I climbed to my feet. “Can I borrow something to sleep in? I don’t feel like going back to my place right now.”
“Sure,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me with him toward the bedroom.
It was weird, going into Colin’s room with him. I’d been in there alone many times, but following his tall body through the doorway and inside his lair was a brand-new experience.
He hit the wall switch and the bedside lamps turned on, infusing the room with warm light. Man, I loved his room. It was sleek and modern, but still had that cozy feel to it that made you want to snuggle under his heavy comforter and watch movies all day.
“Do you want actual pajamas,” he asked, pulling open a drawer, “or would you rather have a T-shirt?”
“Seriously, look at your drawers.” I walked over to him and peered over his shoulder at the clothes neatly folded in his dresser. “That attention to detail is obscene.”
“I’ll show you obscene,” he murmured, holding up a T-shirt for me. “Does this work?”
I nodded and took it, weirdly nervous all of a sudden.
But before I could overthink it, his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, glanced at the display, and said as if he was asking permission to answer, “It’s my sister.”
“Take it.”
He lifted the phone to his ear. “Hey, Jill. What’s up?”
For some reason, I found his friendship with his sister adorable.
He said, “Oh, yeah. Let me get you his number.”
Colin went out into the kitchen, so I took the time to change into his shirt and steal a pair of thick socks from his top drawer. I wasn’t sure whether or not he slept on a certain side of the bed, but I pulled back the blankets and climbed in the left side of the bed.
“Just call him and tell him there’s a tire vibration, and he’ll take care of it.”
He walked back into the bedroom, and the expression on his face shifted when he saw me in his bed. “I can’t talk, Jill. Gotta go.”
He hung up and dropped his phone on the bench at the foot of his bed. “Am I a terrible person if I tell you I fantasized about this exact thing when you still lived here?”
That made me strangely happy. “You did not.”
“Swear to God.” He pulled the sweater over his head and tossed it toward the hamper, then reached for his belt, grinning at me as he unbuckled, unzipped, and let the pants drop to the floor, stepping out of them. “Once you told me you’d napped in my room, I couldn’t get rid of the idea of you in my bed. I imagined discovering you sound asleep in here . . .”
“And . . . ?” I rolled onto my side and propped my head on my hand.
“And I’d wake you up, but you’d be in the middle of a very naughty dream.”
“Of course I would.” I was obsessed with the thought of him fantasizing about me. “You little pervert. I bet in your fantasy I thought you were part of the dream, right? So I pulled you down on the bed . . . ?”
His teeth flashed. “Something like that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this the other night when I was begging?”
“You were asking about before you moved back.” Instead of crawling on top of me like I would’ve expected—and wanted—Colin tossed his pants on the chair, climbed under the covers next to me, and switched off the lamp.
It was so . . . habitual. Ritualistic. It felt like we were a couple climbing into bed, the same as we did every other night. He turned toward me and said, “Are you going to shut off that lamp or what, Marshall?”
“On it.” I turned off the lamp, plunging the room into total darkness.
“Much better,” he breathed, his body moving closer as he pulled the comforter up and over us. The weighted blanket cocooned us together, and I felt like the air was sucked out of my lungs because one minute I was fine, and the next his hands were cupping my cheeks and he was dropping the softest kisses over my face.
Featherlight, reverent, and sweet. I looked up at his face, the eyes I could still see in the darkness, and I felt the warmth. Not the heat of sexual need—that wasn’t new to either of us—but real warmth, almost as if he really cared about me.
I took a deep breath and waited for the panic to arrive, but I think my body—brain, heart, lungs, nervous system, all of it—knew that Colin was safe and was slowly lowering the protective wall I’d carefully erected. I relaxed into the soft bedding, every muscle in my body melting into his perfect linen sheets as he literally made me shiver.