Chapter Eight
He woke in the night with a jolt, distracted and groggy. Something had jerked him out of sleep, and it was several seconds before he realized what it was. The air felt hot, like a warm, wet blanket, and it was quiet. Too quiet.
The air conditioning was off.
Still half asleep, he fought his way clear of the sheet and swung his feet to the floor. He took a second to orient himself, then pushed to his feet and headed for the dresser, and the oscillating fan on top of it.
And promptly ran into Bailey.
She grunted when they made contact, a quiet and somehow annoyed oof, her boobs bouncing into his chest and her belly against his dick, still half hard from his Bailey-centric dreams. His hands came up, an automatic response to the collision, to close over her bare shoulders.
“What the fuck, Nash?”
Her voice was husky with sleep, sharp with irritation, her breath warm against his throat. He tightened his grip, just for a moment, fantasizing about dragging her closer and losing himself in those soft, supple curves.
Then he let go.
“Sorry,” he said, taking a step back so her boobs were no longer nestled against his chest and her belly no longer cradled his dick. “You okay?”
“The air conditioning is out.”
“I know.” Not wanting to have this conversation in the dark, he moved to the bedside lamp and switched it on. Blinking against the glare, he turned back to her.
She was wearing sleep shorts and a loose tank and a grumpy expression as she lifted a hand to shield against the light. “Shit, Nash, give me some warning.”
“Sorry,” he said, and tried to ignore the shift of her boobs under the tank when she lifted her hand. She was clearly braless, a fact that wasn’t helping the situation in his shorts calm down.
“When did it go out?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I just woke up.”
“Me, too. It gets hot fast upstairs without the AC.” She lowered her hand to look at him. “I don’t suppose you know how to fix it.”
He shook his head. “Do you have someone you can call?”
“I have a service contract with the company that installed it, but I doubt they’ll come out at…” She peered past him to the bedside clock. “Two-thirty-four in the morning.”
“They might, if you paid them enough.”
She snorted. “I do not have middle-of-the-night-HVAC-repair money.”
“Who does?”
She snorted again, then sighed. “Okay, I guess I’m sleeping on the couch. Sorry I bothered you.”
“It’s fine,” he said, then because he was apparently a glutton for punishment, added, “You can sleep in here.”
She paused in the doorway, half turned away, her tits in tantalizing profile. Because that was the kind of luck he was having tonight.
Ignoring them, he kept his eyes on her face. “Just to sleep,” he clarified. “I’ve got the fan, and the bed’s got to be more comfortable than the couch.”
“It’s a pretty good nap couch,” she argued, but the longing glance she flicked at his bed spoke volumes.
“Take the bed,” he said, then stepped to the dresser to turn on the fan. It whirled to life, blasting out air and cutting through the heat in the room. The difference was immediate, and palpable.
“Just to sleep?”
He made sure his expression held only mild amusement when he turned back. “It’s too hot to do anything else.”
She huffed out a laugh. “True.”
“Pick a side,” he invited with a wave at the bed. “I’m going to hit the bathroom.”
She nodded, shifting away from the doorway so he could pass by, and he didn’t let out the breath he was holding until he’d shut the bathroom door behind him.
He didn’t have to piss—or at least not enough to fight through the half-hard-on to try—but he needed a minute. He turned on the cold water, letting it run full in the sink, then dunked his head under the faucet.
It shocked him awake, cut through the hazy heat muddling his brain so he could think clearly. He lifted his head to look in the mirror over the sink, hair and face dripping. “You’re a grown man,” he mumbled out loud, staring into his own eyes while water streamed into the sink. “You can do this.”
Was it going to be easy? Hell, no. Spending the night with Bailey lying next to him, knowing he couldn’t touch her, was the closest thing to torture he could think of, and it was a good thing blue balls wasn’t fatal, because his would be cobalt by morning.
But he’d fucking deal, because the alternatives were unacceptable.
He couldn’t let her sleep on the couch, and he couldn’t break her no-sex decree.
He supposed he could sleep on the couch—that would be the truly gentlemanly thing to do. But it turned out that in addition to being a glutton for punishment, he wasn’t that much of a gentleman. So they’d sleep, and he’d suffer, and hopefully in doing so prove to her that he could be trusted.
He shut off the water and grabbed a towel. He scrubbed it over his hair and face with a force that bordered on violence, then slapped it back on the rack and turned off the bathroom light to return to the temporary hell of his bed.
She’d left the light on, giving him no choice but to see her. She lay on the far side of the mattress, snuggled up on her side, the sheet a tangle at her feet.
She looked so beautiful, so goddamn right lying in his bed, waiting for him, the last eight years of hope realized. Emotion reared up to grab him by the throat, and he stopped dead in the doorway.
She came up on one elbow, tits shifting and swaying under the thin tank, a frown on her face. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.” He forced the word out, forced himself to move. He turned off the light, hoping the lack of sight would make the whole thing easier.
“I can sleep on the other side if you want,” she said, her voice coming at him in the darkness, and he realized nothing was going to make this easier.
“I don’t,” he assured her, though part of him yearned to say yes, please, move so I can sleep on sheets that smell like you and torture myself all night.
“This was your idea,” she reminded him, irritation sharpening her tone. “I don’t know why you’re getting pissy.”
“I am not pissy, I’m tired,” he ground out and, out of delaying tactics, flopped down on the mattress with more force than he’d meant to. It dipped sharply, and she rolled toward him.
It was just a small shift, easily and quickly countered, but the movement stirred the air so her scent wafted to him, teasing his senses and his dick, and he let out a muffled curse.
“I can’t sleep if you’re going to mutter all night.”
“I’ll stop muttering if you’ll stop moving around.”
“I only moved because you flopped,” she said peevishly and jabbed an elbow into his side.
He grunted, gritting his teeth when her scent drifted his way again. His dick was never going down, dammit. “Look, it’s hot, it’s late, so just stop moving and go to sleep.”
“Fine,” she muttered and turned over on her other side. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he echoed, just as irritated and, closing his eyes, tried to will himself into unconsciousness.
Thirty seconds later he opened his eyes and sighed.
“Oh, Christ, now what?”
The irritation in her voice made him smile in spite of his discomfort. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You sighed.”
“So? I’m allowed to sigh in my own bed,” he said, enjoying himself now.
“Fine. Are you done now?”
“Probably.”
“Good. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” He waited until her breathing had evened out, then said, “Bailey?”
“I’m this close to going to a hotel and adding the bill to your rent.”
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
There was a pause, then the mattress shifted as she rolled onto her back. “For what?”
“Getting pissy.”
She turned her head, and he could feel her looking at him. “Why did you?”
“I’ll give you three guesses,” he said drily, “and the first two don’t count.”
She was silent for a moment, then let out a quiet, “Oh.”
“Yeah. Anyway, I’m sorry.”
“I can still sleep on the couch.”
“You could,” he allowed. “But it wouldn’t make me less horny, and I’d feel guilty on top of it.”
She was quiet for so long he wondered if he’d screwed up. Then she said, “I wouldn’t want you to feel guilty.”
He smiled in the dark. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Nash?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
He turned his head, wishing he could see her expression now. “For what?”
“For agreeing to the…group project. And for taking it seriously.”
“Of course. Did you think I wouldn’t?”
His eyes had adjudged to the dark enough to make out her shrug. “Most people don’t.”
A horrifying thought occurred to him, but he kept his voice even. “Who’s ‘most people’? Did you ask someone before me to do this with you?”
“No, but people I’ve told about it. Gwen and Chloe, a couple others.”
Relief loosened his limbs. “They don’t take it seriously?”
“They know I’m serious about doing it, but I don’t think they really get it. They think it’s just a fantasy, you know?”
And it wasn’t. Never had been. “I know.”
“Anyway. I just wanted to say thanks.”
He gathered all the sincerity he could muster and put it into the words. “It’s my pleasure, Bailey.”
“Yes, it will be,” she said, and he nearly laughed at the purr in her voice.
“Knock that off, or you are going to sleep on the couch.”
“Sorry.” Smug now, she turned back onto her side, away from him. “Goodnight, Nash.”
“Goodnight, Bailey,” he said, and with her scent wrapped around him in a teasing caress, closed his eyes.
* * * *
She was already gone when his alarm went off the next morning, and he found a note next to the coffee pot telling him that she’d contacted her HVAC guy and was waiting for a call back. Taking it philosophically, he poured himself a cup of coffee and went to take a shower.
Since his office faced North, the room was relatively cool, so he decided to stick with working from home.
He pulled the fan in from the bedroom and kept the shades pulled and the lights off, and it worked pretty well until he had a two-hour Zoom meeting.
His boss insisted on having everyone on camera so he had to turn on the lights and turn off the fan so it didn’t interfere with the audio, and by the time the meeting was over he was ready for another shower.