What was happening to me?
~ * ~ *
"You gonna make it all the way home?" Dex asked as we made our way out of Pins that night.
The last three hours had been painful for me to get through. Having such a fitful night of sleep the day before on top of the two hours I spent at the YMCA when Dex had dropped me off that afternoon, and then working, had paid a toll on my body. I'd caught myself falling asleep once or twice at my desk.
I nodded at him after waving goodbye to Blake. "Yeah, I'll be okay." At least I hoped so.
He gave me a weary glance like he wasn't entirely convinced I wouldn't fall off the back of his bike halfway to his house. It'd be his fault though. After I'd told him that morning that I wanted to have a swim at the Y, he'd insisted on driving me there and picking me up. It made more sense to me to drive myself there, and then work, but the man was relentless.
He had shit to do at Mayhem like always.
That shit to do was why I found myself back on his bike, bordering on delusional. So I'd blame the fact I was delusional on how I ended up in his bedroom just minutes later.
Yes, in his bed.
It’d been hard enough to keep my arms wrapped around him so that I wouldn’t fall off the bike. Dex’s warm body and the mind numbingly loud roar of his motorcycle were like a potent sleeping pill. It was only an intense fear of falling off and getting run over by a car that kept me hanging onto him for dear life through my drowsiness. The moment he parked in front of his house, my brain stopped working altogether. There weren’t any cars to run me over in his driveway, thank goodness.
I remember Dex pulling me by the hand across the circling driveway, into the house and past the living room before swiftly pushing me into his bedroom and closing the door in my face with an insistent, “You get the bed tonight.”
I wanted to argue with him, I swear I did, but when I pressed my hand to the corner of the mattress and realized it was a Tempurpedic, that thought went right back out. Just one night. At least that’s what I told myself.
Most of my clothes were stripped off, I rinsed out my mouth in his master bath, and stumbled into bed wearing just the tank top I’d worn that day and my panties. Exactly three seconds later, I was dead to the world. Hunger wasn't even a blip on my radar—nothing was.
Until the bed compressed behind me not long after I laid down.
“Dex?” I asked in a sleepy whisper. I was so tired it could have been those masked serial killers I’d been stressing about forever, and I would have stayed in bed regardless.
Something touched my shoulder. A husky voice made a sleepy sigh. “Couch sucks, babe.”
Even though I was tired as hell, I knew that there was something completely inappropriate about sleeping in the same bed as my boss regardless of how hot he was. And that I might have a bit of a—nope, I wasn't going to say it was a crush. That would make me feel like I was sixteen again. I liked him, that simple. How could I not?
I wasn’t even sure if I could really consider Dex a friend, even if I wanted to justify what was going on by saying that friends could sleep on beds together. It took everything in me to roll onto my back and tilt my head over to where he’d laid down on the other side of the mattress.
Besides the times when I'd had to share a bed with Will as kids, and that one time I messed around with my boyfriend a few years back, I'd never even been on the same bed as another guy. God, that made me feel lame.
It took all the baby scraps of will I’d stashed under my nails and tendons to sit up completely, yawning like it was morning time instead of the middle of the night. “I’ll go sleep on the couch then,” was what I told him, although I’m sure it sounded like some mutilated version of it.
His hand draped across my waist in a move that I had no doubt had been practiced many times in his life. “Stay. The bed’s big enough for the both of us,” was his brilliant answer.
It was the truth but still. He was laying in the middle so it defeated the purpose of his comment.
I yawned again. “It's not a good idea.” Once again I’m sure it didn’t sound anything like that out loud.
Dex grumbled, fingers wiggling at the bend of my hip and waist. “Quit bein' a prude and go to sleep, babe.”
If I'd been more awake I would have been offended by being called a prude. Though I kind of was.
I groaned. “Dex.”
“Baby, please. Just go back to sleep. That couch is fuckin’ uncomfortable.”
Dang it!
He made another grumbling noise. “I swear I’m not gonna try to feel you up or anythin', Ritz.“
That notice didn’t exactly make me feel any better. Of course he wouldn't. I was like his... pet dog or something.
“I can just sleep, I swear," he insisted in a yawn.
Eek. Score two for Dex on the not-making-Iris-feel-better scoreboard.
“Babe, c’mon. I promise.”
And it was a Tempurpedic, damn it.
I was a weak sucker. I knew that. Even though I made huffs and puffs as I shuffled back under the covers and rolled further away from Dex, I still didn’t think staying on the same mattress was a good idea. But I did it anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Waking up next to Dex had to be the most awkward experience of my life.
More awkward than the time I'd walked in on yia-yia naked.
Because it wasn't like I opened my eyes facing the wall. I woke up on my belly. Normal, right?
With an elbow digging into my shoulder and a heavy leg thrown over one of mine—not so normal.
It wasn't like there was a boner pressed up against me or anything, but the bodily contact was enough. I straightened out as much as I could before trying to slide out from beneath the limbs pinning me down. I'd barely managed to scoot over about two inches before the leg over mine locked me down.
"What'cha doin'?" Dex's incredibly husky voice asked.
I froze. "Trying to get up."
The weight of his leg lessened as his heel slid up from my ankle to my knee. He had to be sleeping on his back, I figured. "Mmm," he grumbled. The elbow on my shoulder shifted off of me at the same time I heard him yawn. His foot shifted again, the sole coming to rest on the back of my knee before sliding down my calf. Holy moly, that was hot. "What are you wearin', honey?"
Aww crap.
"I'm not wearing pants," I told him, not moving an inch while his warm foot rubbed up my leg again.
All of a sudden, a cool breeze swept over my legs and I peeked over my shoulder to see Dex holding the sheet up, his head tipped down while he looked below it.
Wait a second...
I slapped the sheet down with my hand, half shrieking and for some unknown reason, half laughing. "What the hell are you doing?"
Of the ten different ways he could have answered, Dex chose to laugh. But it wasn't a regular laugh, it was the lightest, most genuine sound I'd ever heard from him. "Checkin' out that ass," he answered breezily.
"Jeez," I groaned, rolling onto my side to face away from him. My shirt didn't cover my upper arms at all, so as long as I kept my arm clamped down he wouldn't be able to see it. Which only meant that I needed to quit testing fate and get the heck out of the room. "That's inappropriate, Dex."
"Who says?" he answered from behind me. I could hear the sheets rustling with his movement.
My brother, I wanted to answer him but seriously? What had ever given me the idea that Dex would do something he didn't want to? Oh, please.
I sighed and sat up on the edge of the bed, facing the wall. My clothes were piled on the floor and I carefully slid my pants up my legs without standing up too much.
"You wanna shower before we get goin'?" Dex's voice carried over from the opposite side of the room.