Chapter Nine
Sabine stared up at the sky and waited to fall asleep.
It was deeply annoying that she was still awake.
She’d even tried counting the stars which were generously scattered overhead, but even that didn’t help.
Usually, she didn’t have any trouble falling asleep.
All she needed was a firm surface, a pillow, and a reasonable amount of silence, and she was out cold in under three minutes.
The only times insomnia ever crept in were after the kind of days that stuck to her—when monitors screamed nonstop, when she’d called time of death with her hands still shaking, then peeled off her gloves and walked straight into the next trauma.
Her worst days were when she’d done everything right but still lost a patient.
This wasn’t one of those nights.
Except... well, Talia was in bed with her. A situation she hadn’t seen coming, even though she’d noticed the lone queen bed taking up most of the deck when they’d arrived.
No wonder she couldn’t sleep. But also, because she couldn’t forget what Talia had said about the whole spooning thing.
Which was why Sabine had positioned herself as far to the edge of the bed without actually plummeting onto the deck.
She kept her arms pinned stiffly to her sides and her legs parallel and straight.
Meanwhile, Talia was taking up space like a house cat.
She had one arm flung out. One knee bent in Sabine’s direction, and her soft snores seemed to take up all the leftover space.
It could only mean one thing. Talia was lying.
Sabine hadn’t spooned her. It was the other way around.
Her comment was a fabrication to get a rise out of her.
That was all. And she knew this was true because Sabine did not spoon people.
She barely even tolerated shared armrests with strangers.
She did, however, tuck her pillow between her arms and legs every night.
She liked pressure. She liked aligning her spine.
Which troubled her immensely. Had she really spooned Talia two nights in a row?
Had she really crawled into the shelter beside her and wrapped her arms around Talia’s waist, tucked her face into the back of her neck, and breathed against her hairline?
Sabine hadn’t actually considered where she slept.
She had simply taken the first empty spot she could find.
Sabine felt sick. She considered standing up for a glass of water, but then Talia muttered so softly, “Are you awake?” that Sabine thought she’d imagined it. Maybe the camera crew hadn’t actually left and were whispering amongst themselves in the shadows of the trees.
“Sabine?” Talia tried again.
Sabine snapped her eyes shut. She could easily pretend she was asleep.
“I can hear your brain,” Talia said louder. The bed creaked, and then Sabine felt a toe against her leg. “And I saw you close your eyes. You’re just pretending to sleep.”
“I’m trying to sleep,” Sabine huffed.
“Well, I can’t sleep either,” Talia muttered and shuffled again.
“You were snoring just a minute ago,” Sabine pointed out.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Well, you were breathing loudly then.”
“Are you one of those people with sensory issues?” Talia asked. “There’s a word for it. Misophobia. Do you have that?”
“It’s pronounced misophonia,” Sabine corrected.
She still had her eyes closed. If she opened them, she’d look at Talia, and she didn’t want to look at her.
She absolutely couldn’t. Not after the very real possibility that she’d groped Talia two nights in a row.
She was right. It was basically sexual harassment.
Talia could report her if she wanted to.
There was more bed creaking and then something that sounded like a rag being beaten against a pole. Then Talia exhaled so loudly that Sabine felt her breath against her cheek.
Sabine couldn’t anymore; she gave up.
She opened her eyes and turned her head just enough to see Talia lying on her side. The pillow was plumped under her head and the duvet was tucked at her armpits. Moonlight slid across her skin, turning it pale and luminous, and caught onto the slope of her collarbone.
Wait. Sabine snapped her head so fast she felt a creak in her neck. Had she just imagined it, or was Talia naked under the covers? Or at least topless.
Suddenly, Sabine was fighting the image of Talia unclothed beside her.
An image that shouldn’t make her feel hot and bothered, but did.
In fact, she was so hot she wanted to yank off the duvet so her skin would breathe, but if she did that, she risked exposing Talia.
A sight Sabine didn’t want to see. Or yes, maybe she did. No. She. Did. Not.
“Don’t worry,” Talia said. “I’m not completely naked.
I kept my panties on. Only because I knew you’d be offended.
Am I right? I know I’m right. But just so you know, there are studies about sleeping naked, and they’ve found it to be very beneficial.
I’m doing myself a disfavor by keeping my clothes on. ”
“What studies?” Sabine gasped. She’d never heard of a formal study on the benefits of naked sleeping, ever. But then again, she’d never looked. Maybe they were out there.
Talia shifted, and the covers slid perilously lower.
Sabine considered oozing herself over the edge of bed and disappearing to the beach just so she wouldn’t have to look at Talia.
Maybe she could even wash off the mental image of a naked Talia in the ocean.
If she were lucky, she’d get eaten by a shark.
“I can’t think of any right now,” Talia added. “But they are there. When we get back to civilization, I’ll send you a few links. You can just give me your email address, or I’ll follow you on Instagram. Do you have TikTok?”
“I don’t have social media,” Sabine replied, not that she’d give Talia any means to contact her.
“Seriously?” Talia asked.
“Seriously,” Sabine said. “I’m going to try to fall asleep.
” She turned onto her side away from Talia and considered building a fort between them with pillows.
But that would imply she had no restraint, and the last thing Sabine needed was for Talia to think she couldn’t keep her arms to herself. She could. She absolutely could.
“Goodnight,” Talia whispered.
Sabine closed her eyes and willed her brain to shut down.
It did not. Instead, her mind failed to secure a pop-up blocker and flashed a memory she’d hoped her brain had forgotten but clearly hadn’t: Talia, standing under the open-air shower, water cascading down her tanned shoulders while she soaped her body with a pink loofah.
She’d worn her bikini the duration of the shower, but still.
The image was there. It wasn’t going away.
On the contrary, it seemed to be causing a concerning pressure between her hips.
A pressure that was building and building, and the only way she knew how to get rid of it was to stick her hand down her bikini bottoms and find the off button.
A button she had to press or fervently massage, for exactly fifty times before it even considered shutting down.
But she couldn’t do that. Not here. Not now.
First, she’d wait for Talia’s breathing to grow slower, deeper, until she fell asleep.
Then she’d slip out of bed, tiptoe down to the beach, and do what was needed.
Hopefully by then her amygdala and hypothalamus would’ve simmered down.
But instead of waiting, her mouth opened. “I have heard women moan.”
“Huh?” Talia said, her voice thicker and fuzzier than before.
“You made that comment earlier,” Sabine muttered before she could stop herself. Why the hell was she even bringing it up? Seriously, what was wrong with her? “About not having heard a woman’s moans before.”
Talia chuckled softly. Sabine could feel it ripple across the mattress. “Sometimes I say things before I can think them through. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Well, now you know.”
“I do,” Talia said.
There was silence. Sabine considered turning onto her back again to look up at the stars.
Maybe if she counted them anticlockwise, she would finally fall asleep.
But then she felt Talia shift beside her, felt her move closer, and the next minute, every corner of her brain was occupied with only one thought. .. making Talia moan.
Sabine was just about to yank the covers all the way over her head. Maybe she’d suffocate if she were lucky. But then when Talia’s arm brushed against her, intentionally or not, Sabine’s stomach stuttered like a car with a bad spark plug.
“Whenever I can’t sleep, I usually have a cup of warm milk,” Talia said. Her fingers stayed on Sabine’s arm. “Or sometimes I masturbate. That helps too. Better than milk, actually.”
“What?” Sabine coughed so loudly she choked, and then she coughed some more. Had Talia seriously just said that? Out loud. Out here. With the camera crew somewhere nearby. With the moon bright enough to light up the deck in silvery streaks.
“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you weren’t thinking about it?” Talia said.
She was smiling. Sabine could see her lips and her teeth. And quite accidentally, she found herself wondering how Talia’s tongue would feel on her skin. Would it be warm, soft, bold enough to make Sabine forget they were on a television show?
She couldn’t possibly be the contestant who banged her teammate.
Sabine let the thought hang there anyway, not because she believed it, but because it was easier than admitting the truth.
There was just something about Talia that kept slipping past Sabine’s usual defenses.
Yes, she was gorgeous in the obvious, turn-your-head way, but it wasn’t the face that got under Sabine’s skin.
Talia talked too much. She filled silence in the way most people filled a glass with expensive wine, and it definitely turned some people off before they bothered to learn what was underneath.