When I opened my eyes next it was still pitch black in the room. No pale light from the dawn was streaming through the partially closed curtains, so I had no idea how long I had been asleep. I knew immediately what had woken me up though—I was too warm. Specifically, the body currently pressed up against me with its arm slung over my middle was too warm. Pumping heat out like a furnace, I felt Gabe curled up behind me on the bed, knees tucked behind mine and something very firm pressing into my butt.

Oh my God.

My heart pounded with fear, not because I thought that Gabe would try to do something to me without my consent, but because he felt so very comfortable and right with his big body wrapped around mine and I was afraid I would like it too much and do something to embarrass myself. Something like, press my bottom a little more firmly against him, just to feel his hardness pressed more fully against me. Oh shit, stop that you slut! That was a new low, taking advantage of a sleeping man. And he was sleeping, I could tell by his deep, even breathing. Gabe always was a deep sleeper. I remembered from all the times I had to wake him up for school in the morning because his three alarms and own mother yelling at the bottom of the steps weren’t enough to do it.

Well, we weren’t teenagers anymore, and no matter how similar to a fantasy of mine it was, lying in bed with Gabriel Anderson, it was not appropriate. “Gabe, wake up,” I hissed into the darkness. There was no answer, only a tightening of his arm around my middle, which brought his thumb skimming into the underside of my breast, braless under the borrowed t-shirt.

Electric shock.

“Gabriel Anderson, wake the hell up right now,” I said more loudly. A groan sounded from behind me and his sleepy voice registered the bare minimum of wakefulness.

“What? God, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Yes, it is, what are you doing in here?” I know he very well didn’t sleepwalk into the room and snuggle himself up all cozy.

“This is my bed, go to sleep.” That was it. No further explanation.

Before he could drift back off like I could tell he was doing by the cadence of his breathing, I continued, “You fell asleep on the couch, and there have to be other bedrooms in this house, it’s huge.”

“There are,” he grumbled sleepily in my ear before grabbing at my side and pinching. “But this one is mine. It was mine before you crawled in here, poor choice for you not finding a guest room. Now. Go. Back. To. Sleep.”

“Don’t pinch my chub!” It is never acceptable to pinch a woman’s chub, no matter how long you have been friends. I was getting rowdy now, and tried to turn over to give him a piece of my mind but was frozen in place by the feel of him biting down on the soft skin between my neck and shoulders.

Holy shit holy shit, that was hot. I’m pretty sure Gabe growled when he bit me, not too hard, but enough to get my attention. Or maybe it was my lust-filled imagination that heard what I wanted, because I had gone from zero to take me now with just that little nip.

“I will swallow your soul if you do not go back to sleep right now.” I did not imagine the growl, and it was not a request. Clearly I was dreaming. There was no way this was actually happening and I was absolutely not having a sexual awakening in Gabriel Anderson’s bed after fifteen years of not speaking. I must still be in the warehouse, sitting on that ugly loveseat with the bag back over my head. That was it. I was having a delusion.

Ok. That made more sense than what I thought had been going on. Well, if I was only dreaming, then no harm no foul. Gabe’s deep, even breathing tickled the hair at the back of my neck, and before long I felt mine start to mirror his. “What a nice dream,” I said under my breath, as my eyes fluttered closed again. Since I imagined the entire thing, I was sure the soft laughter that rumbled against my back as I drifted back to sleep was all in my head as well.

* * *

The next time I opened my eyes, full sunlight was streaming through the two windows in what was a much larger room than I had remembered from the night before. Uh oh, not a dream. I was sprawled in the middle of a king sized bed, chocolate comforter half hanging off onto the ground. The furniture was large and made of solid wood. There wasn’t much of it besides a dresser, the bed and a couple of nightstands, but there was a partially open closet door against the wall opposite the bed. Through the open door I could see a huge walk in space with the dark silhouettes of suit jackets and shirts hanging in rows.

Well shit, this was Gabe’s bedroom, all right. So it wasn’t a dream.

I was alone in the bed, but I highly doubted I was alone in the house. Padding through the hallway and down in the kitchen, I found Gabe leaning against the counter separating the two rooms with a cup of coffee in his hands, scrolling through something on his phone.

Shirtless. He was shirtless.

He was also wearing the black sweatpants I was supposed to be wearing. The ones I had discarded before falling face first into bed last night. They hung low on his hips, leaving zero to the imagination from just slightly lower than the waist up. That corded v of muscle that was so highly coveted by lust-filled women all over? Yeah, he had those. I couldn’t remember what the proper term was for those, I just called them handles, because I couldn’t stop thinking about what they would feel like under my hands. Also, if he was wearing those particular sweatpants that meant I wasn’t wearing any at all and I cursed myself for being so out of it that I left the bedroom in nothing but a t-shirt. A gigantic t-shirt that hung down to my thighs, but I was still not wearing any pants. Something about being half naked in front of Gabe made me feel vulnerable, and I didn’t like feeling as if he had the upper hand over me at all.

Tearing my eyes away from that bit of skin at his waistband like a guilty peeper, I looked up to find that he had stopped scrolling through his phone and was looking at me with mild curiosity. The corner of his mouth tilted but he didn’t say anything, just watched me to see what I would say. What did he think I was going to say? He had saved me from a kidnapping, spooned me all night, and now we were half dressed in his kitchen. What the hell was there to say?

“Coffee,” I croaked, saying the only word that would sound foreign coming out of my mouth under these circumstances. “Please tell me you have more than just what is in that cup?” It must have been my imagination, but disappointment clouded his dark brown eyes briefly and then our little standoff was over.