Metamorphosis

Chapter 26

Eren's room was littered with boxes we were supposed to have unpacked hours ago, but we were too busy spending the better part of our morning lazing around in bed. Under the thick duvet, the only audible sound was our breathing as we pressed our lips together. Eren's hand skimmed over my bare hip, then up along my side, silently urging me to move closer to him. When there was no room left between us, I said, "We've been confined to this bed for hours now. We're supposed to be up and unpacking my things."

"I am up," he responded.

I snorted. "That is not what I mean, and you know it."

"Fine. We'll get up and be productive in a little while. But for now"—he pulled me on top of him and I could feel which part of him was already up and ready to go—"let's stay in bed."

"I have to dance in the cage tonight," I warned him, "so don't even think about getting frisky."

"Frisky? Did you really just say that? Wow. And you say I'm old. Clearly you need to work on your vocabulary game, because right now you're playing at a grandpa level."

"Oh, whatever." I rolled off him and sat up. One glance at my chest confirmed what I already suspected. There was a small patch of hickeys starting from the hollow of my neck and leading down toward my stomach. Armin always told me to keep the love marks to a minimum, but I never had the heart to stop Eren. Plus, truth be told, I liked them quite a bit. "You sure do like giving me hickeys," I said, shooting him a look that held no malice.

Eren crawled to the end of the bed and kissed a mark he'd left on my hipbone. Then he propped his chin on my thigh and looked up at me through the hair that had fallen over his eyes. In this light, his left iris deepened to a rich topaz color while the right one became a bold jade. "Do you not like them?"

"I don't like them at all," I retorted, enjoying his shocked expression before I added, "I love them."

He heaved out a sigh. "Do you like giving me heart attacks?"

"Sorry. I forgot how easy it is to give old men heart attacks."

Before I knew what was happening, he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me down onto the bed. He started tickling my sides, causing me to shriek like a pterodactyl on the loose. I kicked at him.

"Eren, stop!" I yelled through laughter.

"You can't even push off an old man. That's sad."

I tried to roll away from him, but he held me in place without a problem. Him and those damn irresistible arm muscles. "Quit it, you ass!"

"Say please," he said with a smirk on his face.

"If you don't stop, I'm going abstinent."

He froze in place. "You're bluffing."

I sure was, but he didn't have to know that. Now that he'd stopped his assault on my sides, I could afford to look smug. I narrowed my eyes at him. "Try me."

"You should have come with a warning sign. One that says: I am short, sexy, and evil."

"I'm not short. I'm average height."

He bit back laughter and attempted to appear serious when he said, "Of course you are, babe."

"You know what? I'm unpacking." I scooted off the bed and stood up. There was a stack of boxes near his desk. I opened the top one and set to work.

It took a week to pack everything I had stashed away in my studio apartment, and another week to move it all to Eren's place. Although moving was a tedious process, I was too excited to mind. I never thought we would reach this point. Relationships were hard to build, but being with him had become second nature to me. Even when things got bumpy, we worked at the problem together until we figured a way to work it out. I knew things would only get harder with time, but there was no one else I wanted to fight for.