Between Heaven and Hell (PA #2)

Chapter Thirty

Willow

I wake up sore and suffocated. It's something I'm growing increasingly accustomed to, and I don't always like it. Really messes with my already limited sleep.

"Ari, quit smothering me," I mumble into my pillow. Without opening my eyes, I pull at the forearm holding my waist hostage. It doesn't budge in the slightest.

My arms are like overcooked noodles, the muscles weakened from the torture session Ragnar calls a workout. I'm too weak for even the likes of Sloth, a man who is not the most physically adept. Because I'm an idiot, I try to force my way out of his constricting arms again. It doesn't work. Again.

His warm breath tickles the sensitive skin behind my ear. "Five more minutes, Low. Let me have this for five more minutes. Please. I need it."

My whole body tenses. I'm disoriented when I crack open my eyelids, straining to make out my surroundings in the thin beam of light streaming from a small window. There's a sense of deja vu, of waking up in unfamiliar places wrapped up in men who have motives I don't pretend to understand.

It takes my brain a minute to catch up to the strangeness of this situation. I'm lying on the stone floor of a forgotten storage room on the uppermost level of the library instead of my own bed. The man currently acting as my personal air conditioning unit is Romeo, not Aristotle.

Romeo, whose voice doesn't carry any raspiness of sleep. I can only assume he's been awake for a while. Awake and just...holding me.

Seeming content with my silence and lack of further escape attempts, Romeo lets out a soft sigh and snuggles deeper into my back. It's a very Aristotle move, but Romeo doesn't pull it off with the same level of finesse. Perhaps that's my own feelings about my former friend clouding my judgment, though.

"Why am I here?" I ask him. It comes out breathy rather than stern.

"Because you belong with me?" he tries. I pinch the skin of his wrist and he chuckles. "Worth a shot. For real, though. We were reading a book together and you fell asleep somewhere between the maid breaking a dish and her billionaire boss making her pay for it on her knees."

His grip tightens, his dick hardening against my butt as he recalls the sex scene that apparently put me to sleep.

"He sounds like a real asshole," I comment with as much levity as possible.

Romeo's distracting me with his touches. Whatever unspoken truce I called last night did not put the green light on all of his subtle seductions. And that's what they are, whether he can help it or not. 

The gentle caress of his fingertips on my hip, the bicep that cradles my head with surprising softness, and the warm air that teases my neck every time he breathes. Not to mention the firm push of his cock against my backside. All of it is designed to make my heart race, and it does.

"You obviously like assholes, Low. Galileo's the biggest one I've ever met, and you smell like him enough to prove you don't mind it that much."

He carries on before I can refute his claim. Which I was totally going to do! I don't like Galileo, but I don't not like him, either. My feelings for Galileo are complicated, to say the least.

"How do you put up with him, anyway? He thinks all humans should be straight-up executed, and even if you're not—"

A choking sound cuts him off. I try to twist around to see him, but he won't let me.

"Are you alright?" I ask when no noise escapes him. "I kinda figured you were biologically programmed against choking. You know, on account of the Lust and all."