Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,57

had been intoxicating because I’d been so desperate to be touched, and now that things were quiet and we were going to sleep, it was still intoxicating for the same reason. Social distancing had left me touch-starved in ways I’d never been before. At least on the boat or in combat, there’d still been some contact, even if it hadn’t been sexual. High fives. Back slaps. Rough-housing. Even brushing against someone in the berthing or in the chow line. It didn’t make up for the intimacy I couldn’t get out there, but it did more than I’d ever realized until I’d suddenly had to keep the entire world six feet away.

I had no idea if we’d get turned on and go another round tonight. I didn’t really care if we did. I just hoped that if we got too warm, Tristan was quicker to push the covers off than to push me away. I needed this.

Before the world had come unraveled, I’d usually stayed until morning when I’d met guys for casual hookups. Sometimes they went home and I just slept in the hotel room we’d shared, and sometimes I slept in their bed under the pretense of getting in a bonus round before we went our separate ways the next day. But that had been less about wanting to sleep next to someone and more about either wanting more sex or wanting to stay away from home. Or both.

Tonight, sleeping next to someone was exactly what I wanted, ideally as close as possible just like we were right now. Yeah, I’d pitched it with the idea of being conveniently in the same bed if one of us got hard again, but secretly, I craved the warmth of someone sleeping next to me.

And now I had it. His breathing had slowed and his grip on my hand had loosened, so he’d probably either drifted off or was close to it. I wasn’t staying awake much longer myself. I tried, though, just so I could take in a few deep breaths of his scent while I savored being this close to someone.

I didn’t know what to make of how grateful I was that that someone was Tristan.

Chapter 16

Tristan

Sex didn’t fix everything. Hell, it didn’t really fix anything.

But I would say this for sex with Casey: It sure killed what was left of the tension in our house. One sweaty night in bed together, and everything was different. One minute we were roommates with cabin fever, trying like hell to keep our heads together and each other at arm’s length while we couldn’t venture out (and really didn’t want to venture out, under the circumstances). The next, pandemic or not, we didn’t want to go anywhere, and we sure as hell didn’t want to stay at arm’s length. Funny how the walls stopped closing in when we wanted to be as close to each other as we could get.

Sometimes we slept in my bed. Sometimes we slept in his. It was seriously like having a fuck buddy from Tinder living under the same roof. If that was what it took to get us through this pandemic without losing our minds, I’d take it, and I wouldn’t complain.

Especially since I had nothing to complain about. Temporary or not, I was having a blast with Casey. Once, when we’d ventured out to get some curbside takeout to eat in a parking lot, we’d ended up pulling over off a side road and blowing each other. Another time, I’d almost missed a deadline for one of my classes because Casey and I had been, uh, preoccupied. Fortunately, I’d remembered and managed to squeeze in my discussion board post about five minutes before midnight. Phew.

And of course that was to say nothing about the smug satisfaction of finally being the reason Casey was walking a bit gingerly some mornings.

There were nights when one or both of us was too tired—especially him after a long shift—but we both seemed to gravitate toward each other more often than not. If we were screwing, we weren’t fighting, so that had to count for something. Not that we’d been fighting much lately anyway. Or even giving each other the cold shoulder. Now that we’d crossed this line, it kind of felt like we’d been meandering toward it for a while without even realizing it.

But it wasn’t just that we weren’t fighting or giving each other the cold shoulder. We’d gone from an arm’s length apart to screwing, and now our