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For a few disorienting seconds, Cormoran thought he was still dreaming.
Taking quick stock of the situation, however, made it clear he was very much awake. He was on Nick and Ilsa's couch, for one thing, which was decent enough but in general much less comfortable than their spare bed. His stump ached, which was what usually happened when he fell asleep without taking his leg off. Even worse, he was painfully sober at a time of night (technically morning, at this point) that left far too much room for the kind of thoughts alcohol had been invented for in the first place. Dreams, even his, wouldn't bother with any of that.
Cormoran wasn't even confused about how he'd gotten here. He'd lingered after the curry and beer, staying up talking with Robin even after Nick and Ilsa had turned in for the night. She'd been too kind to kick him out, even when the conversation lapsed into the kind of warm, companionable silence he'd never quite managed with anyone else, and it made sense he'd have fallen asleep on the couch. If she'd left him to wake up with a blanket tucked around his shoulders, it would have been a fairly decent start to the morning.
He had not, in fact, woken up with a blanket.
Instead, his first conscious thought had been the softness of Robin's hair against his cheek and the scent of her in his nostrils. She was tucked up all along his side, the heat of her bleeding into him like fire on a freezing cold night. Her hand was resting ever so lightly against the side of his stomach, fingers curled a little in the fabric of his shirt, and he had to firmly stop himself from reading anything into the fact that her hand had turned to reach out for him instead of inward like would have been more natural. He wasn't a mooney-eyed 12-year-old, for fuck's sake.
Besides, he knew damn well it was just an accident. He couldn't imagine she'd fallen asleep like this – and no possible way he would have fallen asleep while any of this was happening – which meant she must have found her way here sometime in the middle of the night. He hoped like hell she hadn't been dreaming about Matthew when she'd done it, but he knew as well as anyone what it was like to adjust to not having a familiar body next to you in bed anymore. Whether or not she'd been thinking of her ex-husband when she'd snuggled against him, this didn't mean anything.
Still, he didn't move. He was wide awake now, entire body thrumming with enough adrenaline that falling back asleep was impossible, but he was careful not to shift even a centimeter. He tried not to even breathe, on the off chance some slight movement from him would be enough to wake up Robin and end the moment. He'd lose it at some point, no matter what he wanted, but it wouldn't be because of something he did.
As if the universe had heard the thought, he felt Robin shift and go still. Too still, like she was the one who'd stopped breathing, and Cormoran knew the next few seconds would involve her jerking away with a flustered apology. He'd have exactly that long to come up with his own excuse for why he was awake and hadn't moved, then sell it well enough for her to ignore whatever she saw in his face.
Unless... He made himself start breathing again, slow and steady like he would if he was still asleep. It wasn't long before he heard Robin start to breathe normally again as well, a sure sign she was about to pull away and shake him awake. He braced for it, telling himself it was better this way. They could just pretend it never happened.
He was so busy bracing himself that it took longer than it should have to realize Robin wasn't moving. Her fingers were no longer curled in his shirt, but her hand hadn't moved away from his stomach at all. She was still tucked up against his side, head resting against his shoulder like it belonged there, and as time stretched on Cormoran's chest tightened like a fist around his heart. He told himself he must have been wrong, that she hadn't actually woken up. That there wasn't anything at all unusual about this.
That there was no reason to hope.
Then her thumb started moving, gently stroking back and forth along his stomach, and his ability to think about anything beyond that simple fact vanished completely. There was nothing inherently sexual about it, but the almost painful intimacy of the gesture made something deep inside him roar with hunger. He couldn't have drawn a full breath even if he'd wanted to, heart pounding so hard against his ribs he was amazed she couldn't hear it.
She had to know he was awake now. Not even a blind man would miss it, and yet her thumb continued to stroke gently as if she touched him like that every day. As if he had the permission to touch her like that.
The roar inside him demanded that he kiss her, but there were too many things he didn't know yet. Too many things that could still be broken. He'd read her reaction at the wedding painfully wrong, and if he let himself make another mistake like that he was pretty sure it would kill him.
Throat tight, his hand moved to cover Robin's. Her thumb stopped immediately, every inch of her tense like she was preparing for the worst, but even then she didn't jerk her hand away. When he slid his fingers between hers, curling them down so their hands were laced together, he heard her swallow.
Opening his eyes, Cormoran took a deep breath.
000
Robin was certain she'd fallen asleep with a perfectly reasonable amount of space between her and Cormoran, but she wasn't surprised that her sleeping self had clearly been annoyed by that fact. Since her waking self had been shaving down what qualified as reasonable space between her and Cormoran since the moment she'd met the man, she was hardly in a position to complain.
But this... she almost wished she didn't know what this really felt like. He was warm in a way that made her wonder if she'd ever really been warm before this, the kind of velvety deep heat that sinks all the way down to your bones. The scent she'd gotten hints of before this filled her nose, spicy and very him, and the big, solid weight of him was wrapped in a layer of softness that just begged to be cuddled. She started to burrow in closer without meaning to, already prepared to drift back to sleep and let—
Cormoran wasn't asleep.
She froze as half-awake instincts finally processed his breathing was off, the too-quiet hesitation that was the hallmark of an amateur trying to fake sleep. He must have just woken up and processed the fact that they were both cuddling, which meant he was busy trying to figure out a polite way to slip out of the situation. The polite thing for her to do would be to wake up, or at least pretend to shift in her sleep enough that he could leave without any trouble.
But she didn't move. Far more importantly, neither did he. His breathing actually slowed back down into a rhythm that sounded far more like genuine sleep, enough that he must not have been the amateur she'd originally assumed. She almost might have thought he'd genuinely fallen back asleep, if not for the subtle tension she could still feel in his body.
He still wasn't moving. Maybe he was trying to make it easier for her to move, but surely he'd realize at some point that she wasn't going to. Cormoran was far kinder than many people seemed to realize, but even his patience had to have an end.
But as the minutes ticked by, he stayed cuddled in against her side like he belonged there. Like they'd spent so many nights together their bodies knew all the ways they fit, each nestling perfectly against the other no matter what the circumstances were. She'd spent years with Matt, on some of the softest, most expensive beds they could afford, and not one of those nights had felt half as right as sleeping fully clothed next to Cormoran on a couch.
If he didn't pull away now, she was never going to be able to let him go. But she hated the thought of leaving first – there was no more reason to hurt herself like that – and the thought of pushing him away was unbearable. But this... this was making her hope, and there was nothing that hurt worse than that.
Maybe there was a way...
Slowly, carefully, she started stroking her thumb back and forth against his stomach. It was an incredibly intimate gesture for being so small, a celebration of the fact that you're touching a particular person. She'd barely ever done it to Matt, but with Cormoran it was a constant temptation. It was one of the reasons she'd always been so careful about not touching him.
Letting herself do it now was a calculated risk. If he was staying out of politeness, or awkwardness, this would be enough to make him leave. She would fake sleep, he would be careful not to mention it, and they would both never speak about it again.
But if he stayed...
Robin felt his entire body react to the touch, and it wasn't long before his hand reached up and covered hers. She froze, suddenly afraid that she'd guessed wrong and he was going to try and let her down gently. If he tried that, she was the one who would get up and pretend none of this had happened.
But instead of pulling her hand away, he threaded his fingers through hers. Then he curled them in, lacing their hands together more firmly, and left them both resting against his stomach like he had no plans to move them. Robin's throat tightened, and she swallowed against the sudden sting of tears in her eyes.
She heard him take a deep breath. "I need you to be really sure about what this is," he said quietly, voice rough with emotion. "Because if I get all of you, then lose that..."
The words trailed off, but Robin understood everything he wasn't saying. Her heart clenched painfully, all the feelings she'd carefully locked away for so long finally rising up to take their rightful place. She let out an unsteady breath, hand tightening on Cormoran's.
"Being with you always made me so happy," she said finally, the words thick. "But I spent so many years lying to myself about what love felt like that I didn't really understand until the wedding. You were in the middle of this careful little life I'd built up, and you..." Her eyes filled, remembering. "You were the only thing I wanted."
She lifted her head to look at him, only to find him already looking at her. They were only a few breaths apart, the entire world shining in his eyes, and Robin's heart swelled with such a sharp, sweet joy that it felt like there was actual light inside her. "You were everything I wanted," she whispered. "But you weren't actually mine."
His expression was tender as a touch. "Yeah, I was."
The moment their lips met, she turned liquid. She let go only long enough to pull him closer, both of them moving to eliminate as much air between them as possible. She wanted to melt into him until there was nothing left but heat and this impossible sweetness, their hearts beating together like they existed in the same chest.
She pulled his shirt up out of his pants, needing skin, and when Cormoran did the same his palm burned like a brand against her waist. It was incredible but not nearly enough, and she made herself break the kiss long enough to press her lips against his skin. "I feel like we should move this into the bedroom," she breathed. "Interested?"
"Very." His grip on her tightened. "Just let me figure out how to let go of you long enough to move."
She smiled, lips skimming along his jawline. Dreams were nothing compared to this. "No rush."