Page 193 of Season Warriors & Wolves

“Getting worse.”

“Lonely?”

“Getting colder and colder, Thora.”

I swallowed. “Uhm, what if there is a monster under the bed?”

He peeled his eyes open and they gleamed black. “Why would it be under? It’s sitting right beside you.”

At that moment, one might have been scared. He did scare me, just not like he intended to. “You’re not funny.”

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to him. Not the first time he’d lent me that part of his. “I’m not a cuddler, little bird, so keep your hands to yourself.”

“Alright,” I said, resting my cheek on his shoulder. But my hands were twitching so badly from being told to be still. “Malik?”

He squeezed his eyes tightly, sighing. “Fuck. Put your hands on me.”

Phew. So I did. Except—now I could feel his hard body beneath my palm, the heat emitting out of him, his slow breaths. He smelled so good too.

“Malik?”

His body began shaking and I flinched, whipping my head back to look at him. To find him laughing himself to tears. “Yes, what now?”

“Can I lower my hand a little? It feels uncomfortable up here.”

He grabbed my hand and lowered it to his stomach. “Good?”

No. No. Not at all. “Yeah, better.”

It was too hot, suffocatingly hot. Like I was wearing a massive wool scarf in the middle of July heat.

I forced an eye open, looking around the dark room expecting to see sunlight from how rested I felt. There was no sunlight. But there were arms wrapped around my middle, a body plastered closely to mine from behind and a face buried in the crook of my neck, breathing steadily. Instead of feeling creeping panic chill my skin as usual when I felt someone so close to me, my spine arched a little from the hot shiver raking my body, sinking a weight down my stomach.

His scent was all over me. In my hair, on my pillow, in the air. Rosewood, chamomile and something else—orris. He smelled like morning rain on a field of flowers.

He shifted a little, his lips grazing my neck, and I pressed my eyes shut.

The moment my breath hitched, his stopped entirely. He opened a large palm, trailing it up my stomach and resting it over my chest. “Breathe, little bird,” he said, voice darker and coarser, heavy with sleep, an ache suddenly pulsing between my legs when his hand lowered again, grazing a sliver of skin exposed on my stomach.

My heart was pounding so embarrassingly loud.

“Don’t move,” he said when I squirmed.

I froze. “Why?”

His fingers trailed barely there circles on my skin, dipping just slightly under the band of my trousers. His nose brushed my skin and I shivered. “Just don’t.” One fragment of a moment longer, he remained there pressed against me, his hand slightly sliding further and further down.

I flinched when he got up and sat upright.

I was panting. Struggling to breathe. My mind alone had just run about a dozen laps. If he’d moved his hand just a little lower, whatever friendship we had, it would have ended. “When do I move?”

He didn’t answer immediately. “You can move now.”

“Did you let a spider crawl down my back?” I asked, shaking my arms, trying to scare off the spider that could have potentially entered my clothing. It was something he would do.

“Maybe I should have. Get dressed,” he said, collecting his stuff from the armchair.

“Where are you going?”