* * * *
It was quiet. Except for their breathing. He heard his own harsh intake and her no steadier exhalation. She’d have an easier time if he took all his weight off her instead of remaining half-covering her the way he’d collapsed. He didn’t move. Not sure if he could, and certain he didn’t want to. Macho, maybe, but even after what they’d just experienced, he relished the continued sense of possession from being connected this way.
What was this feeling, this draw to her, this need for her? It frightened him—he admitted that—but it also attracted him, a magnet bringing him nearer to something he’d always avoided. Now, too weak with satisfaction and contentment to fight the idea, the suspicion floated into his mind that as much as he might try to dig his heels in against it, he wouldn’t be able to stop his progress toward the pole she represented. Right now, he couldn’t even find it in himself to care.
Soft and even, her breathing soothed him. She was asleep. A powerful sense of protectiveness swept into him; she trusted him enough to give herself up to him, then to give herself up to sleep in his arms.
He recognized the dangerous, sharp edges of this emotion. He even knew, at some level, how it could shred his independent life.
So where shall we stay? One question, five words. That was all it had taken to blow his control to hell. So much for waiting until he knew what he was getting into. He was in, and he still didn’t know.
He shifted slightly. Not away, but freeing her ribs of all but the weight of his arm. He thought that under the sigh of skin against sheets, he detected a breath from her. Perhaps relief, but he wanted to think it was also regret at even this minute distance. He pulled the rumpled covers over their cooling bodies.
The emotion he’d reined in from the time she’d said yes in his office was loose. He might soar with it now, but could he haul it back under control later?