From the Ashes

[32] The Wolves Never Stay at Bay

His voice is quiet, deep.

My sleepy heart flutters at that voice, and I feel a hand on my shoulder.

“Thought so,” his voice murmurs in a whisper, at my cold skin. His hand is gloriously warm.

“Do you have extra blankets here?” I croak. His form shifts in the dark, and my blankets are lifted off of my lap in a startling rush of cold air. I give a curse as I reach to replace them, finding Roman’s hand as he crawls under the blankets beside me.

“Here, Thea,” he whispers, and my heart warms at the nickname. I find his body in the dark, and discover he’s shirtless.

“You’re emanating heat,” I say with a chattering jaw, and my hands fall onto his forearms. He chuckles in the dark as he pulls me in to lie against him. My face flushes as my meagerly clothed torso presses against his warm, bare skin, his arm sliding underneath me to hold me tight. I feel his large hand press gently against the small of my back, through my thin tank top. Gingerly, I slip my arms underneath his to carefully hold onto his lower back. The muscles beneath are strong, and tight.

“What are you doing here, Rome?” I whisper to him, tilting my head up to murmur the words drowsily into his neck. His free hand pulls the blankets up snugly around my jaw.

“Taking care of you,” he whispers simply as the hand moves to trail the fingers across the length of my face. I gingerly shift my legs to wrap around one of his, and our bodies move so that he’s slightly on top of me. He doesn’t protest at the gesture. Our hips rest against each other’s, and Roman places his warm hand against my air-cooled cheek.

“There’s just a cold front moving in from the north,” he murmurs, “Brought down by the rain. It’s pretty cold tonight, I know how much you hate that.”

His presence wakes me rather than sends me off to sleep, and my heart pounds harder the more lucid I get. But this time... It’s not a nervous, light-headed pound, like I’m used to.

It’s warm.

It’s comfortable, perfect, right. Swelling in happiness rather than pounding with nerves.

I think this is the most content I’ve ever been to be in Roman’s arms in this way. His chest rumbles with a soft chuckle.

“We’ve done this once before, but you probably don’t remember it very well,” he tells me softly. I return the thought with a quiet giggle.

“You’re right about that one. What exactly happened, I never got the play-by-play. You just tried to trick me into thinking we had sex.”

Roman’s forehead falls onto mine as he laughs softly.

“You believed me, at first.”

“Yeah, yeah. That was the worst-case-scenario in my mind. Now what actually happened?” I asked.

“Well,” he began in a gentle voice, “I held you like this. And you clutched onto me the entire night. I checked on you whenever I would wake up, kept you warm, kept you comfortable. Took care of you.” The metal of his snakebites brush coolly against the skin of my forehead as he tilts his head down. With my face in his neck, I inhale the sweet scent of his still-damp hair.

“So... Is now a good time to say... thank you?” I ask with a chuckle, my hands sliding up his warm back. He chuckles right back.

“Better late than never, I suppose.” His free hand shifts underneath the blankets, and he slowly caresses the skin on my arm, his touch soothingly warm.

“Thank you for coming in here tonight,” I whisper, “I was really miserable.”

“Of course. If you ever need anything, you know I’m right across the hall.” I nod against him.