Chapter Thirty Nine

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39. One Eye Open

'i have late night conversations
with the moon;
he tells me about the sun,
and i tell him about you.'
-s.l. gray

 gray

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She drifted in and out of sleep for a few hours, the soft afternoon sun warming her skin and coaxing her back into a dreamless state every time her brain insisted it was time to wake up. She couldn't remember when she initially fell asleep, though her last memory was of the grumbling vibration of Daryl's voice in his chest as she laid her head against it.

They had shifted during their nap, and she now lay on her stomach facing away from him, the thin sheet pulled away to bare her back. She could feel him watching her, sensed that he was awake but she couldn't bring herself to open her eyes just yet.

His skin found hers, his fingers tracing softly across her shoulder blades and down her spine, little patterns that she couldn't make sense of left a trail of goosebumps in their path. If he didn't know she was awake before, her quickening breaths were sure to give her away. Though she wanted more than anything to turn around and see his face, accepting the reality of being awake was like accepting they'd have to return to the real world; and she was unwilling to pop the fuzzy little bubble they'd created in her bedroom.

  But reality will always come for you sooner or later.

He refused to let her feign sleep any longer, bringing his face to her level and brushing his lips against the sensitive skin on her back. His stubble tickled and she flinched, flipping over to face him. Every time she saw his face, he was more and more beautiful. The blue fire blazing in his eyes, the sharp cut of his jaw and cheekbones, the long dark hair hanging to his broad shoulders.

"You're beautiful," she murmured, not really realizing she was speaking at all. He scoffed and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her up close to him.

"I think you need some more sleep, Ace," he breathed into her mouth, softly brushing against her in a tender kiss. The feeling of his lips on her own brought an onslaught of memories, hands roaming every inch of her, the wet trail his tongue left from her collarbone to her jaw, his fingers gripping the hair at the base of her head, the satisfying stretch deep in her pelvis as her body accommodated his.

  She blushed at the images racing through her mind and smiled, clutching his shirt to pull him deeper into the kiss. Shirt? Why is he dressed? She hated that she didn't notice him leave her, but he was always better at keeping quiet and sneaking around.

"How long have you been awake?" She sat up straight against the headboard, pulling the sheet over to cover her breasts, though she wasn't really sure why. She'd been naked in front of other people plenty of times, but somehow this was different. She was naked in front of someone who truly saw her, for everything that she was. Someone with a gaze so intense it felt like it could sear into her very soul, stripping the skin and flesh until she was nothing but a lump on the ground. She looked out the window to see the sun was lower than she expected and she grimaced, turning back to meet that burning gaze.

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