Leaving me alone with a passed-out Henry Cohen.
I stole a long, studious glance down his impressive body before I swallowed again and focused back on his face. He stared up at me with glassy eyes, one hand on his chest, his other hanging off the sunbed, limp.
“Hey.” I smiled, deciding being nice to him now would probably do more good than us being archenemies. We had a mountain to climb together, and the last thing I needed was him making this more difficult than it needed to be. I leaned over his body, moving closer to make sure he could hear what I had to say until our faces were only inches apart. “We should really try getting you up?—”
“Bee like the bee,” he whispered.
“Pardon?”
“You should have just left me,” he pushed out, his lips barely moving and his voice impossibly deep.
“Is that what you’re used to? People leaving you in this state?”
“Pretty much.”
“You shouldn’t push everyone away, then.”
“Whatever. You don’t know me.”
“You’re right; I don’t. Luckily for you, though, I’m not like other people, so here I am.”
“Lucky,” he huffed out, followed by a small groan in the back of his throat. “Sure.”
I scowled, seeing something I never expected to see in his eyes and hearing it in his voice: vulnerability. It made him look completely different than he had for the last few days. I wanted to dig deeper, find out who the hell really laid beneath his brooding, hard exterior, but now wasn’t the time, and that certainly wasn’t my job for the night.
Or tomorrow.
Or ever, in fact.
The only thing I’d committed to was getting him to bed safely. Me… a tiny woman compared to this giant of a man.
I hadn’t thought this through.
“How much have you had to drink? Can you sit up?”
“Like Jace said, I’m drunk, not dead.”
“Okay, smart arse. Do it, then.”
“Are you telling me what to do?” He groaned in the back of his throat, almost seductively, and I imagined it to be the kind of sound he’d make while in the throes of passion with a woman who excited him.
“What if I was?” I challenged.
He blinked several times before he sucked in a breath that inflated every muscle in his chest, only to blow it back out a second later. “I may be able to work with that.”
“I can be bossy, Cohen,” I said with a half-smile. “Be careful what you wish for.”
“Don’t.”
“Be bossy?”
“Call me Cohen.”
I frowned and searched his eyes. “I thought that’s what your friends called you.”
“You know I prefer it when you call me Henry.”
“Because I’m not your friend?”
