Tria smiled, then turned and knelt down in front of the small shelf. She started poking around at the books and talking about how much easier it would be to find what she was looking for, but I didn’t hear a word of it. I just stepped away until I felt the back of my knees hit the couch, and then I sat down heavily. As soon as my head stopped spinning, I went outside for a smoke so I could get myself back together again.
I lit the cigarette and rubbed my eyes. Krazy Katie was up above me, hollering out across the street at the guy who was waiting at the bus stop. Apparently, she was pretty sure he was her mother because she kept talking about being inside of his womb.
Fucking nutcase.
Then again, who was I to judge? Considering how nutty Tria was making me, I might have been about ready to join Krazy Katie and start screaming at the neighbors.
I was fucked.
*****
Deep water kind of warmth and heaviness covered me as I slowly regained consciousness without actually opening my eyes. The feeling was familiar but in a way I found slightly disturbing, like I was doing something horribly wrong. My backside was chilled, and I was pretty sure Tria had rolled over on the blanket again. The front of me was nice and warm though, so I knew I was pressed up against her body in a totally inappropriate, inexcusable, and completely delectable way.
I didn’t want to wake up and roll away from her, especially considering there was no way I would be able to get the blanket back from her again. Once she got a grip on it, it was a death grip, and I would sooner go into her purse looking for Tic Tacs than try to get it away from her. Besides, both my arms were around her again, and it was damn hard to get the right one out from under her when she was asleep. I had no idea how I managed to get it there in the first place, but about half the time I woke up, that’s where my arm would be.
I took a deep breath and tilted my head up a bit, skimming the tip of my nose over her temple and into her hair. If I lived with her for the rest of my life, I probably still wouldn’t understand how she could smell so good. My breath rushed out my nose, and I pulled back a little so I would be able to look at her face at least once before moving to my own side of the bed. I opened my eyes, and I found myself staring into the bright brown irises of the woman in my arms.
Even the warm parts of my body chilled.
For a long moment, all I could do was look at her and try to comprehend. I knew something was very, very out of place, and I knew I had ultimately been caught with my hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, but I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do about it now.
Oh yeah—apologize and make it look like an accident.
“Oh…shit,” I mumbled sleepily. “I’m sorry, I…”
I started to pull my arm out from around her waist but paused when I saw Tria smile and felt her grip my forearm. In the moonlight from the window, I was pretty sure I could see the flesh around her cheekbones darken, and the sight halted the beating of my heart.
“It’s okay.”
“I didn’t mean to…um…” I started pulling my arm back, and my fingers grazed over her stomach, but I stopped again when I felt Tria tighten her hold on my arm and shake her head in quiet laughter. My eyes drifted down to where her fingers coiled around my arm and then back up to her face.
“Liam, you do this every night,” she stated.
Tensing again, I tried to determine what the best course of action would be at this point. I wasn’t awake enough to be thinking clearly at all, and I wasn’t coming up with any kind of grand plan, that was for sure. What I did manage to get through my thick skull was that she did not seem to be upset at all.
“I do?” I responded softly.
“Yes, you do.”
“Shit,” I muttered. I didn’t know if I should confess at this point or not. “I wasn’t trying…I mean, I didn’t mean to—”
Tria shook her head slowly before turning her eyes back to me. She looked at me through her long lashes, and her cheeks tinged with her blush.
“I don’t mind,” she said.
“You don’t?” God, I sounded like an idiot. I wondered if I had completely lost the ability to form a coherent sentence. I hoped she would realize I wasn’t normally a brain dead moron in bed.
God, I wanted to show her what I could be like in bed.
I looked back at her face, and what I saw there stopped all such thoughts. Her eyes were tight, her jaw clenched, and I could feel her hand trembling slightly against the skin of my arm.
“When I first moved here,” Tria said in a whisper, “I couldn’t sleep at all.”
Her fingers gripped my arm a little tighter, and her eyes moved to the window for a moment before she turned back toward me and seemed to focus on the top of my arm.
“The noises outside—the car alarms, and the sirens, and the…the…”
She took in a sharp breath and shifted forward a little, pressing against me more.