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This felt insidious…growing hotter and hotter—
Ignore it.
Burrowing onto my side, I winced at the slightest flares of discomfort. The softest twinges of pain as I did my best to ignore the heat in my lower belly and tingles in my breasts.
I made the mistake of opening my eyes.
I froze.
Him.
The smallest halo of white light bled over the sweet-smelling cream pages of a book. The nightlight, jammed into the thick story, gave just enough glow to read by—a tiny puddle in the dark.
In the shadows cast by the booklight, my gaze drifted over strong masculine hands holding the binding spread. Veins popped over bruised knuckles, tendons threaded under tanned skin. Both marvels of the human form worked their way up powerful forearms.
I stopped breathing as my eyes locked on his bare chest.
Chiselled with darkness and sculpted by the monster housed within, his pecs twitched as I studied him. The flinch dragged my eyes to his stubble-decorated jaw, over the hollows of his stern cheeks, and up, up, up to his burning, blazing grey eyes.
Even in the pitch darkness, even in this fortress of blackness, he was beautiful.
So wonderfully, horribly beautiful.
The fire in my blood broke into an inferno.
Not thinking. Not feeling. Merely existing in this present, fragile moment, I pushed upright and let the blankets fall away.
I’m burning…
His sharp inhale as his gaze fell to my bruise-colourful breasts made my entire body shiver. He froze where he sat upright, supported by folded pillows, his chin tipped down and face cold.
The room switched from calm rest to savage awareness as we stared at each other.
Goosebumps coated me as he sucked in his bottom lip and bit down.
I couldn’t stop looking at him.
How gorgeous he was holding a book. Reading. How stunning he was strangling a book that wasn’t just a prop but a lifeline.
He’d been reading a while, judging by how many pages existed beneath his thumb.
He held the tale as if it would save him from himself and cursed me for dragging him out of it. This was his meditation. Words were his salvation, and I felt absolutely humbled to know it.
To know him.
I swayed closer.
He stiffened.
A plate covered in crumbs on the bedside table hinted he’d eaten something while I’d been asleep. A sandwich waited on another plate…for me?
How long had I been asleep?
Did it matter?
All that mattered was this.
This man.
