Page 54 of Even Vampires Bleed (Even Ever After #2)

Cassiopé

S omething is wrong with Léandre, but he doesn’t want me to know.

I almost missed it when he gruffly said, “Good morning,” but there is no way to miss the low hiss that escapes him when he stretches.

I narrow my eyes and think to myself that I’ll get to the bottom of it.

All I need is for my brain to wake up a bit and then I’ll start my investigation.

I’m in a weird funk every morning since I proposed sharing the bed with Léandre.

It’s like my brain is trying to conjure every way I could share that bed with him.

I woke up this morning screaming as a spontaneous orgasm hit me. Well, spontaneous… as spontaneous as it can be when one unconsciously slipped her fingers inside her pussy while sleeping.

It’s been the same—more or less—every morning. I wake up panting, my body on fire and needing release.

Waking up with an orgasm this morning was new, though.

I was still breathless and had to take a minute for my heartbeat to come down .

This is how I feel every morning. Like I ran a marathon—well, a sex marathon, but a marathon nonetheless—all night, and I’m so freaking exhausted.

Except I can’t do anything about it.

Other than the obvious and make myself come.

But it never seems to be enough.

So yeah, I’m in a weird funk, my brain still sleepy and my body still high on the orgasm my dream gave me.

“I know it’s not nothing,” I tell Léandre. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m going to be okay,” he says this time, and I don’t miss the fact he didn’t say he was okay right away.

“Look at me when you’re lying,” I tell Léandre, and a cocky smile spreads on my lips when he turns his head in my direction right away.

The exact meaning of my words reaches his brain only a second later, and a smile graces his face.

“You’re a trickster, Firefly,” he says. “I just woke up. You’re not playing fair.”

His sentence is followed by a slight dip of his head to my legs before he catches himself and looks me in the eye.

I feel heat burning my skin, and I thank whatever god will listen to me that Léandre isn’t a wolf or dog shifter, because I don’t know how I would feel if he could smell my orgasm on my skin.

He probably would think I’m really not playing fair.

“Mmm. I’m the trickster?” I ask. I voluntarily don’t point out the nickname he gave me that gives me butterflies for how close it is to what my Léandre called me. “Are you sure? Because from where I sit, I only see one trickster.”

I pause, and then I let my hand trail on his shoulder before I reach the back of his neck.

He’ll see what happens when he lies to my face.

My fingers are only trailing on his skin until I reach the point that was full of knots a few days ago, and then I press with my index, making Léandre jump under my hand .

I feel a bit like a sadist in this instant.

He doesn’t scream, but after that little jump, his body stays frozen.

So, I press again. I do it with my thumb this time and make his muscle roll under my finger.

He groans.

“Are you going to bolt away this time?” I ask him as I keep massaging the back of his neck.

He doesn’t answer, completely lost to the press of my finger on his skin.

I stop.

Now I have his attention.

“Don’t lie to me,” I tell him as I force his face in my direction. “Are you in pain?”

I see a multitude of emotions on his face before he groans.

“I’m not sleeping in the bed with you, firefly.”

“Don’t say it like that. I don’t bite,” I say to him before realizing what I just said.

Léandre looks at me with a knowing smile.

“Are you sure?” he asks in a teasing tone that seems to awaken my body.

No, no, no, traitorous body. Calm down. Nothing is happening. We’re not drinking from the handsome bird.

“It’s an expression and you know it,” I grumble to myself before perking up. “We can just throw pillows between the two of us. It’ll be like sleeping in two single beds next to each other and we won’t risk touching each other during the night.”

He doesn’t seem convinced by my speech.

“I’ll turn my back to you, and I won’t move. You won’t even know I’m here,” I add.

I’m not sure this last part is true, though. Because with how tangled in my sheets these past few days were when I woke up—and the state I was in—I doubt I would stay right where I fell asleep over the night.

But I won’t tell him that.

Because I don’t plan to stay in that bed.

I plan to let him fall asleep in the bed—because he definitely needs it—and when he’s sound asleep, I’ll sneak out and sleep on the couch myself.

It can’t be that hard. And I’m much smaller than he is. I won’t have to bend as much as he needs to.

Yeah, I’m giving him the bed, but since he’s so stubborn, I need to be sneaky.

If it were anyone else, I might not have done that, but it’s Léandre. In the middle of the night, while half asleep, I might get confused, thinking he’s my Léandre, and make my latest dreams come true.

And I’d wake up to a horrified Léandre.

I can’t have that.

So, I have a plan. I’ll let him fall asleep and sneak out—period.

It’s foolproof, right?