Erica

“Thanks for putting me in bed last night,” I said, watching the swift line of his throat as he yawned again.

He grumbled, “Uh–huh,” as he rolled his shoulders before slipping his arms beneath the covers again.

“And for giving me a massage.” I had already tried moving my legs, and sure they were sore, but I knew how much worse they could be. I’d done everything I was supposed to do to help prevent the stiffness, but there was only so much a body that wasn’t 100 percent to begin with could handle.

“There wasn’t much to massage.”

Uh. “What’s the supposed to mean?”

“I have more muscles in my glutes than you have in your thighs.”

Anyone who had seen Aiden’s ass would know that was a fact, so I wasn’t going to take it personally. Maybe because I was still so sleepy, I raised my eyebrows at him and said, “Have you seen your butt? That’s not an insult. It has more muscles in it than most people have all over their bodies.”

His own thick eyebrows rose about a millimeter, just slightly but enough for me to notice. “I didn’t know you paid that much attention to it.”

“Why do you think you have so many female fans?”

Aiden let out another low groan, but he didn’t tell me to stop.

“You could raise a small fortune if you ever auctioned off the chance for a person to take a—”

“Vanessa!” Mr. Proper reached over to throw a hand over my mouth, like he was shocked.

That big hand literally covered me from ear to ear, and I burst out laughing though it was muffled.

“You make me feel cheap,” he said as he slowly pulled his hand away, but the shine in his eyes said he didn’t really mind it that much.

I stretched my own limbs with a yawn. “I’m just telling you what anyone else would.”

“No, no one else would ever say that to me.”

So he had a point. “Well, I’ll tell you the truth then.”

He made this noise that had me rolling to face him again. “You always have”
― Mariana Zapata, The Wall of Winnipeg and Me