Ember frowns and looks as if she’s about to argue with me, but when I place the tray of snacks in the place the laptop onceinhabited, she’s quickly distracted from whatever she was about to say.
Maybe I’ve got this whole period thing under control.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
EMBER
Ithought I was through the worst of the pain when Orion wrapped himself around my back and dutifully held the heat pack against my stomach as we both fell asleep, but I should have known I wasn’t that lucky.
Agony tears through me and tugs me back to the land of the living.
Soft moonlight filters through the window, and I press my eyes closed in an attempt to go back to sleep, but instead, I’m rewarded with another cramp that shoots down my leg, and a whimper escapes despite my attempt to swallow it.
I do my best to extract myself from Orion’s arms, not wanting to wake him up, but his body is too attuned to mine, and he drags me back against him.
“Where are you going?” he murmurs into my hair.
“I need to get some more painkillers,” I say through clenched teeth.
Orion has taken such good care of me since the pain started, and I don’t want him to feel like he has to keep doing so. This is my problem, and one I’m very used to dealing with by myself.
“I’ll get them,” he replies without hesitation.
Before I can argue, he slips out of bed and returns less than a minute later with a bottle of pills and a bottle of water.
This time, I use both, deciding to save him from the horror of taking them dry, and he quickly takes the bottle from me, placing it on the bedside table.
“Do you need your heat pack warmed again?”
I shake my head. “No, I think I’m past that helping at this point.” I flinch as another cramp tears through my abdomen. Jesus, that hurts.
Orion frowns, his body coiled tight as his problem-solving instincts urge him to do something.
This is the problem with the male race. They always want to fix everything, and there are some things that can’t be fixed. Sometimes it’s just a case of waiting it out, and we have to be patient.
He climbs back onto the bed and pulls me into his arms.
I try not to think about how much comfort I get from being held by him. It’s better that I don’t analyze why it is that I feel the safest I’ve ever felt while in the arms of the man who killed my brother.
“You know,” he murmurs against the shell of my ear. “I was reading up on some natural things that can help with cramps.”
I tug my head back and look up at him in the dim light. “You were researching periods?”
He chuckles. “Of course I was. I’ll research anything I need to in order to make sure you’re comfortable, including your period.”
I press my eyes closed and bury my face into his chest. Because that’s not mortifying at all.
“Anyway, I thought I’d see if there’s anything we can do to help ease the worst of the pain, seeing as your heat pack and painkillers only do so much,” he continues. “And I found a couple of other things that might work.”
“Like what?” I ask carefully. I’ve read the pamphlet my doctor gave me when she mentioned there might be more to my pain than just my normal cycle, but I don’t remember it saying anything other than take some Tylenol and ride it out.
“Baths are one, but I think it would probably have a similar effect to the heat pack.”
I nod. “I usually prefer the shower, anyway.”
He hums in understanding. “And then it said orgasms have been shown to be a promising form of pain relief.”
My eyes shoot up to meet his, expecting to find amusement in his eyes because he’s joking, but instead I’m staring up into his deadly serious gaze.
