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“Really?”

I nodded.

“I am using his power to heal you, butIam the one doing the healing.”I almost said,I am the one kissing you,but the words wouldn’t quite leave my lips.After all, I had only kissed him to heal him.Not for any other reason, right?

“Well…we should still stop,” he murmured, though I didn’t think he really wanted to.He touched his bottom lip lightly, where I had kissed him.“I’m healed now and you might hate yourself for this in the morning.”

I frowned.

“Why would I hate myself for healing you?”

“Well…I mean, you keep saying that you’re not a, uh, a man-lover,” he said hesitantly.

I shook my head.

“I’mnot.But you’re my friend, Avery.”I caressed his now-healed cheek lightly with my fingers, liking the feel of his skin, the warmth of his body, so close to mine.“Why should I not heal my friend?”

“Oh, uh…” A look of confusion crossed his face and his cheeks went red and warm under my fingertips.“All right.Well, I’m glad that we’re friends again, but we should, er, probably go back to bed now.Get some sleep, you know?”

He moved to get up and go back to his own bed and part of me wanted to ask him to stay.Not to do anything sexual…anythingunnatural.I just wanted to hold him against me, to feel his warmth and his skin against mine.It had been so long since anyone had touched me, since I had touched anyone in return.I just didn’t want the physical contact to end.

But it seemed that maybe I had taken things too far, because Avery was eyeing me warily, as though uncertain of what I might do next.

“Goodnight, Avery,” I said to him, as he slid back into his own bed.“Thank you for hearing my story and not…not hating me.”

“Uh…thank you for not hating me either,” he said.“And…for healing me.”His cheeks got red again when he said that and I felt my heart beat faster.

“I will heal you anytime you want me to,” I told him softly.“I enjoyed it very much.”

“I…I did, too,” he whispered.“Um, goodnight, roomie.”

“Goodnight…” The words,mi Corazondanced on the tip of my tongue, but in the end I swallowed them.They weren’t the right words to use for a friend—especially a male friend, I was certain.I didn’t know, exactly, how they had slipped out before.It was an impulse—perhaps some buried urge that rose from my sleeping Drake to me.But for whatever the reason, I didn’t say them again.

“Goodnight…roomie,” I said, instead, imitating his own friendly nickname for me.

Avery murmured goodnight again and then I turned over on my side and closed my eyes.But even though my Drake was silent except for a few dreaming murmurs, sleep was a long time coming.

11

AVERY

Ilay there in the dark, not sure what the hell was going on.I kept feeling Saint’s mouth on me—on my palms…kissing so gently around my wounded eye…my cheek…my lips…

Well, my bottom lip anyway.

My first kiss.The words rose in my mind but I wasn’t exactly sure they were accurate.Hadit been a kiss?Or was Saint just healing me, like he had said?What had just happened between us?Was he as confused as I was right now?

He hadn’tseemedconfused.He’d seemed…eagerwas the word that came to mind.And he had denied that it was his Drake making him want to do it—to heal me, to kiss me…

He hadn’t wanted to stop—hewouldn’thave stopped if I hadn’t stopped him, I thought.But he kept claiming he was straight, that he wasn’t a “lover-of-men” like me.

How was he going to feel about all this in the morning?

That was the question that really worried me.I mean, the way he’d been touching me and kissing me wasn’texactlysexual—we both kept our clothes on and nothing had happened below the belt.But the way he had healed me—basically kissing me better—also wasn’t exactly the straightest thing in the world either.Was Saint going to wake up hating himself for what we had done tonight?

And was he going to hate me?

I really,reallyhoped not.I had been miserable those few hours when I thought that the tall, dark Drake disliked me.I didn’t want him to blame me for what we had just done and hate me for real this time.