Stoned on narcotics, Dain seemed to completely forget about all his reticence with his body. I'd expected it to go the other way – that the long lessons of his life would be so deeply ingrained that he would stop using his wing-arms at all – but apparently he'd carved out a place for himself in his own heart, and not using his wing-arms was only an inhibition. He was extremely cuddly and physical, though he never trespassed over the edge into romance or sex. But once he wasn't freaking out and constantly upset, he definitely wanted to be touching me at all times.

That was fine. I had plenty of cuddly friends, and late-night heaps of people giving each other head-rubs and massages had been a part of my life since high school. Dain wanted to be all up in my space, and I was happy to be all up in his in return. He combed my hair with the claws of his wing-hands, wrapped his powerful tails around my legs, and held me in a wide variety of limb configurations, including sprawling across me with one leg wrapped around mine, a tail around my ankle, both wing-arms under my shoulders, and one hand interlaced with mine over my head.

Only the pillows make this position at all comfortable, I reflected with some amusement as Crown Prince Sundamar drooled in his sleep, directly onto my bare shoulder. He was heavy and warm enough to make me sweat, even though I'd abandoned the sweatshirt. It was like being under a weighted blanket in the summer, but I wasn't going to wake him up to make him move. Even if he woke up on his own, I wasn't going to make him move. He was hurting and he'd put himself willingly into my care, trusting me to make sure he didn't get hurt while his brain wasn't functioning at full capacity. Dain got to have anything that made him feel better, even if that was dumping his powerful self on top of me like a sack of potatoes.

He made a small noise of discomfort and smacked his mouth a few times, then burrowed his face against me again. I had reason to be glad that he'd lost half his left horn in some battle or another; if it had been full length, I would have been sorely at risk of getting my eye put out by it. With a smile, I wrapped my arm across his shoulders, resting my forearm against the gleaming black length of his top back-spike, and started rubbing my fingers against the back of his head.

Dain groaned with pleasure, tilting his head back against my fingers. His body stayed exactly as relaxed as it had been while he was asleep, a loose sprawl of man wrapped around me with the affection of a tree python wrapped around a branch.

"Morning, sunshine," I drawled to him, keeping my cadence slow and gentle. "How was your nap?"