Chapter 7

The first thing I registered was the weight of him. It wasn’t heavy, not physically, but it was absolute. A solid, warm anchor pinning me to the mattress, my body curled into the curve of his chest. The air in the room was still thick with the scent of our night—musk, sweat, and the faint, metallic tang of the studio lights that seemed to linger in our skin even after we had stumbled back to the hotel suite hours ago. Or maybe it wasn’t the hotel. Maybe it was just the edge of the convention center where we’d crashed on a pile of leftover foam pads and backdrop stands, too exhausted and too wired to separate. It didn’t matter now. The morning light filtered through the heavy velvet curtains, casting long, dusty beams across the rumpled sheets, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the silence. I opened my eyes slowly, blinking against the soft glow. He was already awake. I could feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath my cheek, the steady, rhythmic thrum of his heart against my ear. His arm was draped over my waist, possessive and heavy, his fingers tracing idle patterns on my hip