Warm Pillows
WARM PILLOWS
CAM
I nuzzled further into my soft pillow. The most amazing dream had a delicious grip on me, and I didn’t want to wake up even though I could feel the dawn peeking through the sheer hotel curtains. Images of Rachel flashed through my mind, her floral scent wrapping around me as my arms wrapped around her, pulling her to me. She was warm, comforting like a favorite blanket on a fall day.
Need pulsed through my entire body. Soft lips, dewy skin. I needed to kiss her, to taste her. In my dream, I trailed kisses down her jaw and over her neck, reveling in the soft moans escaping from her lips. I moved against her hips, my hands roaming, the heat between us intensifying. The sun begged me to open my eyes, but I didn’t want to wake from this dream.
There was one tiny problem.
I wasn’t dreaming.
My eyes shot open, and I jerked my head back, realizing I had actually been kissing her neck and was pushing my throbbing dick against her. She felt so soft and warm and her full, perfect breasts were pressing against my chest.
Rachel whimpered before slowly opening her eyes. Once she realized I was only inches from her, she gasped.
“What the … what?!” I yelped, releasing her.
“Oh my God!” She shot up, wrapping the sheet around her.
I rolled back with such force that I fell off the bed and landed with a crunch on the floor.
“Are you okay?” She peeked over the edge of the bed at me.
I covered my eyes. I couldn’t look at her. Bare shoulders, sleepy eyes, wild dark hair. I rolled toward the bathroom to get away from her or we were going to have a major rule violation. “No, I’m not okay. Where is your tank top?”
“I …” She rummaged through the covers. “Right here. Why were you kissing me?”
“I was dreaming! I thought it was a dream. Why did you take your tank top off?”
I pivoted to my feet, covered my massive erection, and darted to the bathroom.
“I don’t know. I do things in my sleep sometimes,” she shouted.
I closed the door and leaned against it, panting. I shivered from the electricity that rippled through my body and glanced down.
Still hard as granite.
Fuck .
I only had a couple of options for how to deal with this, and if I didn’t deal with it, I wouldn’t be able to make another coherent decision the rest of the day.
It had to be done.
I jumped when Rachel came to the door.
“Are you okay in there?”
I whipped on the water for a shower. “Uh, yeah, I’m going to shower. Order us breakfast? I want some sort of egg and bacon thing. Black coffee.”
She said okay and her footsteps trailed away.
I ripped my shorts off and stepped into the shower, hoping the warm water would wash away the lingering images of that dream.
Rachel’s perfect breasts touching my chest.
The curve of her soft neck.
Her intoxicating smell.
The soft moan that escaped her when my lips made contact with her skin.
The images from my dream burned into my mind like a branding iron, sending jolts of desire through my body. Desperate for any kind of release, I pressed one hand against the cold tile of the shower while my other hand gripped my throbbing erection. It was a poor substitute for the real thing, but I needed relief from this unbearable want. The steam surrounded me like a misty veil, amplifying my ragged breaths as I fought to stifle my moans. Instead of trying to push away thoughts of Rachel, I gave in to them completely, imagining every detail of what it would be like to peel off those ridiculous llama pajamas and claim her on the bed.
Hearing that moan.
Watching her arch.
Hearing her breathe my name in a throaty gasp.
I bit down on my lip as I released and my body went limp, my head resting against my hand as I used the wall for balance. While I couldn’t say my head was a hundred percent clear, I felt a slight weight lift. At least now I could get through this travel day with coherent thoughts.
When I emerged from the bathroom in only my towel, Rachel was typing on her laptop at the small table by the window.
She glanced up and smirked. “So, um, are you uh, feeling better?”
I dried my hair with a smaller hand towel. “What?”
“I hope there’s some hot water left.”
I tossed the hand towel on the floor. “Listen, I had to dump my endorphins.”
She leaned back in the seat and arched a dark eyebrow. “Endorphins?”
“You are the one that insisted I sleep in the bed.” I rummaged through my suitcase for a T-shirt and shorts. “I can’t be responsible for what I do in my sleep since you apparently have no regard for the pillow barrier and just … just start removing clothing, which I still don’t understand how you could have done and stayed asleep.”
She pushed her adorable glasses up her nose. “Hey, I’ve seen reports of people getting in their cars and driving to the grocery story while sleepwalking so, yeah, me taking off my tank top is in the realm of possibility. Besides, how do you know that it wasn’t you who broke the barrier?”
“We’ll have separate rooms on Grand Cayman, thank God.”
“Hmmm.” She hopped out of the chair and crossed the room. “We have a moment while dreaming, and you can’t take the heat. Got to say, I think you’re the one in trouble.”
“I wasn’t even dreaming about you.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Who were you dreaming about?”
“Jennifer Aniston, from We’re the Millers .”
“I don’t believe you,” she said with a chuckle.
My eyes lingered on her for a moment, but I didn’t want to stand so close to her while I was half naked for much longer. “I think we should check out early and just head to the airport.”
I turned to head back to the bathroom.
“Hey, wait,” Rachel tugged on my towel, and I froze as it fell to the floor.
I covered myself up, hanging my head in defeat.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Rachel shouted. She shielded her eyes and dashed toward the bathroom before I could. “You know, I better get my shower out of the way too. So, um …” The bathroom door slammed.
Moments later the shower strummed on, and I swear I heard a little groan of her own. I smirked and finished getting dressed. The food arrived when Rachel emerged from the bathroom, the hotel bathrobe cinched tight around her. She dried her hair in a towel before joining me. I poured her a cup of coffee as she sat down.
“I did some thinking in the shower?—”
I tossed a mischievous glance her way. “Right. I believe I heard you thinking .”
Her cheeks flushed to a telltale shade of scarlet, and she moved her damp hair to the side. “Anyway, I decided we can’t go on like this.”
“Can’t go on like what?” I savored the fresh coffee hitting my tongue.
She buttered her toast with exaggerated motions. “Like this, pretending that we’re not attracted to one another.”
I paused with my coffee cup in midair.
“Unless you aren’t …” Her eyes widened for a moment. “Well, I mean, the way you were when you were kissing me …”
“Yes.” I set my cup down. “Your assumption is correct.”
Her shoulders relaxed and she took a bite of her toast. “So, I love potato chips. Like anything salty and crunchy.”
“All right.”
“And when I have a craving for chips and I try to deny that craving, it only makes me want them more.”
I stared at her for a second. The gorgeous woman I held in my arms this morning did not look like she ate carbs at all. She has to have an insane workout regimen with legs like that, and then my mind floated back to the incredible vision of her breasts.
“Cam?”
I shook my head. “Yes, yes, but are we the potato chips in this scenario?”
“No,” she said in between bites of bacon. “We’re the people trying to deny our cravings.”
“Ahh, gotcha. And what are you proposing we do about it?”
“We give in.”
I sat back in my chair, my chest tightening under an invisible vice grip. Giving in was the most dangerous thing I could do in this situation.
As if sensing the shift in my expression, she reached across the table. “One time. We can give in, if we want – one time per event. It doesn’t have to mean anything. We can maintain our platonic relationship, just… with a release valve built in.”
“I thought we didn’t want to complicate things.”
“We don’t – we aren’t , but I also don’t want us to feel bad if something like this morning happens again. We’re still choosing not to date, not to be a couple. If we allow ourselves to have a mulligan, if you will, we call it. Then, there’s no room for misunderstandings and it might even help to ease our cravings.”
I narrowed my eyes. Maybe my dream this morning was my body allowing myself to give in, and I had to admit, I felt better after a release.
“This sort of sounds like a horrible idea …”
Rachel’s shoulders slumped and her brow furrowed. “Seriously?”
“But I’m in. We’ll consider this morning our first mulligan, so we’ll start fresh.”
“And if things get complicated, we?—”
“We stop.” She swallowed and a faint frown graced her lips.
I felt more comfortable having the rules in place. They were the pills I’d take to manage my cravings, but it was becoming impossible to resist Rachel, especially while she sat across from me wearing nothing but a bathrobe.