FIFTEEN
After a few minutes of wiggling,I finally got Rocco to wake up. His eyes were bleary, and exhausted, and I felt bad for making him get up immediately afterward.
“Let me grab some food, you can head up to bed,” I told him, squeezing his hand.
“I’m supposed to be feeding you,” Rocco mumbled, attempting to stand up. He stumbled and I ducked under his arm, grabbing him around the waist. His arm draped over my shoulders. “Thanks.”
“Yep.” I helped him over to the barstools and sat him down.
My stomach rumbled.
“I’ll grab food really quick, and then help you up the stairs. You hungry?”
He shook his head that he wasn’t, but his eyes tracked me to the fridge, so I figured he really was hungry.
Getting two plates together only took two minutes thanks to the casseroles someone had left in the fridge. Rocco carried one of the plates as we walked up the stairs, his arm over my shoulder and mine around his waist again.
I’d been planning on sleeping on the couch, but Rocco had said he’d drag it into his room. That clearly hadn’t happened, which left me two options:
The bed, or the floor.
Rocco and I sat down on the edge of the mattress, and we ate in comfortable silence. I was kind of shocked by how much food I could eat since I’d become a werewolf, but there never seemed to be a lack of food when I was in Rocco’s place or with the pack, so it didn’t seem like a huge deal.
When we were done, we stacked our empty plates next to the bed, and Rocco scooted backward, sticking those sexy legs of his under the blanket and tugging his shirt over his head, tossing it to the floor.
I tried not to stare and/or drool at the bare muscles he exposed in the process, because hot damn, they didn’t lead me to want to be platonic mates.
“I’ll bring the couch up tomorrow,” Rocco mumbled, his eyes closed and his body so relaxed that he was clearly almost asleep. “Just sleep here tonight. You can build a pillow wall to keep me away.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not building a pillow wall.” Grabbing a pillow, I stepped away from the bed. “The ground’s fine. Go to sleep.”
Rocco’s pretty face twisted in a scowl. Instead of arguing, though, he rolled right off the bed and plopped down on the floor right next to me.
I blinked.
“I’m not letting my mate sleep on the floor alone,” he grumbled to me. “We’ll sleep on the bed together, or on the floor together.”
Sighing, I said, “Stubborn bastard.”
“I know you mean that with so much love,” Rocco mumbled. “All the love.”
I snorted. “Right.”
He remained on the floor, and I glanced at the mattress.
It wouldn’t really hurt anything for us to share a bed. I mean, he already knew that I only wanted us to be friends. Or at least that I was only going to let myself be friends with him.
Even if we ended up snuggling a bit, it wouldn’t really hurt anything, would it? I’d snuggled his wolf every night for months, and it hadn’t affected either of us negatively.
So… mattress it was, I supposed.
“Alright, get back in bed,” I grumbled at Rocco.
His lips curved up into a sleepy smile that made me hot in all the wrong places for a platonic cuddling session.
He wordlessly climbed back up onto the mattress, and I reluctantly joined him.
Rocco stuck to the far side of the bed, giving me plenty of space. I got comfortable, and stared up at the ceiling.