some sleep without resting my head on that gorgeous woman's body.
It didn't.
All I got was another streak on the shower wall and a buzz in my body that seemed to say, "Great warm-up. When's the real game starting?"
I tossed and turned in bed as much as I could, considering the busted shoulder situation. I slept for minutes here and there. My dick was hard the entire time.
After three hours of nocturnal torture, I heaved myself out of bed and went in search of some pain medication. Instead of the pills, I found Zelda curled up on the sofa wearing what I could only describe as nothing.
"Oh," she yelped, scrambling to the corner and tucking her legs under her. "I didn't mean to wake you up."
"You didn't," I said, my voice only slightly gentler than a bark. "I've been up."
Her gaze dropped to my boxers. "I can see that."
13
Zelda
There were two things you should know about me. Probably twenty things, but for the present situation two were most important.
One, I didn't sleep well. I'd never been able to rest my head on a pillow, shut my eyes, and drift off to dreamland. I had to wiggle around in bed and make unrealistic plans for the next day and reevaluate every time I'd ever said supremely cringey things in otherwise ordinary moments. I couldn't wind down until my head completed its Rockette-style high kicks for the night. Most of the time, I avoided the mental spinout with reruns of The Golden Girls or The Office, melting into the comfortable predictability like chocolate bars in the microwave. Even then, I drifted for hours in a groggy state that was neither asleep nor awake.
And two, I didn't own any pajamas. No one believed this but it was the damn truth. I slept in underwear and t-shirts, and not baggy sleep shirt-ish ones from Homecoming 2008 but actual t-shirts. The same ones I wore most days with jeans. They weren't big or holey, or otherwise pajama-y. Sometimes, I opted for a tank top. When it suited me, I skipped the shirt altogether and stuck with undies—or nothing at all. I couldn't justify buying clothes to sleep in when I was perfectly cozy without. The only exception was a pair of boxer shorts I'd owned since high school, back when it was "fashionable" for girls to wear boxers as clothing. Now, nearly twelve years later, those boxers were faded beyond recognition and washed so soft, they were threadbare. Any sudden movements and those things were bound to fall apart.
Like I said, you should know this. It made the whole lounging on Ash's sofa in the middle of the night wearing men's underwear and a tank top thing a lot less unusual.
There was no explanation for my inability to stop staring at the erection trapped behind his boxer briefs. I mean, nothing beyond the knowledge of what that thing looked like when wet and what it felt like pressed against my thigh.
Ash glanced to the television—Parks and Rec, tonight's elixir—and then back at me. Brows furrowed, he asked, "Why are you awake?"
Blinking at him, I jerked my shoulders up. "Why are you?"
"Because…" He tapped his fingers against his hip, forcing my gaze back to his boxers. Either he liked the attention or he had no idea what was happening down there. "Because I couldn't sleep. My shoulder hurts and—and I don't know. Maybe I'm still on Mountain Time."
"You don't seem like the kind of person who lets pesky things such as time zones interfere with your life," I replied.
Annoyance splashed over him like a spilled bowl of soup. "What kind of person is that?"
"There's no reason to take offense, Ashville." I stood, straightening my tank top straps in the process, and headed into the kitchen. I returned with his prescription painkiller and a glass of water. "We both know you like things a certain way. Nothing wrong with that or the fact your body does recognize when it's in a different environment, even if you wished it didn't. The fact is, you need what you need."
He tapped his fingers on that hip like he was sending a very important telegraph. Tapped for the length of a dog food commercial. Then he accepted the pill and water, gulped them down, and said, "Right now, I need you to clarify what you're saying to me."
I ran my tongue over my top lip and glanced at the television before settling back into my corner of the sofa. Most of the