Page 35 of Swerve (Boosted Hearts 1)

A voice that I had heard first thing in the morning, more times than I could even count.

I jerked and twisted, then let out a cry of pain. I was stiff in the mornings and until I got up and moved around, the aches and pains were worse.

Strong hands landed on my hips and held me in place. “What part of ‘keep still’ don’t you understand?”

He was behind me, right behind me. I could feel every inch of him. I turned to look at him, more carefully this time. Shit. I blinked at him, jammed in Josh’s tiny twin bed with me, eyes heavy, full lips relaxed instead of held in the grim line they were always in for . . . hell, too long to remember. Well, when he looked at me, anyway. I opened my mouth, closed it again, then I did a sweep of his body, the parts I could see, anyway.

He was bare chested, one of those wide, long-fingered hands still curled around my hip. I didn’t mean to, but my eyes dipped lower to his abs. Abs that looked cut from marble. Beautiful dark skin, smooth and lickable. His fingers tightened on my hip, snapping my attention back to him.

His green eyes looked darker now.

“How you feeling this morning?” he asked.

How am I feeling? Had I somehow been transported back in time? Back when waking up next to Neco had been the norm instead of the exception. Before I’d started seeing him differently. To a time when the last thing I’d be doing while lying beside him was fantasizing about sliding down his body and tracing those chiseled abs with my tongue.

I tried to form a reply, but all I could focus on was his hand still on my hip, the heat radiating from his palm, making the skin underneath tingle.

“Ruby?” he said, voice even huskier. “You feeling okay?”

“You’re in my bed,” I said instead. What was going on here? What the hell was he thinking?

“I’m aware.”

Jesus. “Okay. Let me rephrase. Why are you in my bed?”

His gaze moved over my face, lingering on my mouth, then locked back onto my eyes. “Told you I wasn’t going anywhere.”

What he’d said to me at the hospital.

I stared at him. He stared back.

My pulse sped up.

Josh squealed out in the living room then burst out laughing. It was enough to jolt me out of my Neco daze. I don’t know how he did it, but I turned into an imbecile whenever he was within five feet of me. You’d think after all these years, I could keep my shit together around him, and yeah, sometimes I could pull it off. But lying in the same bed as him—full grown, super-sized, manly man Neco? Forget it. I was trying to remember how to breathe, let alone string a coherent sentence together.

I mentally shook the shit out of myself.

This was worse than I thought. He really was beating himself up over what happened. So much so, he was trying to keep to some throwaway promise he’d made to me in the hospital. Treating me like the scared, lost little girl I used to be. The little girl who had hated sleeping alone. I could hear Lulu and Hunter moving around now. I needed to get up. I also needed to somehow make it clear to Neco that he didn’t need to do this. Not only for my own damn sanity, but because what had happened to me wasn’t his fault.

“How did you get in here? Does Hunter know you’re here?” I asked instead.

“He knows I’m here.”

His finger moved and I froze. Shit. Shit. Shit. I’d shoved off my sweat pants last night, which only occurred to me this second, the realization like a slap upside the head when the tip of his pinkie finger grazed my bare skin. I was lying here, beside Neco, in my panties, an old T-shirt—and nothing else. My nerve endings sizzled and snapped and I sucked in a sharp breath. The tip of that rough-skinned finger moved again, slid one way, then back, eyes still ensnaring mine.

“Morning,” he said, low, all husky and rough.

Good freaking God.

He didn’t even need to try and he turned me into a puddle of over-excited hormones.

“People generally do the good morning thing first,” I said, babbling, trying to eliminate the intimacy of this whole crazy moment. “Before they say anything else.”

He shrugged. “I’m saying it now.” Another swipe of that fingertip. “How’d you sleep?”

Better than I had in a very long time. “I . . .” I cleared my throat. “I should . . . I need to pee.”

His brow lifted.