Chapter 16
Chapter
Sleep eases away from me in a pleasant drift, unlike the normal jerk to wakefulness I experience when Grumps jumps on my bed to inform me that if I don’t take him out soon, he’ll make my life hell.
So cute. So evil.
My weighted blanket feels extra warm and cozy today. Plus, it smells divine.
Is that a new detergent?
All of these are the half-ponderings of a drowsy mind. I enjoy hovering on the edge of sleep, fully ready to slip back into it before a grouchy dog intrudes on me.
But the unfamiliar rumble of a truck just outside my bedroom has me frowning.
Who is driving a truck on our road? We’re a dead end.
Then I blink my eyes open to spy an unfamiliar ceiling with a large, brown water stain.
And I realize the thing bearing me down into the mattress isn’t the weighted blanket I got for fifty percent off at Marshalls.
It’s a man.
A George Bunsen.
The events of the day before rush back to me as fast as the rain came on. The plane, the puppy, the diner, the storm, the last room, the wet bed, my damp clothes, him giving me his shirt.
The shirt that is currently bunched around my hips, which means other than the blanket over my lower half, my entire downstairs is exposed.
And George is awfully close to that downstairs.
At some point, he must have put aside his phone and the book propping it up. Then—while he was sleeping, I’m guessing—he gravitated toward me. But he’s not just close.
This guy is trying to meld himself into me more than Buttercup did.
His head rests just below my boobs, his cheek on my rib cage, exhales warming the fabric that stretches over my stomach. His bare shoulders peek above the covers, but underneath the blankets, his arms—that’s right, both of them—fully wrap around my thighs.
At least he’s holding my legs closed, so I’m not aiming my bare vag at him.
Part of me is mortified by this position we find ourselves in.
Part of me is horny to the tenth power and looking to capitalize on this position.
And another small part of me—the one that is exhausted from years of going all-in on survival—wants to stay here forever. Held tightly.
Held together.
Believing that someone like George Bunsen would want to cling to me rather than turn up his nose at the idea of the unwanted Newton bastard.
I lie still, breathing carefully, as that third part of me retains control of the situation.
All the while, George sleeps.
I tilt my chin down, taking in the view of his buzzed head through the valley of my boobs. His skull has a nice, smooth curve to it. Perfectly suited for his short hair. I want to touch it. Run my hands over the sphere. Gently scratch my nails in the soft bristles.
What has you sleeping so soundly, George Bunsen?
Here, with him in a vulnerable state, for the first time I allow myself to think of him as more than the guy who wants nothing to do with me.
He’s a talented pilot.
He cares about my brother.
He rescues puppies.
He’s spending hours every week helping me chase my dream.
He literally gave me the shirt off his back.
And he has a whole life that I know nothing about. I’m not even sure what he does at BnB.
Maybe I was too quick to judge him. Maybe I’ve misunderstood the way he treated me on past encounters.
Or maybe he did dislike me in the past but has since changed his mind?
At least I know his body seems to like mine. When he’s unconscious.
And when I say like, I mean I can feel a certain part of him also magnetized to me. The part that’s hard, hot, and resting against my shin.
How are his legs not hanging off the bed?
I attempt to lift my head without jostling George and realize that we’re lying diagonally, my head in the corner, and that he’s kind of curved around me.
Okay, so maybe my body participated in this configuration, too.
I relax back on my pillow and brainstorm what to do next. Whatever way George feels about me, I doubt he’ll be enthused to wake up in this position.
But the guy has a firm, surrounding grip on my legs. I can’t exactly roll away from him, even if he sleeps like a rock. And I’m definitely not going to try to shift myself up and out of his hold. Not when that would risk him waking up with his face smashed into my bush.
Just as I toss out that idea, George stirs. And I panic.
Today is the day I find out that my fight-or-flight response is the same as an opossum’s.
I go limp.
At least this way, I reason, he’ll never know that I know he cuddled me like a teddy bear. We can both claim ignorance.
But playing passed out is hard to do when a sleepy George doesn’t immediately grasp the situation. Like me, his half-awake mind probably doesn’t recall how he ended up where he is.
The man turns his head, not away, but fully into my chest, sucking in a deep breath as his hips give a gentle rock.
Tantalizing torture.
Don’t groan. Don’t writhe. Don’t beg him to touch every part of you.
You are an opossum. Be the opossum.
I know the moment that George fully wakes up because his lax body goes as stiff as his erection.
When he doesn’t immediately launch out of the bed, scrambling to get away from me, it takes all my willpower to keep hold of my sleep ruse.
Instead, George remains still for a full count of five—I know because I’m counting—then he slowly separates himself from me.
First, he slides his hips back, so his morning wood isn’t poking my leg anymore.
Then he unwraps his arms from my thighs and uses his freed limbs to lever his head off my abdomen.
And I can’t help the shiver that trembles through me at the loss of his heavy warmth.
Luckily, people can still shiver in their sleep. Check the science.
From the way the mattress shifts and then rises, I guess that George has slipped out of bed. Then a less-delicious warmth covers me, and I figure he must have pulled the blankets over me.
I keep up my opossum charade until I hear the click of the bathroom door closing, followed by the rush of water from the shower.
Then I pop up and suck in the deepest breath I’ve allowed myself this morning.
After that, I grab a pillow, shove my face into it, and let out a sexually frustrated groan.
Because damn it, I’m slick between my legs, and I can’t stop imagining if George had dipped his head lower rather than sneaking away when he woke up.
“I’m a fucking mess,” I mutter.
I decide to blame my father. Maybe I wouldn’t be panting after a guy who has zero interest in me if I had gotten some affection from the male figure in my life.
At least thoughts of Karl Newton kill my wayward libido.
I climb out of the bed and check my clothes on the heater.
Dry.
With more reluctance than I want to admit, I tug off George’s T-shirt, neatly fold it, and place it on the foot of the bed. I get dressed quickly and wait for my turn in the bathroom.
But George apparently really wanted to wash off because he’s taking a long time.
When another five minutes go by, a self-conscious thought creeps to the surface.
He’s not showering for so long because he slept pressed up against me, is he?
Frowning, I bend my head to sniff myself. Not spring roses by any means, and my teeth need a brush, but I don’t reek. Not that I can tell anyway.
But maybe George, who smells like rich-people cologne, caught a whiff of something I can’t.
Or maybe he’s just grossed out by me in general.
Whatever the reason, I’m starting to get agitated and uncomfortable. The length of his shower is one thing, but I also need to pee. More so every second that passes, and the sound of running water isn’t helping.
“Damn it.” I pull on my shoes and stomp out into the cool, sunny morning. “Please don’t be creepy,” I whisper as I approach the front office at a fast clip.
The motel gods must be smiling down on me because when I enter the office, the front desk worker isn’t Mr. Gross Dip Mouth but instead a bored-looking teenager with thick eyeliner and a septum piercing.
“Hi!” I wave and put on my friendliest smile. “I’m in room twelve, and my roommate is hogging the bathroom. Is there one in here I can use? Just for a quick pee.”
They don’t even look up from their phone as they point to the back corner, where I spy a door. “Sure. Whatever.”
Gotta love the total disinterest of the young.
After I’m done, feeling a thousand times better, I wave to the kid, who ignores me, and head back out into the cheery day.
And straight into a broad chest covered in a soft white shirt I already miss.
“Beth.” George grabs my upper arms, catching my gaze with his intense one. “You left.” His fingers flex where they grip me. “I didn’t know where you went.”
“Had to pee.” I throw a thumb over my shoulder and try to ignore how, despite the fact he probably used whatever cheap soap was available at this motel, he still smells like ecstasy. “You were hogging the bathroom.”
George releases me and steps back. His cheeks flush red, and he runs an agitated hand over his head. Did he think I’d taken the car and left? It’s not like I can abscond with the plane.
Not yet.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “I didn’t know you were awake.”
And I didn’t know that your skull on my chest would ruin my weighted blanket for me.
I keep that to myself and just shrug.
“I have the lunch shift at Cornfield’s, so can we get going?”
“Yeah.” He glances at me, then away. “Sorry.”
I wonder if he’s also apologizing for clinging to me in his sleep. But as far as he knows, I’m unaware of that, so it’s probably just the bathroom thing.
“I found a toilet, so you are forgiven.”
George nods. And then he holds my car door open for me. Weird, but I slide in anyway and wait for him to return the room key to the office. I bet he also tells them about the leak in the ceiling and gets zero acknowledgment because I say again: teenagers.
Meanwhile, I search the glove compartment of the car and hit a jackpot when I find some mint gum. And it’s that kind that you pop the little white rectangle out of its individual foil pocket, so I don’t even feel gross about it being random car gum.
George slides into the driver seat with a frown on his face.
“Did you tell them about the leak?”
“Yes.”
“Did they care?”
He grimaces. “I don’t think so.”
I snort, chew aggressively, and try to channel my inner teenager and remain completely unaffected by the proximity of George Bunsen for the entire return trip.
I am unsuccessful.