Chapter 36: Burrow In
WINTER TERM - January 27th
I woke to the sound of crunching.
Whisper was chewing on animal crackers, muzzle hovering over the pillow beside my ear. Crumbs clung to his jowls. Gross. But also kind of cute. Mostly gross.
I couldn’t really move. It was late morning. Aries’s room was bright, sunwarmed despite the season. And Aries lay draped with his head on my chest, slack jawed, breath damp and easy. A line of cold drool running down the side of my ribs. The sleep-dead weight of him pinned me to the mattress. I should have minded.
I didn’t.
I’d never really been into this kind of thing- cuddling, sharing pillows, the sticky press of skin on skin. I mean, it’s not like Ianthe was exactly the warm-and-fuzzy type, even in the days back when I still sought out her touch. But Aries?
He clung to me in sleep like he was trying to burrow his way under my skin.
There wasn’t enough space for it, not in this bed. He’d started the night close and only dug in closer. So much so, that on the bare part of the mattress, Whisper had climbed up in the middle of the night to stake out his own territory as well. Puppy spine stretched long against my hip.
Aries had only wanted me to hold him. And I woke, arms still clasped across his back. Still holding on.
I might have been stuck. I had nowhere better to be.
But at least right then, I didn’t want to get up.
It was a better view than I’d ever had through the scrying glass anyway. There was his lips, soft, kiss-swollen. His breath was warm and steady against my collarbone. His heartbeat pressed so close it could have been my own, so stubbornly mortal. And yeah, his dick prodded into my thigh - but even that was its own quiet comfort.