Page 69 of Things We Hide from the Light
His muscles lost some of their rigidity. “You came to me? In your sleep?”
I’d also comeonhim in his sleep.
“Where’s Piper?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
“In her dog bed with one of my socks,” he said without looking. “Back to you turning into a cuddler in my bed.”
“I didn’t turn into a cuddler! I was probably just trying to claim my usual spot in the middle and maybe we got tangled up or whatever. I don’t know. Let’s not overthink this. Or discuss itever again. Just let me slink away in embarrassment and we’ll forget the whole thing ever happened.”
He shifted his weight over me, careful to keep his morning wood from touching me. Which if he’d known what had happened two minutes ago, he’d realize was a moot point.
He brushed my cheek lightly with his knuckles, forcing me to question my status as a non-swooner.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
God, early-morning Nash was cute. His hair was a mess and his stubble gave him just a hint of rakish charm to offset the good guy vibe. He had a pillow crease under his left eye. Not to mention that sleepy, earnest look on his gorgeous face.
“Besides being embarrassed at my dreamland defilement of you, I’m fine,” I assured him.
“You slept?” he pressed.
“I did. How about you?”
He nodded. “I did.”
“How do you feel?” I asked.
The curve of his lips was undeniably sexy. “Pretty fucking great.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Really. Thanks to you.” In a lightning-quick move, he dropped a kiss to my forehead, then hopped out of bed. “Omelets in ten,” he said, heading toward the bathroom. “Oh, and, Angel?”
I rolled to my elbow. “Yeah?”
“If you try to leave, I’ll personally deliver it. Loudly.”
FOURTEEN
SNACK CAKE HEISTS AND BAD APPLES
Nash
The thieves looked even more pitiful than their haul of crushed snack cakes and potato chips.
Three boys under the age of fourteen in varying painful stages of puberty sat on cold metal chairs outside the store manager’s office, looking like they were ready to puke. Beyond them, Nolan Graham hovered in the cookie aisle.
After that morning’s three-vehicle fender bender on the highway, the hardware store’s “stolen” string trimmer display that turned up in the storeroom, and Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler nearly getting scammed over the phone by someone claiming to be their grandson, I’d had a busy damn day already.
It was a good thing I’d had my first full night’s sleep in weeks.
Thanks to Lina.
I usually woke with a start to the sound that haunted my brain. And while I did remember it in my dreams, this morning I’d woken to Lina in my arms. She’d sought me out in her sleep. That fact—and my reaction to it—made me think that just maybe I was still alive, still worth trusting.
I owed her, the woman who was taking up every available brain cell that wasn’t occupied with work and breathing. Thanks to the talk and the sleep, I was feeling more hopeful than I had in a long time. She’d opened up just a crack, and what I’d seen beyond her sexy exterior had me wanting a longer, deeper look.
“Hate to call you in here for a couple of Little Debbie’s, Chief, but I gotta set an example,” Big Nicky said. Manager of Grover’s Groceries for nearly as long as I’d been alive, the man took his job seriously.
