It takes him a full half-hour to make up his mind.

Partly because he had frozen in place from the nip on his earlobe and he had spent a full minute staring at the space where she had been. Partly because he spent some time pacing the room and trying to go back to his room.

But it was a lost cause when he found himself reading but unable to focus on the words at all. With a sigh, he had put the book down and made his way to her room: to give her hell for interrupting his reading time, of course.