I swallowed. He swallowed. The silence stretched on.
The lighting on his face changed as his tablet clicked off and still we stared at each other, haunted by the ghosts of unfinished business from last night. Although business would be the last word in the world that I’d choose to describe the goings on the previous night.
No… no…
I’d felt him everywhere. Suddenly an ache tightened between my thighs, in my stomach, down to my core. Everything inside me heated from the memory of how good he’d made me feel. And how much I wanted him to do it again.
And how much I’d like to do the same to him.
Clearly it had freaked him the hell out, given his brusque freeze-out at work today.
Nevertheless, I wavered where I lay, leaning forward, just slightly, as if pushed by a stiff wind. And that bit of movement, right there, broke the spell. Immediately he sat up and turned to set his tablet on the nightstand.
And with a gruff “Good night,” he clicked off the bedside lamp and turned his back to me. I lay there, not knowing exactly what to think, blinking into the darkness. In minutes, he was inhaling and exhaling slowly with the peaceful rhythm of slumber.
With a sigh, I flopped onto my back and stared up at the ceiling for hours. It would be a miracle if I could sleep tonight with all that had gone on. The thoughts, they were racing and jumping from subject to subject. All the past anxieties had now combined with the existing energy and tension that I’d hoped Lucas would help me release.
I couldn’t get Derek’s sudden appearance at my doorstep out of my head. After almost two years of hearing nothing from any of my immediate family members. Suddenly him, of all people, showed up at my door as if no time had passed at all. As if I hadn’t packed up my bags in the middle of the night and taken off without saying goodbye.
This trip of his wasn’t just some pleasure trip to see the sites of Hollywood, visit famous beaches and stroll around amusement parks. Something was afoot. Almost certainly it would include some kind of pressure for me to return to Canada and all the unfinished business they felt I’d left behind. That was a given.
No way in hell.
Nothing worked… not rolling from side to side, not adjusting a pillow, not getting up to use the washroom—and almost stepping on a sleeping dog in dark. I lay there for hours, sleepless, thoughts racing like stock cars winding their ways up hairpin turns and high cliff roads. Suddenly I wished I could just give up and go blow off some steam while gaming. But I’d have to walk by the dining room and who knew what those two idiots were getting up to in there. Had to maintain the illusion that we were happily snoozing away, spooning tightly after some mind-blowing marital sex.
God, I could use some sex right now, marital, semi-acrobatic, or even boring missionary-style. I wasn’t picky at this point.
Instead, I calmed myself while listening to the regular pace of his breathing and staring at the shadows that the neighbor’s pool reflected on the window. I almost felt comforted. Like I wasn’t in this alone.
But maybe that was all just illusion.
Nevertheless, my eyes finally closed just after four in the morning.
Chapter 13
Lucas
It was clear that she’d gotten hardly any sleep. I’d never tell her but, she woke me up a few times throughout the night with her restlessness. It had been a while since I’d shared a bed—as in literally sleeping beside each other in bed. Last night’s experience had been a weird throwback to my married days.
Or, I guess, those other married days.
We were quiet in the morning, hardly speaking. She’d had the forethought to grab her clothes, and I let her have the bathroom first, dressing while she showered, then starting a pot of coffee.
Our surprise guests were still sleeping. I left it to Kat to deal with them—which she did, rousing them before breakfast and essentially sending them on their way after feeding them. They groused at her but eventually, with some goading, left the house when we did.
Derek stood on the front steps as we locked up. “See you back here tonight sometime, eh? When are you off work?”
“Five, in theory,” Kat said drily. “Not that we ever make it back at that time.”