She rose up on her toes again and ran the fingers of both hands on either side of my jaw and up into my hair. Her head came forward slowly, and she brought our lips together again.
“I hope you mean that,” she said quietly.
“I do mean it,” I told her. I pressed my lips back to hers as I wrapped one arm around her back to bring her a little closer to me. We kissed softly for a minute, and then Tria pulled away reluctantly.
“We need some sleep,” she said. “Tomorrow is going to be insane.”
“Well, I can’t argue with the second part of that,” I said.
We went back inside, and I settled myself on the floor. Tria climbed over me and onto the couch, and I lay down on my back below her. I knew right away that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep where I was. Despite the extra padding, the floor was pretty damn uncomfortable. That didn’t bother me so much—I’d slept in much worse places—but listening to Tria breathe and not being able to touch her was driving me batty.
I closed my eyes and just lay there for a while. After the first few minutes, I felt something against my arm and moved the opposite hand to grasp Tria’s fingers. She sighed but didn’t say anything. The physical touch helped, but it wasn’t quite enough to let me doze off.
Several minutes later, I heard her soft voice.
“Liam?” she whispered. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. I opened my eyes but couldn’t really see much other than dark blobby shapes that were either slightly darker or slightly lighter than the other dark blobby shapes around them.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Me either,” I said.
“I think I’m used to soft beds,” she said with a quiet giggle.
The slight laughter ended quickly, and I felt her fingers tighten around mine. I took in a deep breath and then sat up straight.
“Scoot up,” I said.
“Scoot up?”
“Yeah—move so you’re at the edge of the couch.”
“Liam, we are not both going to fit on here.”
“Just do it.”
Tria shifted, and I climbed over the top of her and wedged myself in between the back of the couch and the back of Tria. I wrapped one arm securely around her waist and slid the other in the crack of the cushion so I could reach around her head and bring it to my shoulder.
“Is this your way of getting to touch my boobs?”
“No,” I told her. “When I do that, I want to have time to enjoy them. Maybe we’ll stay at one of my uncle’s hotels on the way back.”
“Hmm…that might be nice.”
“You’d like that?”
“Yeah, I would,” she said. “I’d never been to a hotel like that before.”
“Well, maybe we’ll get one of the regular rooms and use the leftover money to pay for it. I don’t need him showing up at the crack of dawn and interrupting my fun again.”
“Maybe.” Tria shifted around a little bit to get comfortable. “But that suite was amazing.”
It was entirely possible that I was going to have to do a little more pride swallowing. Tria shifted again.
“I’m going to fall off,” she said.
“I’m not going to let you fall,” I told her. I tucked my face into her hair and inhaled before touching my lips to the edge of her ear. “Go to sleep.”