Back in the Bedroom. Jill Shalvis
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shivered again—what was the matter with her? She was safe, she was fine, and now she was going to fall apart? But she sat on the cot. It wasn’t as soft as it looked, and didn’t have any covers on it. “I don’t understand this room,” she said, and shivered again, knowing she was talking out of nervous reaction, but unable to help herself. “The rest of the house is so beautiful and warm and comfortable.”
Reilly looked around him and shrugged. “For all Eddie’s wild and extravagant living, he doesn’t like servants—it’s the subservient thing, I guess. At least ones who don’t sleep in his bedroom. Fixing this room would be a waste of his time, he probably never even uses it.”
He talked about Eddie as though he didn’t like him. She didn’t understand that either. “Your father is a wonderful man.”
“What does that have to do with the fact he goes through women like some of us go through water?”
Since she couldn’t deny that, she lay down and curled on her side facing away from him. “I’m not a bed hog. You can have half.”
“It’s not big enough.”
Fine. No skin off her nose. Tessa planned to lie there and wait for dawn, but the late hour, combined with her heavy workweek, not to mention the evening’s events, had taken a greater toll than she’d imagined, and miraculously, she drifted off…
Only to dream about being grabbed from behind, about the thick, muscled forearm cutting off her air—
She jerked straight off the cot and gasped for the breath to scream but when she blinked into focus the small, rather dark room and the silent man standing there propping up the far wall, she sagged.
“Just a dream,” he said.
Imagine that.
“Go back to sleep.”
Right. She sat down, and realized she was chilled to the bone.
“Sleep,” he said. “Not sit.”
“I’m cold.”
He tipped his head back and glanced at the ceiling as if seeking divine intervention. He moved forward until his knees bumped the cot. “There’s no blanket.”
“No.” She wrapped her arms around herself and kept her eyes straight ahead, which landed them…oh, only about eye level with the best-looking male stomach ever.
“Lie down.”
She had no idea why she obeyed him, but with another shiver, she did, and then went flat onto her back, where she held her breath as he lowered himself onto the cot as well. He lay on his side facing her. He held up his head with his hand, setting his other very lightly on her stomach.
Her belly quivered. Other parts did, too, and she looked for a diversion. She found it in the closed access above them. If only he’d just climb up there—
His fingers tightened on her and he leaned in, just a little. “Sleep.”
Right. Since his broad shoulders, chest and amazing eyes filled her vision, she closed her eyes. Only problem, without a visual, her other senses kicked in. His scent came to her, a little soapy, a little woodsy and a lot male. His heat and strength seemed to seep into her chilled bones and, helplessly, she relaxed a bit, because maybe, just maybe, he really was kind and sweet and sensitive behind all that…
“You don’t snore do you?”
Her eyes flew open. “No. Do you?”
“No.” He lowered his head to the cot and closed his eyes.
Hmm. New problem. Now their faces were only an inch apart. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, she guessed, given the shadow on his lean jaw. He had the longest, darkest eyelashes. A complete waste on a man, especially this man. There was a white jagged scar running along one eyebrow, another high on his forehead. Where had he gotten such scars? His nose was long and straight, his mouth fixed in a grim, hard line. His dark hair was so short it stood straight up, and she imagined he rarely bothered with a comb. She wondered if it was soft or—
“Are you going to think this loudly all night?” he asked, but then another shiver wracked her and he let out a long breath. “Okay, but only in the name of shared body heat…” He gripped her around the waist and tugged, turning her at the same time, until she was snuggled firmly against him, her spine to his chest, the backs of her legs to the front of his and all the spots in between perfectly aligned. All in the “name of shared body heat.”
Oh boy.
She tried to go to sleep, she really did. It proved an impossibility while she was holding her breath as she was. Behind her, Reilly lay utterly silent, utterly still, not pressing any of his…parts…against her unduly.
And she’d already noticed he had parts. Oh my, did he have parts.
Scooting free so that she could roll onto her back and look at him, she instantly wished she hadn’t. He was so close, and so warm and well…sexy as hell.
And also annoyed, very annoyed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s just that…it’s all hitting me.” She was horrified to hear her voice waver and blamed it on adrenaline. Anyone would be feeling it, she assured herself. “It’s making my mind rush and my body shake, and I hate that. I don’t mean to keep you up, but I can’t stop wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“Are they still out there, and what if they decide to come back—”
He put a finger to her lips and waited. When she didn’t try to talk around him, his mouth curved. “There. See if you can hold still, just like that.”
She grabbed his wrist and freed her mouth. “I realize that you can turn off the feelings and emotions with ease, but I can’t. I’m scared, if you want the truth, and I’m feeling a little claustrophobic here. I want…”
His eyes heated. “What?”
“Comfort,” she whispered, and trembled again, her body betraying her, which really made her mad.
A sigh rumbled from him and he settled one big hand at her hip and pulled her closer. There. The comfort she’d wanted. Yet with him looking down at her with that disconcerting gaze, with his body so close, so big and warm and unintentionally sexy—and it was unintentional, she knew he wasn’t trying to drive her crazy—what she felt was far, far from comfort. In an almost out-of-body experience, she whispered his name in a voice no longer quivering with trepidation but with something else entirely.
Something that felt shockingly like…hunger. Need.
She had no idea what was happening to her but it was so much better than being afraid. Infinitely better than the cold. She came up onto her side, so that they were once again body-to-body, only now face-to-face. Reaching up, she slowly slid her hand around the back of his neck and tugged him closer.
His fingers, in the act of gently skimming up and down her hip in the name of shared body heat and comfort, froze. “Tess—”
If this was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up. If it was indeed an out-of-body experience, she wouldn’t complain, but something made her put her mouth to the very corner of his.
He held perfectly still. Unnaturally still but she didn’t care. The connection of their mouths had spread warmth through her like nothing else ever had, so she nibbled at the other side, too. Adrenaline? Fear? She didn’t know, didn’t care, because the ball of warmth deep inside her started smoking now. To stoke it into a full-blown fire, she opened her mouth and took his bottom lip in her teeth.
This wrenched a deep rumble from his throat, a warning from the beast, which should have stopped her, would have in any other place and time, but not tonight.
“Tessa. This is—”
Crazy. She knew that. Just as she knew it was the events