Looking into her eyes, he eased the sides of her robe apart. She wore an old T-shirt and a pair of plaid boxers. He fought a smile, wondering if she’d chosen the least seductive attire she owned, thinking it would save her.
As if she wouldn’t light up his world even in rags.
He pushed the robe from her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor as he reached for her waist. She flattened her hands against his chest and lifted a brow as she looked up at him. “I think we could both use a night of sleep.”
He leaned forward, bracing his fists on the wall behind her. His heat circled her like a coil. “Sleep…afterward.”
“Sleep, Greer. Just sleep.” Her gaze lowered to his mouth and lingered there, undoing her words.
“So a try-out of sorts? See if I snore?”
“You’re angry.”
“Yeah. I am.” He tore his eyes from her and stared at the wall behind her, trying to cool his senses. “But not at you.” He met her eyes. “I’m angry that I’m so far ahead of you. The least I could have done was go slower so you could catch up.”
“I’m catching up now.”
He waited for her next move.
“I’ve been trying to see us from a rational, non-hormonal frame of mind,” she said.
“Why do we need so much thinking about us?” He took her hand and flattened it against his heart. “Logic has nothing to do with the way I feel. I don’t have to think why my heart beats. I just have to know that it does and because it does, I live.”
She held her hand where he put it. “Because we’re amazing together in bed, but that can’t be the only thing our relationship is made of. Passion fades.”
“Mine won’t.”
“We’re happening so fast—how do you know?”
“Because truth is truth, Remi.”
“Can you give me tonight, one night, no sex, to help me feel my way through this?”
“One night or a thousand. Nothing is going to change what is.” Unless, of course, she realized she’d let a monster inside her body. God help if that ever happened. If it did, while nothing would have changed for him, for her, everything would have. And lucky him, he would get to hold her while she took the night to withdraw completely from him.
Even so, he had no choice but to give her the space she needed. “Sleep it is.” He pulled a long draw of her scent into his nose, then straightened and led her by the hand into his room. “Shall I grab more pillows?”
She looked up at him for a prolonged moment, then shook her head.
“You care which side?” he asked. Again she shook her head.
“I’ll take the side closest to the door.” He lifted the blankets. She crawled across his mattress to settle on the far half. He went to the dresser and took out a pair of gray boxer briefs. With his back to Remi, he dropped his jeans down his hips and kicked them off, then pulled on the briefs and arranged his raging boner to the side. It pushed against the elastic waistband. Whatever. At least packaged like this, she wouldn’t think he had other ideas about their night together.
He walked over to his side of the bed. Remi’s gaze moved down his chest and stuck to his crotch.
“Greer…”
He lifted the covers. “I finally have my woman in my room, in my bed, and you think my body’s not going to react to that windfall?”
“We’re just sleeping.” Her grip tightened on the fold of the sheet she held tightly to her chest. “And I’m not your woman.”
Greer got in bed, then turned off the light. “You are. You just don’t know it yet.” Like an enemy who, shot through the heart with a 9mm, still fought for a few dangerous seconds after his death. She was his—she just hadn’t fallen.
She pulled a long and audible breath, but didn’t follow it with words. He held himself still and waited for her to settle in for the night. But she didn’t and he didn’t, and neither of them slept. It was like living in the space between breaths.
“What did you pay them?” Remi asked, breaking the dreadful stasis.
“Pay whom for what?”
“The women who slept with you.”
“I didn’t pay them. I paid their employers. Two to three hundred, depending on how long I needed them.”
“Did they just sleep?”
“They sure didn’t talk.”
“What if they had lice?”
Greer grinned. Was she jealous? “They didn’t.”
“Did you touch each other?”
“Yes.” He looked over at her. Her head was tilted toward him in a shaft of blue light from the window. “That’s kinda the point of hiring a sleep buddy. So you know you’re not alone.”
“Did you hold them?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you kiss them?”
“Never. It was just sleeping, Remi.”
“What if I want you to hold me?”
“Do you?” he asked, looking at her. She nodded. He lifted his arm so that she could scoot in to him. She came up close, her body lying against his, her arms folded between her chest and his.
She drew a breath to ask another question, but he beat her to it. “Did you know that the part of your brain that handles speaking opposes the part of your brain in charge of sleeping?” he asked.
She sighed. As close as she was, her breath skittered across his chest hair. “I’m sorry. I chatter when I’m nervous.”
“Sleeping with me makes you nervous?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“Because it means I’m letting you inside my walls.” She stroked his chest for a while. He hoped she couldn’t feel his cock pulsing with each innocent touch. “So how do you sleep when you’re having trouble?”
“I hire companions.” He grinned at her.
She frowned. “You should get a dog.”
“I’ll talk to Eddie about that.”
Her hand made a fist, which she banged gently against his chest. He chuckled. She unfolded a bit, nestling more comfortably in his hold.
“Good night, Greer.”
“Night, Remi.”
“Greer?”
“Hmmm?”