Until she realized those weren’t her windows and she wasn’t in her room.
Remembering she was in Kieran’s bed, a nervous flutter ran through her.
She reached for the nightstand and clutched her phone. Pressing the power button, she saw the screen didn’t respond. Dread filled her, and she told herself to calm down. She’d forgotten to plug in her phone before falling asleep last night and, in doing so, had slept right past her alarm.
Shea was with Dee and was most likely fine, but still, Fiona needed to charge her phone and check. She spent every morning waking up next to and caring for her sister, so Shea’s potential reaction to this change in her morning schedule made Fiona anxious.
Turning her head, she found Kieran’s sleeping face only inches from her. His arms were curled around the pillow beneath his head as he slept on his stomach. He had one leg draped across both of hers, and his breathing was soft and rhythmic.
As sweet at he looked there next to her, she gently slid out from under him and grabbed the shirt he’d discarded last night from the floor. Pulling it over her naked frame, she tiptoed out of the bedroom and into his kitchen, where she found her purse sitting on the counter. Relieved, she wrenched it open and quickly located her phone charger, which she plugged into a socket over his counter.
Leaning against the granite, she waited for the phone to slowly lurch back to life. After an excruciatingly long minute, she managed to check her messages and found a text from Dee telling her that Shea had slept all night without waking. Blushing for a moment as she tried to push the thought out of her mind that Dee certainly knew what she had been doing last night and who she’d been doing it with, Fiona tapped out a reply asking if Shea was doing well this morning, too.
It’d been a while since Shea had gone through a morning without her. Fiona hoped that Dee’s presence would be enough to keep her sister from feeling too disrupted. Her fears were pushed away a moment later when Dee’s quick response assured her that Shea was eating her eggs and had gotten herself ready that morning without any issues. Despite her initial panic, Fiona trusted Dee and knew that Shea was fine. As much as she wanted to, she knew she couldn’t coddle Shea forever.
After sending a final thank-you text, she put her phone down to let it keep charging before tiptoeing back to the bedroom. With each step she took, she was cognizant of the sore throbbing between her legs. She could still feel how he had been pressed against her last night, and it was enough to make her smile. When she got back to the bedroom, Kieran hadn’t moved, still spread across the bed and breathing deeply. She approached and lifted his arm slowly, crawling underneath and settling against him. He didn’t wake, and she found herself matching her breathing to his, watching him in wonderment.
He was the reason she felt at peace, and the cause of the gentle ache between her legs from their night together. Despite having spent a week trying to keep him at arm’s length and her feelings at bay, last night she’d given in to both him and herself. He made her feel wanted and cared for, two things she hadn’t ever truly felt.
She’d spent her entire adult life reading romance novels, wishing for that kind of gravitational pull toward someone. The kind where the moment he walked into your life, everything you once thought you knew was tossed out of orbit. The kind where the cynical disbelief didn’t stand a chance next to his perfect blue eyes. Now here it was, hidden beneath slumbering eyelids.
Moving slowly to avoid waking him, she turned on her side and lifted a hand to gently caress the side of his face. Her fingertip moved over the hard ridge of his cheekbone, down the length of his stubbled jaw. The heat from his skin warmed her, soothed her. He wasn’t even awake, and yet he was reminding her that she was alive, that she deserved this, that she deserved to be happy.
He made her happy. And she realized she could do this. She could be this person, open to others and trusting that they’d be there to care for her if she needed them. She could trust Kieran; she could let him in.
“You’re staring,” he said softly, startling her.
Her fingers retracted instantly as she flushed, not just a crimson stain to her cheeks but a full body blush. Her skin heated and tingled as the rumble of his voice transported her back to the memory of everything they’d done the night before. “I didn’t know you were awake.”
“I wasn’t until you touched me like that. Then every part of me woke up.” He moved an arm to encircle her and draw her near.
“Oh.” She gulped, butterflies invading her stomach. “Every part of you?”
He rolled onto his side and lifted up the blanket covering them. Fiona glanced down automatically, seeing what he meant. Her jaw dropped as she was reminded of how large he was. Clearly proud of himself, he rolled on top of her and pinned her to the bed beneath him, pressing his length against her lower stomach.