Chapter 7 #2
“Thank you,” I say, turning around as he climbs to the top of the bed and lies down. I guess that’s what we do now. We lie in bed together. So I discard my bra on top of my bag and make the climb to the top, scooching to the far side of the bed to avoid contact.
“You don’t have to sleep with half your body hanging off the bed,” he says.
It’s true. I’ve created so much space between us you could fit another body in there. My right butt cheek is hanging off the bed, for crying out loud. I can’t help but notice the twinkle in his eye and I know he’s finding amusement in my discomfort.
“My body is on the bed just fine,” I say, lying. Well, that was a short recovery time between workout sets.
Engage. The. Core.
“Okay,” he says. “Suit yourself.”
Awkward silence descends.
Every now and then, Xander moves his body.
To rub his neck. To stretch his back. To find a more comfortable position.
And it’s contagious. I’m feeling more and more uncomfortable by the minute too, because every time he moves, it feels like the air has been sucked out of the space between us, so no matter how much distance I’ve created, it’s like we’re basically touching.
This is going to be way harder than I thought.
I creep along the hallway, returning from a quick bathroom intermission.
It’s so quiet you can hear the whirring of the machines behind the doors marked Observation.
I can just imagine Ben and a bunch of nerds huddling over their monitors, unlocking an interesting new discovery to the human sleep cycle they’ll study during the week.
A loud snore cuts through the silence from behind one of the observation rooms.
Or not.
Judging by the darkness, we’re miles from morning.
I woke up on my side of the bed, miraculously not touching Xander (yes, I would like a medal for my effort) even though every muscle in my body is aching from the restraint that I managed to show while asleep (yes, I would still like a medal for my subconscious effort).
Xander was lying in bed with his ankles crossed and arms folded on his chest, and he looked peaceful until the light from my phone lit up the tips of his eyelashes, showing he was wide-awake.
I slowly open the door back to our sleep study room, ready to creep back into bed without saying a word when I see Xander standing. Maybe I did touch him during the night and he’s here to implement a pillow barrier system? But no, he’s just standing. And staring.
Staring staring. At me.
Like he wants me.
Before I know what’s happening, Xander closes the space between us.
Clutching my face with both hands, he lowers his lips to mine. He expertly traces kisses from my mouth to my neck, and the pace changes.
Xander slows down. He takes his time, savoring every kiss.
My skin buzzes. Every touch feels like he’s marking me permanently with a Xander was here tattoo.
He lingers on my collarbone, trailing kisses along it before turning back to my lips then to my earlobe.
I run my hands under his T-shirt toward his strong shoulders, feeling his muscles flex under my fingertips.
He hasn’t even touched me below the neck, and I’m losing it.
The guy is a sexual magician. I lift his T-shirt to signal it’s time to take our clothes off, and it’s the first break in Xander’s mouth-to-skin contact.
I’m already missing his lips when his hands graze the sides of my hips to slowly lift the flannel shirt I’m wearing and I gasp.
In one smooth move he discards my shirt and gazes over my body before pressing his bare chest into mine and our lips collide again in sweet relief.
His strong arms are wrapped around my back, keeping our bodies locked in place.
He presses his entire body into me, and I feel where his sweatpants frame the main event. I let out a whimper.
“I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I saw you,” he says, whispering in my ear, sending shock waves everywhere.
Gently, he pushes me back toward the bed, and his hands start to migrate south from my stomach. I will my legs not to buckle and then mercifully I hit the bed and fall back, his body following mine onto the soft surface.
“Xander.” I let out a moan. And then …
I’m lying on my back. The room is light. My hands are between my legs.
And Xander is not on top of me.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
Oh fuckity fuck.
My heart starts racing. And not the good kind of racing, like you get from heart healthy cardiovascular activities such as running. No, this is the kind you reserve for panic attacks when you realize you just had a sex dream and have literally been caught with your hand in your pants.
I look over at Xander and he’s wide-awake, sitting upright and staring at me.
Just like in my dream. But not.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
I throw a pillow over my face, willing myself to disappear.
If there was ever a time to make a deal with the devil, that time is now.
Dear Devil,
Is this how you do it? I don’t know and I don’t care. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Dear Devil,
How are you? I hope you’re well, and not too booked and busy with requests.
I would like to make a deal. I am willing to trade anything to go back in time and ensure Xander does not witness me moaning myself awake from sleep masturbation.
And I mean anything. I am willing to trade sleep farting, which I’m sure you’ll find equally soul destroying and an absolute boner killer, which will kill my confidence to hook up with hot dudes for a very long time, leaving me in sexual purgatory, which is, in essence, hell for me.
This is a great deal for you. And I’ll also throw in a set of steak knives.
Yours truly,
Ashleigh
I hold my breath.
Nothing happens.
“Are you okay?” Xander says, his voice a painful reminder that he’s still here, and that he saw and heard everything. I cringe so hard I almost pull a fucking muscle in my face.
“No,” I say, steadying myself for what I’m sure will be a full-blown mockery of my salacious sleeping habits.
But then he surprises me. “Nightmare?” he says without a hint of malice.
Wait. What? Nightmare? Oh, thank God. He thought I was moaning in fear (something I will likely overanalyze later but for now—who cares?). Yes. A nightmare! Exactly. One hundred percent a nightmare.
I remove the pillow from over my face and turn toward Xander. His hair is scruffy and messy and I want to run my hands through it. Do not flashback to the sex dream, Ash. Don’t do it. I’m warning you. I’m counting to three.
One.
Two.
A flash of his hands on me.
I swallow.
“Yes. Really scary stuff,” I say, clutching my heart to corroborate my story. I will take this lie with me to the grave.
There’s a soft knock on the door, and Ben enters.
“Good morning,” he says.
I smile. Sweet Ben. A perfect distraction. There will be no more mentioning of my one-woman show. Or of the cover-up story. Just an appreciation for fancy wires and to marvel at the relatively new science of polysomnography, which is a new word I learned, fancy speak for studying sleep.
“Ashleigh, we saw a hard spike in your vitals right before you woke up. Heart rate, breathing, eye and leg movement. I’ll have to replay the tapes back when we do the analysis later, but how are you feeling?” Ben says.
And no.
No. No. No.
Do not play the tapes back.
Do not study the tapes, Ben.
Ben, please don’t study the tapes.
“Bad dream,” I say, with a dry throat.
Ben’s eyes light up. “It’s rare we get adults who are woken up from a nightmare.
I’ll be looking forward to studying the video with my students at my next tutorial,” Ben says, confirming my worst fear that I’ve essentially made a porn, and it’s now going to be circulated among the academic community.
My heart starts racing again.
I look over at Xander, who is staring at me with an expression that is part pity, part curiosity. Wait—does he know?
His eyes shift to the floor.
Shit. He does fucking know! He knows and was just trying to give me an out. A small part of me is intrigued by this gesture of kindness. The larger part is now once again horrified.
Xander turns to Ben. “I believe the contract we signed mentioned our results would be kept confidential and not shared beyond the on-site team,” Xander says, putting his lawyer voice on.
“With your permission, of course,” Ben says to me.
Rock. Hard place. Me. What kind of excuse can I give for saying no that won’t make him even more curious to watch it on replay, slowing it down, rewinding it, zooming in like an NYPD cop trying to figure out who the Central Park Flasher is?
“We’d rather not,” Xander says simply. I wait for his excuse. His reason. His rationale to explain why we’d rather not. But it never comes. It has never occurred to me until this very moment that as adults, we do not need to justify why. We can simply say no.
“No problem,” Ben says without skipping a beat.
Thank you, Sweet Ben. He proceeds to de-wire us, thank us, and leave.
And that’s the end of that.
A few minutes later, we’re standing by Xander’s car wearing the clothes we came in with.
“Thanks,” I say, forcing it out before I chicken out.
“For what?” he says.
“For making sure my terrible …” I swallow. “Nightmare wasn’t paraded around the science department.”
“Sure,” he says, his expression indifferent.
We stand, staring at each other. It’s so awkward. He knows. And I know he knows. And he knows that I know that he knows.
I’m wondering when he’s going to give me a wisecrack. Give me shit about what happened. But he doesn’t.
“Okay,” he says, ready to wrap this up.
“See you tonight,” I say quickly, beating him to it. I turn and hightail it toward my car, hoping I can get out of there before anything else happens.
And then I hear his voice from behind me. “Shouldn’t you say, see you tonight, Xander?” He calls out his name in a spot-on impression of my moan.
I freeze and slowly turn around just in time to see a wicked grin spread across Xander’s face before he disappears into his car.
I let out a long and slow breath. Well, that’s our first night done and dusted. Only twenty-nine days to go. So, if everything that could possibly go wrong went thunderously wrong the first time, am I safe to say it’s smooth sailing from here? The devil on my shoulder laughs.