CH.12

I got out of bed slowly the following morning. No one jolted me awake this time, but the rumbling of my stomach was loud enough to shake the graves of the recently deceased.

I rolled over groggily and instinctively reached out across the sheets, expecting to find Karl's solid warmth lying next to me. However, my questing hand met only cool, crumpled fabric. His side of the bed was empty, with a lingering trace of his cologne being the only evidence he had been there at all.

I let out a long, resigned sigh. Of course, he was already up and about. The man seemed to run on a perpetually efficient internal clock, rising with the sun no matter how late we had been up carrying on our activities the night before.

My rebellious stomach let out another insistent growl. So much for trying to catch a few more winks of sleep!

I finally surrendered to the demands of my hunger and threw off the cozy warmth of the downy duvet, exposing my bare legs to the cool morning air.

I padded across t