ella

He takes a long time to fall asleep.

But I take longer, even though I force my body to go lax in his arms, to keep my breathing even and my eyes closed.

His face when I'd asked him to stay—disbelief and fear and…yes, panic.

But he'd locked it down, let me guide him inside and upstairs, though he'd stopped me so that he could double-check the lock to the front door, to the garage—something that filled my belly with butterflies.

Or maybe…well, maybe it was the fact that I was inviting a man to my bed.

To sleep.

Not to fuck.

Not to lose myself in the bliss of an orgasm.

But to…offer comfort.

I don't do that. I can't do that, can't get so attached. I just get down to business, make sure both of us are satisfied and feeling good. Sex is just mutual pleasure before going our separate ways.

Not fixing.

Not problem solving.

Except, those things are exactly what I do outside of horizontal naked time, aren't they?

The thought is the only thing that settles my pulse, that keeps me in Riggs's arms, that doesn't send me running from this moment in terror.

This is just a new thing to fix.

It doesn't mean I'll let him get close enough to hurt me when he leaves.

Calmed by that thought, I inhale, slow and steady, my exhale just as slow, just as steady.

And then…I allow the blackness to take me under.

But even in my dreams, I know Riggs is holding me closely.

An arm tightening around my middle wakes me.

Or maybe it's the alarm, I realize, my eyelids slowly peeling open.

I grunt against the bright sunshine pouring in through the windows, reach for the blanket and yank it over my head.

But the damn alarm won't shut up.

Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz. Buzz-buzz.

I can't stand loud beeps jerking me out of sleep—rest to utter wakefulness in a flash—but this is almost as bad.

Okay, anything waking me up is bad.

Because I love to sleep, and I hate to wake up, and?—

The arm tightens for another second then loosens and I lose the heat of Riggs—because as grumpy as I am to wake up, there's absolutely no doubt to whom that strong, muscled arm belongs.

I scowl into my pillow, but that scowl smooths out when the buzzing stops.

And then Riggs is back, his arm returning around my middle, his lips at my ear. "You need to get out of here very soon?"

I grunt.

A soft chuckle. "What?"

"Why are you talking so loud?" I hiss.

"I'm whispering."

I grunt again, yank the blanket closer.

And annoyingly, he just chuckles again.

"What?" I grumble.

"You're not a morning person," he whispers—because yes, he is whispering. "I didn't expect that."

I just grunt again, burrow into my pillows. "Shh."

To my grumpy relief, he doesn't keep talking.

But his hand begins moving over the blanket, slowly drifting over the side of my body, starting at my feet, tracing up to my calves, my knees and my hip, resting briefly in the indent of my waist that's engulfed in the tee he'd taken off the night before. The fabric still smells like him, spicy and male, and I remember how warm it had made me when I'd pulled it on in the bathroom, how my heart had skipped a beat at the sight of my reflection in the mirror.

It felt… right.

But not as right as him holding me, as him touching me now does.

His hand starts moving again, drifting up my rib cage, brushing lightly over the bottom curve of my breast.

I suck in a breath, but the touch is here again, gone tomorrow, his fingers continuing to move, sliding along the outside of my arm, moving in to stroke the curve of my neck.

A slight squeeze before his hand is moving higher, drifting over my blanket-covered head?—

And gripping the edge of the material, yanking it down in one quick movement that leaves the sun blasting me in the face, the cool bite of the morning air on my exposed skin.

Gasping, I blink against the sudden rush of cold, the brightness scalding my eyes, and when my vision clears, I almost gasp again. Because Riggs's face is right there.

And he's so damned beautiful in the morning sunlight.

Even though it's sunlight…from the morning.

His hand rests on my cheek, grounding me in the moment, pulling me into the here and now…even as what he shared the night before threatens like storm clouds on the horizon.

My throat tightens and I know my emotions must show on my face because the teasing fades from his expression.

"I've never—" He shakes his head, but I don't rush him, don't break in and finish his sentence. Because his hand is still on my cheek and his body is still over mine, and he's…

Well, he's here.

And he eventually gets his thoughts together, his fingers flexing slightly as he whispers, "I've never told anyone that." His eyes close for a long moment. "So, I'd prefer that you didn't share?—"

I can't keep silent any longer.

I drop my hand over his, holding it in place on my cheek. "It's your truth to tell." I will him to see that I'm on his side. "So, I will never breathe a word to anyone."

His eyes close again, but only for a second, and I want to tell him again that it's not his fault, want to fix how it's eating at him. But…I don't know how to do that. Don't know how to make it right, how to take his pain.

I just know…I can't.

I hate it—the guilt he's carrying, the fact that it happened at all, that I can't make everything better.

But before I can really sit in that, feel how truly vulnerable it makes me with him, his lids peel open, and the world shrinks down until it's just Riggs in front of me—not the man teasing me about my grumpy morning brain nor the one who took my hand and led me from Lake and Nova's house. Not even the man with the hurt buried deep in his soul.

It's Riggs. My Riggs.

Quiet. Watchful. Waiting. Patient .

With a heavy secret—the proverbial pea under the mattress, disturbing the pillowy top so he can't be at peace. Or maybe it's his pebble dropping beneath the surface of the water.

Settling on the bottom of the pool, unseen and yet…

Changing everything.

Even if the rest of the world hasn't noticed it yet.

I open my mouth to say something, to say anything ?—

Buzz-buzz! Buzz-buzz! Buzz-buzz!

He freezes.

Then he gives me something absolutely beautiful.

A gorgeous smile and dancing brown eyes.

His hand slides from beneath mine, moving away from my cheek as he braces himself on my pillow. He reaches over me for my cell phone again, silencing the alarm—one of many that work in tandem to get me up in the morning.

But, funny story, a sexy hockey player in my bed, smiling as he tugs the covers off my body and I don't seem to have a problem staying awake.

"You really aren't a morning person, are you?"

I scowl. "I get where I need to be when I need to be."

"And how many alarms does it take for you to wake up enough to get there?" he teases.

I feel my cheeks go hot—probably because the plethora of alarms I use in the morning is one of the few things that has Knox and Nova plotting murder when we spend the night in the same place.

"None of your business," I mutter, trying to snatch my cell so I can conceal the evidence.

But he beats me to it.

And proves that he knows me too fucking well because he promptly unlocks it and scrolls to the Clock App.

I start to sputter, but he doesn't miss a beat, just snags his phone from the other nightstand and tosses it onto my lap. "5-2-5-6," he tells me.

Stunned by the sudden turn of events—and the phone in my lap—I don't process that he's given me the code to unlock his cell, not until he nods at it and says, "Don't have anything to hide," he says. "Feel free to check out my own alarms…" A wink. "Or anything else."

"Or an-anything el-else?" I sputter, holding his phone like it's a bomb in my hand that's going to explode.

He's given me permission to snoop?

Just like that?

Who does that?

Riggs Ashford apparently.

I shake my head at myself, and then…

Well , and then I take advantage of the glimpse behind the curtain this man is giving me.

First, I look at the alarm app.

"Five AM?" I ask. "Jesus Christ, are you a glutton for punishment or what?"

He just holds up my phone screen in response…with all my alarms—each set ten minutes apart—showing on the screen. "I don't think you have room to talk, chérie ."

French Canadian coming out.

I shiver.

Yeah, I love the way it rolls over my skin, settles between my legs.

He grins, as though he knows precisely how that makes me melt.

I want to look through the rest of his cell—emails and social media, pictures and text messages…but I don't.

Partly because…privacy.

But mostly because he's snagging his phone from me before I can, tossing it aside?—

And then he's turning off all of my alarms, tossing my cell in the direction of his.

"I—"

I don't finish that thought—not that I have any clue what it might have been.

Because he's climbing over me.

And then everything inside me realigns.