Page 96 of Missed Sunrise
That was the loudest.
His breaths seemed to pause, my heart doing the same as he slowly reached toward me and ran the back of his tattooed hand over my cheekbone.
Make him yours.
The idea screamed at me. It rattled my body like a hurricane, but even as I leaned into his touch, my hands fisted against the soft quilt on his bed.
I didn’t want to take. I wanted togive.
I wanted to have somethingworthgiving.
“Do you want to stay?” he asked, his voice somehow even more angelic in the dead of night.
“Yes,” I answered instantly. Truthfully.
Desperately.
My eyes had adjusted enough now that the gleam in his dark-brown ones was clear, the passion and kindness there as vivid as the feel of his hand as he cupped my cheek and asked, “Will you?”
Another night of waking nightmare or actual nightmare mere miles from this man, or his bed? I tracked my gaze over his face, taking in his eyebrow ring, the small cut, his cheekbones. And then I answered.
“Yes.”
The weight of decision lifted from me, and my long-delayed exhaustion made landfall.
I fought it off for as long as it took me to quietly close his door, pull my shirt over my head, and let it fall where it may. Liem shifted to the top of the bed and pulled back the covers in an invitation that shook and solidified the foundations of my world, and I accepted, crawling in beside him.
As soon as the scent of him mingled with the soft texture of his sheets caressing my skin, I sank into the bed completely, all of my muscles done for.
There was hesitation, though whether it was mine or his was unclear as the sounds of our breathing and unspoken questions filled the room.
“LL?” I whispered into the dark as I reached out my hand to find his under the covers.
He grasped it. “Yes, Dezi?”
“Are you….” I hesitated, hearing the unjustified neediness in the question, then abandoned it and asked another instead. “Can I just hold you?”
I was not a natural cuddler, but when Liem turned immediately in answer and pressed against me before laying his head on my bare chest, I had to rethink that.
Wrapping my arms around his body, I gathered him close, indulging in the feel of his skin against mine. His hair brushed against my hand, and I only hesitated for a moment before I combed my fingers through his hair slowly, careful to not pull on any knots as I found the answer to one of my questions. One of dozens I’d written in my new notebook over the past two days without him.
Liem Lott’s hair was indeed soft as silk.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d wanted to do that—to feel Liem’s hair—but it sure as fuck was longer than a few weeks.
He sighed against me before the slightest shiver had him burrowing harder into my chest. I loved the weight of him against me.
I’d waited a lifetime to feel such serenity.
“Sleep, Dezi,” Liem breathed against my chest.
Current circumstances made it seem like it should have been my line to give, but no.
He’d always been my teacher. This was him.
So, after a few more passes through his hair as I memorized the texture of each strand and a luxurious flex of my legs to map exactly where he was, I took a deep inhale of the man in my arms, and I succumbed. I submitted.
Islept.
