Page 28 of Quietly Falling
BODHI
Ineed you to stay.
I’d said those words, but even as my eyes blink open a few hours later, I still can’t believe I managed them. Those gorgeous brown eyes had met mine, her movements sure as she pulled my bag from my shoulder and kicked off her shoes.
She’d guided me to the bed and wrapped her arms around me without a word. I’d never done this.
Not with Mason.
No one.
He’d seen me with migraines and he’d taken care of me, but I’d never craved the warmth of another person before—never wanted the company or even the acknowledgement.
Never wanted to be a burden.
I’d stayed silent for so long but with her…I justcan’t.
I can’t explain it and right now I don’t want to. I don’t want to think about why I feel better having her pressed up against my side, half of her body draped over mine.
I just want tobe.
“How are you feeling?” she whispers, stretching and rubbing everywhere we touch.
It’s divine, her body lithe and utter perfection.
“Better,” I tell her honestly, not wanting to give voice that she’d made all the difference, that I can’t remember the last time I slept so well—especially with an impending migraine.
“You took your medicine in time?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t always happen like that. Today was,”—I pause, searching for the right word—“unexpected.”
“You can say that again,” Ella agrees, snuggling herself against me.
“You didn’t ask what happened in the truck,” I murmur into the darkness as her fingertips draw unknown patterns over my chest, the ministrations making me brave.
“It’s not my business,” she says, her fingers halting before she adds, “unless you want it to be.”
Did I?
Would I have brought it up if I didn’t?
The warmth of her body draped over mine is hypnotizing, lulling me into a sense of safety I haven’t felt in so damn long.
Maybe ever.
“My parents died in a car accident—icy roads in New Hampshire.” I swallow hard. “I was the only survivor.”
Her body tightens around mine. “How old were you?”
“Three.”
“And then what happened?”
“I went into the system. Got bounced around a lot.” Somehow it’s easier to relive it in the dark. “Had a few good families but most of them weren’t. Mason got placed in the same home as me when he was seven.”
“I like him,” she says, leaning her head on her hand to look at me. “He’s always a goofball when he comes into the Poppy Seed.”
“He’s the best.”
