Free Watercolour Smile by Jane Washington Page B

up, meeting his stormy eyes, and he turned, pushing me lightly so that I fell back against the bed, my hands leaving him.
    “Stay right there.” He pointed at me, and then disappeared into my closet.
    He came back with a thin scarf, and Cabe took one look at it before springing into action. He swooped me into his arms and positioned me back on the pillows, capturing my wrists and raising them above my head.
    “This is for your own good,” he whispered as Noah kneeled on the bed next to me. “Don’t hate us in the morning.”
    Noah looped the scarf lightly around my wrists and then tied it off against the headboard behind me. I leaned back, trying to tip my head back far enough to watch. The blood in my veins was singing from their proximity, the itching completely muted, and I didn’t really care what they did anymore, as long as they kept close to me. When Noah was finished, Cabe released me and they both sat back to look at me. I tried to move toward them, but the scarf caught my wrists and held me back. It wasn’t painful, but it was frustrating. An annoyed sound left my throat.
    “Is it just me—” Noah’s voice sounded dazed—“or is this even worse?”
    His head was tilted to the side and his eyes were alight with turbulence. Cabe glanced at him and then back at me, his eyes trailing up to the scarf and then leisurely moving back down my arms to my face, before flitting lower.
    “Much worse.”
    I tried to sit forward again, and Cabe finally took pity on me. He pulled the blanket out from under my legs and pulled it over me, lying to my right on the outside. It wasn’t the kind of closeness that I needed, but then Noah settled on my other side, and their warmth gradually seeped through the layers to settle the yearning beneath my skin. I sighed, huffed, and then sighed again, shifting around to get comfortable.
    “Stop wriggling,” Noah said.
    I didn’t reply, because I didn’t want anything to come out of my mouth that I wouldn’t usually say. Instead, I kept shifting around, the burning need to be close to my pair not allowing me to settle.
    “We should get under the blankets,” Cabe pondered. “She’s tied up, what’s the worst she can do?”
    “I’d rather not find out.” Noah’s profile was dark, but I gathered that he was staring at the ceiling. I huffed again, trying to kick at the blankets. He turned to the side, his eyes catching mine. “At least she isn’t crying.”
    “I’m still here ,” I grated out, surprised that my teeth were pressed so tightly together.
    “She slept in Miro’s lap, that one time.” This was Cabe, and I turned my head the other way, finding him half-bent over me, his eyes focussed on my face. “Is that what you want?”
    I nodded, and he seemed to consider me for a long time before he pulled back the cover and slid in beside me, turning me on my side and pressing the length of his body against my back. His arm looped over me to rest on the bed between me and Noah, his fingers curled into a loose fist.
    “Better?” he asked brusquely.
    I seemed to have floated off into a pleasant trance, and I didn’t even answer him. I closed my eyes and drifted almost immediately off to sleep. Maybe this was the trick , was my last conscious thought. Catch the strain before it gets too difficult, and you won’t shame yourself beyond repair .
    I woke when the door banged opened and someone laughed. I groggily blinked open my eyes and glared at Clarin. He plopped onto the end of the bed and captured my feet in his hands, tickling my soles lightly through the blanket.
    “What do we have here?” he teased. “Did saintly little Seph have a visitor last night?”
    I made to move, but my hands were still tied up, my face flushed bright with mortification. Noah and Cabe seemed to have disappeared.
    “Umm…” I tucked my face against my arm, trying desperately to think of a reasonable excuse.
    He yanked the blankets away from me, eyeing my clothes. “You don’t