“Oh, is the sofa uncomfortable? It’s probably too short, isn’t it? I could sleep out here. You can have my bed. I’ll change the sheets.” She tried to stand, and he placed his hands on her shoulders to keep her sitting.
“Stay there. You’re not changing the sheets.”
“Oh, I suppose you could just sleep on top of the bed.”
“Girl, I am not taking your bed. You are not sleeping on the couch.”
“I don’t mind,” she told him. “Sometimes I sleep out here because it’s warmer.”
He clenched his jaw. He didn’t like that. Not at all.
Not your business. She is not your responsibility.
But the idea that she was so cold that she needed to sleep on the couch really annoyed him.
“You are not sleeping on the couch. If you need more blankets; you can take mine.” Seemed he also needed to order her a heater for her bedroom. He stood and reached out a hand to help her up. She slipped her hand into his and he noticed how chilled it was. He also saw that she’d removed the bandage he’d put on there earlier.
If she was his, she’d be in big trouble.
“You’re freezing,” he muttered, reaching down to grab the blanket he’d had sitting at the end of the sofa but hadn’t been using, seeing as he was lying right next to the fire. He wrapped it around her. “Sit back down until you warm up. Why didn’t you open the door to your office to let some heat through? Although you should have been in bed hours ago. What work involves staying up so late at night?” He couldn’t stop the scolding note. It was part of who he was, taking care of those around them. Even if he didn’t always show his caring in the most thoughtful way.
“I’m a writer. And once I get going, I don’t like to be interrupted. If I lose my flow of words, it can take me a while to settle back into a rhythm. I usually don’t stop until the words do or my body tells me I need a rest.”
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“So you do listen to your body?”
She gave him a small smile. “Eventually. I once gave myself a…ahh, actually, you don’t need to know that.”
He stopped himself from insisting that she tell him. Not his sub. Not his responsibility.
“Think you need to listen to your body a bit earlier, girl. Before you turn into a human popsicle. It’s not good to work so late at night. Your body needs rest.”
“I had to finish what I was doing.”
“Uh-huh. What do you write?”
“Romance.”
“Guess you believe in happy-ever-afters then, huh?”
“Don’t you?” she asked curiously.
“Nope. I don’t think there’s any such thing. Nothing lasts forever.”
“I guess not.” She sounded sad and he immediately felt bad.
“For me, anyway,” he told her. “I’m sure for you it might happen.”
“I’m not looking for, uh, anything.” She attempted to stand again. “I’m tired now, I’m going to bed.”
Way to make things awkward.
“Wait. I, ahh, I didn’t mean to sound dismissive.”
She looked at him. “Some people react oddly when I tell them I’m a romance writer. As though they think romance is a dirty word. Or that I can’t be very good, or I’d write something important like sonnets or something.”
His lips quirked. Shit. He was starting to wonder if he had a tic or something. “Sonnets? Do people still write sonnets?”