Alarm spikes inside me and I don’t even stop to think before I reach over to him. I take his face in my hands, telling him to wake up. He’s having some kind of nightmare and I don’t know why, but the sight of him like this affects me in a way I can’t understand.
He continues to thrash for a moment longer before those startlingly blue eyes snap open. They’re hazy and out of focus at first, though. Dazed as he grasps for consciousness. The flash of vulnerability in those eyes, so at odds with his usual arrogance, does something to me that I can’t explain.
He blinks up at me for a few seconds. Neither of us says anything. Neither of us moves. His eyes register my face above his and I might be imagining it, but it’s as if the sight chases the shadows from his eyes.
The darkness is thick with something that I can’t even begin to understand or maybe it’s just that I’m not ready to. My hands are still holding his face and when he reaches up to cup my elbows, I don’t stop him. We’re so close, that I can feel the running stag clamor of his heart. I can feel every breath he takes against my skin, as he attempts to steady his breathing.
“You were dreaming,” I say finally, in an attempt to slice through the charged air.
He’s silent in response.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask quietly, although I’m not sure that allowing myself to delve beneath Raph’s surface is entirely safe for me.
He shakes his head then. “Not right now.” His voice is husky with sleep and with the memory of whatever it was that haunted him in it.
He slowly pulls me closer after a moment, until my head is resting on his chest. His arms circle me, holding me to him.
I don’t know whether it’s the glimpse of a part of Raph which I’m sure no one in the entire universe has ever seen, or whether it’s the merely the cover of night which makes me feel like every secret is safe in this dark place. But I don’t make a move to pull away. There are a million reasons why this shouldn’t be happening, but in that moment, I don’t allow myself to hear them. I don’t allow myself to even think.
We stay that way for what seems like an eternity.
“Is this why you don’t ever sleep with anyone?” I find myself asking finally. I don’t know where the question came from and I don’t expect Raph to answer. But he does.
“Yes.” He says simply and it feels like he’s saying a great many things with just that one word. But I’m not ready to hear them. I force myself not to think about what any of this means, closing my eyes instead, as I force myself back to sleep.
I wake up to the feeling of something solid wrapped around my waist and my back pressed up against a wall of warmth.
I think I must still be dreaming, as I look down and see golden skin with a dusting of fine golden hairs—an arm? It’s wrapped around my waist. I feel something tickling my ear and my throat. The feeling sends a shiver down my spine.
“Hmmm.” I hear Raph’s voice in my ear and then the feeling of something brushing against the side of my neck. It feels like he’s breathing in the very scent of me.
As consciousness taps against my senses, I feel Raph’s bare skin against mine and my own skin burns everywhere it makes contact with his—which is in a lot places. His bare chest is pressed up against my back, with only the thin material of my too small sleeping vest between us. His bare legs are tangled up with mine. My goddamn hand is resting on top of his.
I’m jolted awake when I feel his other hand against the bare skin at my abdomen, where my vest has ridden up. I feel something long and hard pressing against my back which makes heat pool in my core, and muscles I didn’t even know existed, clench tightly.
I bolt upright and Raph rolls sleepily onto his back. It strikes me again how young he looks when he’s asleep, innocent almost. But there was nothing innocent about what I’d just felt pressed up against me.
“Quit staring at me like that or you’re going to make me blush,” he says, those blue eyes opening to look up at me. God. Seeing those eyes first thing in the morning is like a shock to the senses, which is more effective than any alarm clock.
“I’m staring at you in outrage,” I retort.
I still can’t believe that just moments ago I’d woken up to his body tangled up with mine. God. Did we fall asleep like that? Were we sleeping like that all night? The memory of last night floods my mind then. Waking up in the middle of the night to find Raph thrashing in his sleep. The way he’d looked at me, as if I was the one thing that could chase the nightmare away. The way he held me to him afterwards and what I’d let myself feel. Seeing Raph so vulnerable had done something to me. Something that had stripped me of my good senses, clearly.
But there isn’t a trace of that vulnerability in his face just now. Only his usual arrogant smirk.
A part of me expects him to bring up whatever it was that happened last night. But he doesn’t. There isn’t even a trace of the memory of it in those luminous blue eyes. Either that or its carefully hidden in a way that only Raph, with his years of being raised in the public eye, could achieve. It’s almost as if last night was nothing but a dream, it sure as hell feels like it. Unfortunately, the memory in my own mind is as clear as day and it’s very much real.
“I don’t appreciate you groping me in my sleep,” I snap with more force than necessary.
“Me groping you? I don’t appreciate being molested in my sleep either.”
I stare back at him, sputtering as I try to find a response, because I can’t actually believe this guy is serious. But I’m glad because the way he’s infuriating me just now makes it easy to promise myself that whatever it was that came over me last night, will never happen again.
“Urgh. Don’t flatter yourself. I wouldn’t even look twice at you, let alone molest you.”
“Then stop staring at my chest.” He flashes me that cocky grin which sets my temper on fire and damn those dimples.
I can feel my face flaming because I realize that I am staring at his perfectly cut chest. Dammit.
A rush of disbelief hits me, because how in the world did we go from hating each other’s guts to sleeping next to each other every night? I’m literally in bed with my enemy. I have no idea how I let myself get into this situation and I can’t help but feeling like I’m riding on a runaway train, about to hurtle over a cliff to my death.
“It’s not my fault you sleep practically naked,” I snap.
“I’m not naked—I’m wearing my boxers. Although, if you want me to sleep totally naked, I’d be down for that, too.”
“God, you’re such a pig. You have a bed of your own, in your own room across the hall—you can sleep there shirtless, naked or however the hell you want.”
“But I told you, I like your bed.”
“Well, then, keep your hands to yourself or you won’t be sleeping in it much longer.”
“Likewise,” he winks.
I notice something then as I look at the covers. Something which I’m sure was the same thing pressed up against my ass just a few moments ago.
The horror in my face must be apparent, because Raph bursts out laughing.