Page 69
The soft words are repeated again. Levi is lying next to me. The early sun makes his skin golden against the sheets, there’s a pillow crease on his cheek, and his brown eyes are sleepy and warm.
“Bad dream?” he asks. “Shit.”
The latter is because I fling myself at him and he tumbles back onto the mattress. I lower myself fully onto him, feeling every inch of his hot body. Then I lay my head on his chest, hearing the reassuring thud of his heart. He fusses with the sheets, pulling them over us, and then encloses me in his arms, hugging me tight and kissing my head when he can’t reach my lips.
“Bad dream?” he asks again.
I shudder. “The fucking worst.” I raise my head from my hiding place, scanning his face like he’s water when I have a terrible thirst. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” he says steadily. I raise my eyebrow dubiously and he smiles. “Really fine. My headache has gone and I don’t ache anymore.”
“How’s your mental state?”
“Somewhere between okay and one of the Bronte heroines. Maybe the one who got locked in an attic.”
I laugh and then hug him. “That’ll pass. Take it from me—everything does.” I study the face I know better than my own. “What are you thinking?”
He raises one eyebrow. “That you’re quite heavy.”
I bury my smile in his chest, biting gently at the skin. “It’s my bottom and all the squats you made me do.”
“I didn’t force you. There was an element of free will involved in the process, along with a large portion of bitching.”
I stroke his hair back. “Tell me?”
He presses his head into the pillows and stares up at the ceiling. “I’m thinking that I’m scared it’ll happen again.” He puts his hand over my mouth as I go to speak. “I feel as though this was all my fault.”
I bite his palm and he yelps and removes his hand.
“It was not your fucking fault,” I say fiercely. “What the hell, Levi?”
“I let it take me over.” It’s said so softly I almost don’t hear it and my heart clenches with tenderness.
“I don’t think there was any let, macushla. No one could have resisted that. It was a very powerful entity.” I shiver. “And wicked too. Please don’t go thinking you could have done anything to stop it.”
“How did you get rid of it?” He’s obviously had enough of the previous line of conversation but I’m going to circle back to it when I get the chance. He needs to be okay.
The story lasts a while and when I finish talking, we’re lying on our sides sharing a pillow, our legs tangled together. He reaches out and cups my cheek. “You’re so clever.”
“Erm, no. That would be you.”
He taps my lip. “Can’t it be both of us?”
“I’ll allow it.” He laughs and I slide a little closer, wrapping my arms around his narrow waist. “Did I wake you up with my shitty dream?”
“No, I woke up early. I was reading.”
“The new Dan Brown?”
“No, the diary.”
My eyes widen. “Shit. I’d forgotten all about that.”
He reaches over and retrieves it from the sheets where it obviously fell. “It’s very interesting,” he starts to say but stops talking when I shudder. “Blue?”
“Sorry,” I manage to say. “It’s just not a good image—you holding that diary. Still, at least you aren’t being casually cutting while you do it.”
“It’s only seven in the morning. Give me time.”
