Page 15

EZRA

S tay?

My head spins.

“I have nightmares.” It takes me a moment to realize Lysander’s reply is the answer to my question. “That’s why I haven’t been sleeping.”

I struggle to put two and two together, but I come up blank.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to stay,” I stall. In fact, I know it’s not a good idea. Me, a fairy prince, and a bed? His sleep-softened expression falls, and my heart sinks with it.

“I understand,” he murmurs, getting out of the bed.

“Hey, you’re exhausted. Are you sure you shouldn’t just rest?”

He slips past me. “I sleep in the hammock sometimes. It helps.”

‘The hammock’ is a rope net hanging from the ceiling that I didn’t even notice before now. He sleeps in that?

“No way. That can’t be comfortable.” I take hold of his shoulders before the logical part of me can protest and I steer him back to the bed with minimal struggle. He’s so pliant right now that the urge to coddle him rises powerfully.

“It’s fine,” he protests, but he slumps under my hands.

”I’ll —” I swallow. “I’ll stay if that’s what it’ll take to get you to sleep in the bed.”

His mouth turns down. “I know it’s asking too much. It’s just that the nightmares never let up, unless…”

“Unless what, sweets?”

“Unless you’ve touched me,” he says quietly.

I breathe deeply through my nose, acutely aware my hands are still resting on his shoulders. I think I’m getting the picture. Kind of. Except the picture is breaking my brain a little.

“You’re saying when I touch you, you don’t have nightmares. So you’ve been avoiding me? That’s why you’re not sleeping?”

“I thought if I stayed away, I’d get used to the nightmares again. But I just can’t.” A hint of despair seeps into his voice. “If it were anything else… but I dream of my family”

He trails off, hands clenching on his satiny pajamas.

Christ. Orion said his family were all dead or missing. Does he have nightmares of them dying?

I squeeze his shoulders, prompting him to look up and meet my eyes. “I’ll stay if that’s what you need. But I don’t understand. Can you help me out? Is it a fairy thing? A monster thing? I want to make sure I don’t make it worse for you.”

His mouth twists. “I don’t know. It must be because you’re human, so you’re the only one who can touch me.”

“I’m what?”

He gives me a blank look. “Other monsters can’t touch a fairy. They’ll get magic poisoning and die.”

I’ve clearly missed some important memo, and it hits me immediately — that’s why he freezes up after every one of my extremely casual, not-at-all on purpose gestures. Not because he’s standoffish or awkward, but because I’m literally the only person who can do that without dying.

And that’s why he melts.

Fuck me up, down and sideways.

I kick my shoes off. “Okay, sweets. How do you want to do this?”

Tension seeps out of his body visibly. I ignore the twist in my heart. I can have a big old revelation about how this makes me feel later.

Or never.

“Like this,” Lysander says, lifting the cover.

Normally I sleep naked, but that’s obviously not the play here.

I strip my jeans off and I leave my shirt, boxers, and socks on.

I’m for sure still on a one way train to mind-fuck town, a reality that smacks me in the face when I get in after him and catch a glimpse of his smooth, pale green thighs.

And again when something soft and warm brushes my bare leg. It’s his bare skin.

Bad brain.

Whether it’s because he’s a fairy or because he’s — like Orion said — sheltered , he doesn’t seem that concerned with modesty. I’m not gonna be the one to make it weird.

When I reach for the lamp Lysander stops me. “Leave it on,” he says, quickly turning his face away.

“No problem,” I murmur, trying to sound calming and not at all like I’m kind of freaked out his nightmares are so bad he sleeps with the light on. I shuffle closer, until my chest is flush with his folded wings — a net new sensation for me. One that makes my heart beat a little too fast.

Feeling bold, I drape my arm over his waist. “Is this okay?”

It’s like every bone in his body relaxes the second I cozy up to him. A deep sigh spills out of him and he goes still. It’s enough of an answer.

I couldn’t sleep right now if you put a gun to my head. It takes every ounce of will to keep my cock from hardening against the sweet curve of his silk-clad ass. Only two scant layers of cloth separate us — and in some places, not even that. I’m in hell. Or heaven.

A few minutes later, Lysander is out cold. In the end that’s what calms my over-eager dick enough that I can finally relax. He can’t even get a hug without accidentally poisoning someone — he needed this. He trusted me and I’m gonna live up to that trust.

I’ve had my own share of sleepless nights. Imagining the demons that drive him to the point of practically begging me for help brings all kinds of ugly feelings churning to the surface. Yet even when he asked, he wasn’t worried I’d deny him — he was resigned to it.

Nobody deserves to feel that way. Even if spooning in bed is pretty far over the imaginary line I’d drawn in my head that marked him not for you . Even if I hardly know anything about him and vice versa.

Even if it’s taking everything I have not to ask if I can kiss him every time he looks my way.

Not to pull him tight now that he’s lying in my arms.

I don’t fall asleep for a long time.

Something warm and heavy is holding me down. Disoriented, I try to move out from under it. It emits a muffled noise of protest.

Shit. Lysander. Suddenly I’m very awake — and very aware of my morning wood.

It’s barely morning, sunlight peeking around Lysander’s curtains.

I didn’t mean to sleep the whole night. I had a half-cocked idea that I’d wait until Lysander was deeply asleep and sneak out while The Sanctum was empty, the idea of Syril or anyone else finding me in Lysander’s bed filling me with weird guilt. I must’ve slept like the dead, however.

This touch thing might go both ways, if I’m honest with myself.

I carefully angle my lower half away from the casual — bare, oh Christ — thigh Lysander has thrown across me. He’s curled around my shoulder, arm across my chest and his face pressed into my shirt. I can barely see the flutter of his eyelashes from this angle. My heart thumps.

The more significant problem is that kissing isn’t the only thing I want to do to Lysander. I want to understand him.

I want to protect him.

Slowly, carefully, I extract myself from his grip and escape into his bathroom. My erection goes down enough to pee, and afterward I splash cold water on my face to dispel the last of the sleep from my eyes.

“Be careful,” I hiss at my reflection.

He glares back.

Lysander yawns and holds the covers up when I emerge. “Tired,” he grunts.

Warm affection rushes over me. I have an inkling he’s a morning person, but he must be exhausted from not sleeping for so long.

I slide back into the bed and he fits against my side immediately, eyes drifting shut again.

I can’t help stroking his slender back over the soft pajama shirt, my palm gliding over the curve of a wing.

“How did you sleep?” I murmur.

His grip on me tightens briefly. “Really well.”

“No nightmares?”

“No. I did dream, though.” He squirms. His hips are shifting against me. A hot spear of arousal stabs me. Holy… what kind of dreams? “I don’t remember them.”

“Not bad dreams?”

“I think they were nice dreams.” He sighs into my shoulder and his hips still. I start counting backwards from fifty.

He doesn’t mean it that way.

“Thank you for staying, even though you didn’t want to,” he murmurs.

“Hey, no.” I shift up on my elbows. “What do you mean?”

A blue stain seeps across his cheeks, which I recognize now as his blush.

“I practically begged you. I was desperate and acted rather unseemly. It won’t happen again.” A hint of poshness creeps into his voice as he goes on.

“You did not,” I tell him firmly. “You asked for something you needed and I’m glad you trusted me with it. The rest was all my own hang-ups. As a matter of fact, any time you need this, just ask, okay? There’s no reason for you to suffer if I can help.”

“You’d do that?” His face transforms, his eyes lighting up. If the little voice in the back of my head was screaming what are you doing a heartbeat ago it’s silent now.

“ Any time. I’m at your disposal. Just think of me as a human teddy bear.”

He frowns faintly. “Won’t it be an inconvenience, though?”

“Sweets, I live on my own. No one cares where I sleep.” I can’t help adding, “Besides, it’s not like it’s a hardship.”

His flush grows. I can’t tell if it’s from embarrassment or pleasure, but it doesn’t matter — I can’t make a move on him either way.

What Lysander needs is a friend. And if his definition of a friend includes someone who holds him so he can sleep at night without being terrorized by nightmares, that’s what I’ll be.

“It doesn’t have to be every night,” he says sheepishly.

“We’ll do it every few nights. That way, you don’t have to ask every time.”

How I’m gonna handle the allegations when Orion, Plato, and the rest of the crew find out is a problem for future me. It’s easy to ignore the alarm bells when he smiles sleepily, warm and sweet, the complete opposite of everything I thought about him the first time we met properly.

He nestles back under my arm. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

“Sure.” I press my mouth to the top of his head. It’s definitely not a kiss — just a friendly gesture. “Now go back to sleep. It’s not even noon yet.”