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At that point, whining about worthiness would just make me roll my eyes and unfollow the story.
“I’ll feel bad if you sleep on the floor. I’ve felt bad about it even when I thought you were a chihuahua. Hence the reason I bed-bound you. You’ve sacrificed so much out of concern for me already. You should be allowed to stretch out in a bed for the first time in months.”
He sighs. “Baby.”
A tingle coats every tender inch of my flesh.
“Can you turn into a tiny dog?”
Maybe? I’m his mate, right? That revelation might come with magic powers. After all, this is the real world, not a fantasy book. It’s really weird in the real world if a dog man is cosmically paired with a normal human. “Y…yes?”
“The answer is no.”
Aw. “No.”
He rises, meets me in the center of the room, and lets his fingers flutter down my forearms to my hands. “Can you fit comfortably on a pillow?”
I cut my attention toward the pillow on the floor behind him. “No…”
He kisses my forehead. “Then I guess we’ll have to play to our strengths, won’t we?”
I resist every urge to collapse feebly in his arms as I mumble, “I do not have strengths. You underestimate my abilities in the face of potential all-night cuddles.”
He chuckles. “I’m underestimating nothing. I know my own limits.” His thumbs slip across my knuckles. “Even this is more than I ever would have dreamed. Be good for me. At least long enough for me to sort my thoughts in relation to this change.”
It’s a low blow, tugging on all my compulsions to be good for everyone—even monsters who would hurt me like those men this afternoon. I was raised in the impossible goodness. Raised to embody it. This is the first time it’s sounded like a request to protect me rather than a command to keep someone else comfortable.
And this is the first time I want, desperately, to rebel.
Chapter 12
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Questions and answers and worms.
There are few things more delightful than a bed and breakfast. The food doesn’t even need to be good. Rubbery eggs, overdone bacon, sort of dry muffins and cinnamon rolls and danishes. I do not care. Call it complimentary, give me a plate, and tell me the world’s my oyster. I will eat so much mediocre food.
You have no idea.
Sitting in a corner booth in a very crowded room, I cheerfully dress my scrambled eggs in ketchup, take a sip of watery orange juice that somehow manages to be too sweet, and beam at my overflowing platter.
In regal contrast, Ollie’s plate contains a slab of something sort of sausage-like and two slices of toast.
In other news, I don’t think he slept at all.
“Could you hear the music through my earbuds last night?” I ask.
He lifts his attention off his plate, shifts uncomfortably in the sticky red seat, then nods.
Yeesh. “Sorry… You could have said something. I would have turned it off. Did you get any sleep?”
He shakes his head.
I slept better than I normally do. The thousands of questions and fantasies in my head revolved around peaceful things for once. Every song in my dolivers_not_trending playlist reached me in a new light. Every word expressed love to me. Someone, who is physically the most handsome man I have ever seen, loves me. Someone, who can’t lie, loves me. He’s already told me exactly how desperately he wants to be with me.
For the first time in so long, I was looking forward to a new morning just so I could spend it with him.
Ollie tugs on the collar of his shirt as he cuts into his sausage patty with the side of his fork.
