Chapter 7
Sleeping Arrangements
Carter
I woke up feeling drowsy, not knowing how long I’d slept. Being stuck in that bunker made me feel as if time didn’t exist, or the world for that matter. There was only darkness, and silence. Well, almost. I could hear the water dripping from the ceiling, and that repetitive sound was like a torture device. I could feel the earth beneath me, damp and cold. I could feel the body behind mine, so warm and comfy I wanted to bury myself in it. And the hot breath at the nape of my neck—
I gasped and sat bolt upright with my heart in my throat.
“What the fuck?”
Thorsen sat up too, instinctively reaching for his gun that wasn’t there.
“What is it? What happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened?” I all but yelled. “What the hell were you doing?”
“What? You mean sleeping?”
“You were lying right next to me!” I exclaimed, aghast. “I could feel your entire body against mine. Your breath on my goddamn neck! Your chest, your legs, even your…” I gagged, shuddering.
He looked at me incredulously. “Are you fucking kidding me? That’s why you woke me up?”
He was about to say something else, but a sneeze stopped him.
“I was probably cold, you prick,” he said, sneezing again. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, feeling guilty because he looked exhausted. “I was just… I freaked out.”
“Fuck off,” he muttered, wiping his nose with the hem of his shirt. “Insensitive ass!”
I tore my gaze away from his shredded abs, mentally slapping myself for wanting to ask him which gym he frequented.
“I didn’t expect to feel you so close to me.” I tried to explain. “It would make anyone upset.”
“It wouldn’t upset me, tinman. Do you know why? Because I have a heart.”
“I said I’m—”
“Just leave me alone, okay?” he grumbled, lying down and turning his back to me. “I’m not talking to you from now on.”
“Real mature,” I murmured. “Are we back in elementary school?”
“Drop dead.”
It took him five minutes to fall asleep again and five more for me to lie down next to him. After a while, he rolled over until he was facing me, but his breathing remained deep and steady. I only hoped he wasn’t a sleepwalker, because that was a freaking scary thought.
Ten minutes later, he shifted closer to me, but since he was asleep, I couldn’t even blame him for it. I merely shook my head and moved further away from him, cursing the day I was born. Fifteen minutes later, he did it again. At that point, I gave up. He was seeking my body heat, which was perfectly understandable since we were both freezing our asses off. So when his body brushed against mine, I remained where I was, willing myself not to move. And when he snuggled against me, I gritted my teeth, curbing homicidal tendencies. Only when he threw his arm around my waist did I reach for it and return it to him. I had to draw the line somewhere.
On the bright side, at least I wasn’t cold anymore.
I only hoped I would still have my toes in the morning. Without frostbite.
***
“Thorsen.”
“Hmm?”
“Wake up.”
“Mm-mm.” Which meant no.
It was the same answer as the one I’d gotten half an hour ago when I woke up with his erection pressed against my ass. If I didn’t jump high enough to reach that damn ceiling then, I never would. How I stopped myself from clawing my way out of that bunker was beyond me. In the end, I merely pulled away from him, careful not to wake him, because—the horror. The thought of looking him in the eye after feeling that huge thing against my ass petrified me. And damn it! Did I have to know if that part of him was proportional to his body? No, I did not. Was it? Yes—big time. Fuck! Why was this happening to me?
The shock of it lulled me into sleep because I could remember dreaming. In my dream, I was sitting at a long table filled with food. I could see burgers, casseroles, steaks, fries, sweet potatoes, roasted veggies... and then all kinds of cakes, pies, sweets, and every flavor of ice cream that existed on earth.
I woke up famished and upset, only to find Thorsen lying next to me, this time on his back. I didn’t dare look at his nether region, so I just lay there, praying for rescue or a quick death.
The next time I woke up, Thorsen was wrapped around me like a koala. His arm was flung around my waist, holding me so tight I couldn’t move an inch. His leg lay limp on mine, weighing a ton. And his hard, throbbing dick was poking me in the thigh. Jesus. Christ.
My first impulse was to run, but since he was a heavy fucker, I couldn’t move without waking him up.
“Thorsen,” I said, and when he didn’t reply, I bellowed in his ear. “Thorsen!”
“What?” he mumbled, sounding sleepy and hoarse.
“Wake up.”
“No.”
“Look…” I rubbed my forehead, feeling desperate. “You have to wake up, okay?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m uncomfortable.”
“Well, I’m comfortable.”
“Of course, you’re comfortable when you’re using me as your pillow. And bed.”
“God, I would kill for a bed right now. My entire body hurts.”
He still wouldn’t move. If anything, his arm around me tightened.
“If you don’t get off me, I will punch you, Thorsen.”
“It might be worth it.”
“I’m not joking around. You have to move b-because…”
“B-because,” he mocked me.
“Your erection is poking me in the leg.”
Thorsen looked down at his crotch and chuckled.
“My God, you’re right. It must be your cologne.”
“I swear to God—”
“I’m only kidding,” he said, moving away from me and taking all the heat with him. “At least now we know what time of day it is.”
“If you’re implying it’s the morning, you belong in the Guinness Book of World Records. It’s the longest-lasting morning wood I ever saw… felt… fuck!”
He chuckled, and then I heard him pee.
“I do belong in the Guinness Book of World Records, but not for the reason you’re implying.”
“Why then?”
Thorsen glanced at me over his shoulder.
“Wanna see it?”
“God, no. Gross.”
I heard him zipping up, and then I went to pee, too. When I returned, he was sitting on the floor with his back resting on the wall.
“We’re never getting out of here, are we?” he said with a sigh.
I sat beside him, wishing I was a lying bastard for once.
“Probably not.”
“We’re going to die in this dump.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
I could feel his eyes on me—ocean blue this time. Would I ever see the ocean again?
“How old are you, Carter?” he said, studying my face.
“Thirty-nine. You?”
“Thirty-three.”
“God, you’re a baby.”
He burst into laughter. “Hardly. And please, don’t make this an age thing. We’re so past that.”
“Stop flirting, Thorsen. I’m not your target audience.”
“Well, there’s no one else here. You smell good, by the way. And it’s not flirting, but a fact. I guess that’s why I fall asleep so easily around you.”
“Just stop talking. At least for a minute.”
“Right. As if that’s going to happen.”
Thorsen
Something was wrong. I felt it as soon as I woke up, after a few hours of restless, feverish sleep. I had a nightmare that I couldn’t remember. Something about dying or being chased, but my recollection was faint. The feeling of dread lingered, intensifying when I felt Carter shaking next to me.
“What’s wrong?” I said, propping myself up on my elbow. “Is it your wound?”
His back was turned to me so I couldn’t see his face, but he seemed alarmingly tense.
“No. It happens sometimes when I get angry.”
He said it matter-of-factly, as if it were a normal thing to experience.
“Why are you angry?”
“What do you think?”
I let out a heavy sigh, unsure what to say to make him feel better.
“Someone will come,” I said finally because I needed to hear it, too. “I’m sure of it.”
“Yeah… I don’t think so.”
“This defeatist attitude will get you nowhere,” I said, touching his arm. “Don’t lose hope now, okay?”
He said nothing, but his shivers intensified.
Hoping that he wouldn’t punch me, I slid my hand to his chest. He tensed up as I started to move my thumb in circles, rubbing the spot just above his heart.
“Maman used to do this for me when I was a child. It always helped,” I said, smiling as more memories resurfaced. “She was a seamstress, you know? I remember… She kept losing needles all the time. After I sat on one, I always checked twice before sitting down.”
Carter remained silent, but he seemed more relaxed now. His skin was warm despite the low temperature in the bunker, his heartbeats steady and strong. His chest was a wall of muscle, and I wondered if the rest of him was this hard. Probably, because God was a sadist, or he wouldn’t have entrapped me here with his masterpiece.
“Just breathe,” I said, as he drew a shaky breath. “Try not to think.”
Discreetly, I pulled my hips farther away from him because I had a massive hard-on, which wouldn’t be easy to explain. After all, you could have morning wood so many times in the day. And since I was probably dying soon, I refused to lie to myself. It wasn’t just heat and friction and confined space, or even a lack of sex, for that matter. I was attracted to him. Hell, I was attracted to him from the moment I saw him, and it was a bummer.
“I have this rage thing,” Carter murmured, sniffling. “I get mad real fast. It comes abruptly, and I can’t control it.”
“When did those episodes start?” I asked him.
“When I was a child. My father hated it.”
“It can probably be treated, you know? Anger management is the thing these days. We’re all so damn mad all the time.”
“You’re not.”
“I would bury Boggs in the desert with only his head above ground,” I mused. “Then I would leave him there. Does that sound like anger to you?”
He chuckled without opening his eyes. “It does. You passed the test.”
I grinned, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. “Did I?”
He still didn’t hit me, which wasn’t exactly a good thing because my stupid brain took it as encouragement. Then again, he probably needed a human touch just like me… Who wouldn’t in our circumstances?
“Do you feel better?” I asked him, relieved to see that his shaking had stopped.
“Mm-hmm,” he murmured, sounding half-asleep. “Warm.”
When his breathing slowed down, I ran my fingers through his hair.
“You’re not such a bad guy, Carter. Do you know that?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And I like your smile.”
“Mhm.”
“And I like you.”
A soft snore was his only reply.
Carter
When I woke up, every inch of my body hurt, including the throbbing wound on my head. I was so hungry that I couldn’t even feel hunger anymore. The water dripping through the bars helped with the thirst if we didn’t think about what we were drinking since it sure as hell wasn’t the rain.
I looked at Thorsen, who was sleeping with his back turned to me. His colorful shirt was dirty and wrinkled. His cargo pants hung low on his hips, revealing the waistband of his boxers, which were incidentally yellow. The hair tie in his bun looked crooked, so I took it off, freeing the long, blond strands. After that, I scooped them up and tied his hair into a ponytail—a neat one.
I didn’t know what possessed me to do that. Maybe because it gave me a sense of normalcy. Maybe because I would never, ever do it outside, but here it seemed acceptable. Or because I felt alone, and I wanted to wake him up. In any case, it worked.
“I didn’t peg you for a somnophiliac,” he said, making me chuckle.
“I didn’t peg you for someone with a sense of humor.”
He groaned and turned over onto his back with his eyes still closed.
“What do you want, Carter?”
The way his mouth moved made me touch the piercing hole above his lip.
“Did you have a lip piercing once?” I asked him.
His eyes snapped open. Teal blue, this time. The unexpected color made me pull my hand away.
“Yes,” he replied, sounding hoarse.
“Just here or anywhere else?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would, actually.”
“Stop talking,” Thorsen groaned, covering his face with his arm. “Why did you wake me up? I had such a good dream. Goddamn it!”
“What did you dream about?”
“That I was fucking someone while eating a casserole,” he snapped, sounding frustrated. “What else?
I chuckled. “Whom were you fucking, lover boy?”
“?a ne vous concerne pas,” he grumbled, palming his obvious erection. “Which means none of your fucking business. Anything else?”
“Yes. Do you have any tattoos?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes.”
He removed his arm from his face, staring at me.
“Where?”
I grinned. “Wouldn't you like to know?”
Thorsen rolled his eyes. “God, you’re such a tease. Speaking of, when was the last time you had sex?”
“Pardon?”
“Are you deaf?”
“What kind of question is that?”
He shrugged. “We may die soon. In fact, we probably will, so think of it as a confession. I’ll start. The last time I had sex was six months ago.”
“The mayor’s daughter?”
“You guessed correctly.”
“But the sex tape leaked only recently, didn’t it?”
Thorsen grinned. “Yeah. Ellie decided to wait for her daddy's birthday to share the tape with the world.”
“Why no one else after her?”
“Dunno. I was busy, I guess. How about you?”
“Not sure,” I mused. “I can’t remember.”
Thorsen looked at me incredulously. “You can’t remember the last time you had sex?”
“I had a rough couple of months.” I defended myself. “I wasn’t in the mood. Vic felt the same.”
He snorted. “Sounds like a perfectly reasonable explanation."
“You have no idea—” I paused when I heard a strange sound. “Did you hear that?”
Thorsen was already standing up. “Yes.”
It was the first sound other than the water dripping that we heard in ages.
“We’re here!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “Can anyone hear us?”
I could see the shadows moving above us, and then I heard the sound of drilling.
“Thank God,” Thorsen muttered, sounding as relieved as I felt.
“We’re in some kind of bunker,” I yelled. “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”
“Carter?”
I was never so happy to hear Shelly’s voice in my life.
“Shelly, we’re down here. Can you hear me?”
“Yes. Just hold on. Is Thorsen with you?”
“I’m here,” Thorsen replied. “Where are you?”
“Right above you,” Bruce shouted. “Give me a few minutes to open this thing. Move to the side so the debris doesn’t fall on your head. Are the two of you okay?”
“We will be if you hurry up,” Thorsen replied. “Carter has a concussion and probably an infection. Call the paramedics.”