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Harrow woke up on her side, halfway pressed into a soft mattress. It was a weight draped over her stomach that pressed her down, and that weight was an arm with, Harrow was pretty sure, too many biceps.
Harrow didn't know anything about arm muscles, or any other kind of muscles.
She did know Gideon Nav's body, at a moment's glance and the slightest touch. And this was Gideon. Lying behind her. Arm slung over Harrow's body. Harrow lay very still and tried to think it was gross.
It was—too warm. Yes. And she could smell Gideon's proximity, which was bad, obviously. And a very strong arm was not attractive. Bones, those were attractive, and there was way too much hard muscle and golden skin and reddish hairs down the forearm in the way to see the shape of Gideon's bones. As bones were the only good thing Gideon had going for her, lying somewhat under her body was clearly not something enjoyable to Harrow. She looked down at the arm as clinically and coldly as she could, trying to activate some part of her brain that would feel disgust for it.
The arm moved, in conjunction with a shift at her back. Not much, more of a flex than anything, but Gideon's arm curled just a little more around Harrow's body, so that Harrow felt those very, very unattractive muscles moving right against the bare skin of her arm and pressing against the thin fabric of her shirt. She could maybe feel something of Gideon touching the back of her head too. Maybe a nose poked into her inch or so of hair.
It felt constricted. And very safe. Not that Harrow had ever wanted Gideon to hold her or keep her safe. Especially not in a way that allowed some of their bare skin to touch. Didn't she care how indecent this was?
After about a minute of lying there like she was dead and trying to hate this, Harrow gave up and rolled over. Her face found itself at the crook of Gideon's neck and shoulder so she stuffed it there, mouth and nose against Gideon's warm skin.
"You awake? Row?"
She didn't understand the question, or rather the nickname tacked onto it, for a moment. God. Was there a universe where Gideon called her Row? Harrow was already a nickname, technically.
It felt nice and Harrow hated it. "No," she said into Gideon's way too muscled shoulder, venomously.
Gideon had the temerity to bark out a laugh, which shook her shoulder and therefore Harrow's body. She turned her face more into Gideon's neck, found an unexpected downiness there. Before she could think better of it, she rubbed her nose against it.
Fantastically misinterpreting this, Gideon wrapped both arms around her, holding Harrow securely against her front. She felt so solid and permanent. A traitorous hand Harrow refused to acknowledge as her own placed itself on Gideon's forearm and moved up it, feeling the soft hair and unevenness of her skin and the firmness of those biceps that Harrow had no reason to want to touch.
"Mm," Gideon said against her head, in a friendly way.
Harrow wanted the hand to keep going. It went into Gideon's hair, finding the bristly-soft undercut and then threading fingers into the thick, short waves. When she curled her fingers into a fist, she had a satisfying grip on Gideon.
"Mm," Gideon said, in a less friendly and more interesting way. She rolled them a little, and Harrow was on her back, less held by Gideon's arms but more covered by her body.
Gideon's mouth on her temples, kissing her. How dare she? Probably she thought she had the right because Harrow had one hand in her hair and another scrabbling at her back like she could bring her any closer. Harrow longed to explain to her, yell at her, that it wasn't Harrow's body doing those things. Except there didn't seem to be any other explanation for why she was doing them. She certainly would have been furious if it was anyone else extricating their legs and clumsily wrapping them around Gideon's waist. And no one else could or should be craning their head up get Gideon's mouth on theirs. That should be illegal, actually.
Oh, fuck. It was her doing this. She complained loudly and inarticulately against Gideon's mouth.
"I know, Row," Gideon said sympathetically, and unhelpfully, because she was also slipping one hand under the hem of Harrow's shirt.
Yeah. This was definitely the worst. Especially Gideon's arms. She hated those. She hoped Gideon was getting that message from the way Harrow had wrapped all her limbs around her.
"Hate you," she said, in a rare moment when Gideon's mouth was elsewhere.
Gideon sucked her mouth away from Harrow's neck with a wet sound, and said consolingly, "Hate you too," which made Harrow feel better enough to start wriggling them around so she could be on top.