4. Amber #2
He laid back on the floor and put his hands behind his head. “I didn’t pick you to like The Killers. But here we are.” He glanced over at me holding the shirt and then shifted onto his side, so he was facing away from me.
I quickly pulled off my dirty clothes, leaving them in a pile at the foot of the bed, and tugged on the shirt.
When it was covering everything, I raised an eyebrow at Herb’s back. “Huh. You didn’t even peek.”
He snorted on a laugh as he rolled to his back again. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but not every man wants to see you naked, Amber.”
I squinted at him. “Oh, really?”
He grinned. “I’m not saying I’m one of them, but I’m sure someone, somewhere doesn’t care for your perfect tits and ass.”
If anyone had asked me, I wouldn’t have admitted the compliment did nice things to my insides. Instead, I threw my dirty bikini top at him and then wrinkled my nose when he caught it and tucked it into his pocket.
“I’m keeping this.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
“Go to sleep, Herb.”
“Goodnight, Amber.”
I curled up in a ball and waited for Herb to start snoring.
Because one-hundred-percent, that man had to be a snorer.
He just seemed the type. It didn’t come, but his breathing did even out and get slower.
His eyes were closed, so I eventually conceded, that perhaps, I actually didn’t know everything about Herb and maybe I had underestimated him a little bit.
Then one of his farts ripped apart the silence in the tent.
I threw a pillow at him. “Are you serious right now? Like the dust outside wasn’t enough to try to end me, now you’re trying to do it from inside the tent too?”
He laughed. “Unless you can tell me your perfectly puckered asshole has never let out gas, then quit complaining.”
I rolled over so my back was to him and muttered beneath my breath something about him being a pig. Because he was right, but I wanted to pretend he wasn’t.
I jammed my eyes shut and pulled the blanket up over my head to try to keep out the dust and the smell of Herb’s toxic gases.
I counted sheep in my head, trying to force myself to sleep, but my lower belly cramped in painful spasms that refused to be ignored.
I twisted and turned, the air mattress beneath me squeaking in protest every time.
The tops of my thighs ached. I wanted a hot water bottle and some ibuprofen, but I didn’t have any of those things.
“Amber,” Herb said in the darkness.
I jumped at his voice. I hadn’t even realized he was still awake.
“What?”
“Can you stop flipping around that bed like a salmon just plucked from a river? Some of us are trying to sleep.”
The PMS got the better of me. I pummeled him with my pillow again, as hard as humanly possible.
“You ARE sleeping! It’s me who’s been awake this entire time while my uterus contemplates all the ways it can hurt me.
” I shoved myself up into a seated position.
“You know what? I’m leaving. The wind has died down enough.
I’m going back to my own tent so you can get all the beauty sleep you need, while you fart and snore and reek the place out with your pot stench. ”
I shoved off the blanket, knowing full well I was being a bitch, but tears pricked the backs of my eyes.
Kiki had Kyle being all sweet and goo-goo eyed for her.
The men at the club, War and Fang and even Hawk all fawned over their women when they were sick or hurt.
Even Nyah had Lynx and Luca and Dax all tied up in stitches over her.
In my premenstrual state, some part of me wanted to stamp my foot and ask when was it my turn? To have a man want me like that?
Which only pissed me off more because this wasn’t who I was. I didn’t need a man and I knew, in a few days’ time, when all of this hormone-driven bullshit passed, I’d be really mad at myself for how ridiculous I was being right now. But in the moment, I was just in pain, tired, and I’d had enough.
I stomped as best I could in a tent I couldn’t quite stand tall in, lurching toward the zipper, fumbling for it then getting frustrated again when I couldn’t find it.
Herb caught my wrist in the darkness.
I fought against him, trying to get it out of his grip, but it was surprisingly strong. “Let go of me,” I demanded. “I’m leaving.”
He sighed, like his patience with me was wearing thin. “You’re not. Get back into bed.”
I tried wrenching my arm. “I said let go of me!”
His gaze met mine in the dim light, and he breathed out a huff of breath. “You aren’t going to sleep any better in a tent by yourself. You’re just going to lie there in pain feeling sorry for yourself.”
I glared at him. “Are you saying I’m being a princess? Because unless you have a uterus, you have no idea—”
“I’m saying get back on the bed and let me fucking help you feel better.”
I blinked at the tone in his voice. It was that deep, possessive tone I’d heard a glimpse of earlier that had done weird things to my insides.
I shook it off. “Do you have Advil or a heat pack?”
There was definitely a twinge of hope laced in my words.
He moved closer to me, his face mere inches from mine, forcing me back until my ass plonked down on the edge of the air mattress. His grip switched from the tops of my arms, to wrapping around the bare skin of my ankles. “No. I have something better.”
He yanked both my ankles up in the air, flipping me onto my back.
Surprise punched through me and, for a second, I just bounced on the air mattress, trying to work out how I’d gotten there. When I finally found my voice, it was to squeak out, “Herb! What the hell are you doing?”
He stared down at me, my legs spread wide either side of his body. “You can’t sleep. You’re in pain. You know what’s good for that?”
I silently shook my head.
“An orgasm.”
I yanked my foot free from his grasp and kicked him in the shoulder. “You are not serious!”
He caught my ankle before I could kick him again. “I most definitely am serious.”
“I’m not having sex with you, Herb!” I hissed at him.
He blinked. “I never said anything about sex. I said I was going to give you an orgasm. Not that I was going to have one.”
I went quiet. “Are you serious?”
He shrugged. “I don’t like seeing you in pain. I can help.”
“But we hate each other. You think I’m a prissy bitch—”
“And you think I’m a chubby stoner. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Are you going to be in pain for the rest of the night, or do you want me to put my tongue on your pussy until you come so we can both actually get some sleep tonight?”
I remembered reading somewhere that orgasms were supposed to help with period pain. I’d never really tested the theory before.
I was getting pretty desperate for some pain relief though. And turning down an orgasm, with zero expectation of reciprocation, seemed a bit silly.
But Herb? Stoner Herb who farted and sang the wrong lyrics to songs and dropped canopies on my toes and generally drove me insane with how annoying he was?
The same Herb who currently had my ankles resting on his shoulders and was offering to help me. The same Herb who’d pulled me out of that storm and given up his bed for me.
“I’m not an asshole,” he said softly. “You’re going to have to actually give me verbal permission.”
I found myself nodding. “Okay.”
Surprise settled over his features. “Okay? Like, okay, Amber Malone, woman of my dreams, is going to let me suck her pussy?”
“I’ll change my mind if you keep talking like that! Stop giving me the ick.” I was running out of things to throw at the man.