Humans can go without sleep for seventy-two hours and still function. After that, things start to misfire, and the senses float in a clumsy, intoxicated state, similar to drunkenness. It’s an exhilarating form of escape without chemicals or alcohol.
The downside is once I reach this level of sleep-deprivation, I’m too wired to close my eyes and let go. Especially with the hot currents of hunger thrumming through my body.
Stripped down to my briefs, I lie on a sleeping bag in the field behind the house. The summer night billows out around me like a giant tent of rustling grass, old trees, and glittering stars.
For the past hour, I’ve tried to tune into my childhood surroundings, but my thoughts are elsewhere, suspended in a fog of seductive whispers.
The soft, melodic voice in my head belongs to a Native American goddess, one I have no business fantasizing about. I feel her small hands on my legs, the erotic curve of her spine against my chest, and her purring, insightful words in my bloodstream.
The only reason she’s under my skin is because I haven’t been around a woman in years. Doesn’t help that she’s a goddamn knockout. Silky black hair, plump tits, tight round ass, satiny bronze legs, exotic features—she’s a perfect ten on top, bottom, and everywhere in between.
I told her I didn’t have to pay for sex, but she’s so devastatingly gorgeous I’d empty my savings account to tap that.
Why am I not in there right now nailing her against the wall? She’s convenient. Experienced. Willing. Hell, she wants to be used for sex.
Because she’s messed up. Probably more mentally fucked than I am.
I stretch out on my back, clasp my hands behind my head, and sink into the vast starlit sky.
There are windows in prison, narrow gaps of heavy glass where an inmate can view the stars that are banked in the sky over razor wire fences. Indulging in that luxury, however, exposes his back to anyone who wants to take out some aggression.
A shudder ripples through me, and I close my eyes. I don’t know how long I lie there, unable to fall asleep. I’m about to give up when something traipses through the grass in the distance.
I strain my hearing, my senses on high-alert.
Dirt scrapes beneath tripping steps, followed by a huff of breath. If someone wanted to get a jump on me, they wouldn’t be making this much racket.
Jake and Jarret have distinct rhythms in their gaits. I can pick out the sound of their boots in a crowd. Conor’s pace has a swiftness to it, a determination. I don’t know Maybe, but I’d bet my best hat Jarret wouldn’t let her loose in the middle of the night.
The approaching footsteps are light and haphazard, moseying across the terrain with irritating nonchalance before pausing within reach of my head.
I don’t bother opening my eyes. “I told you not to wander around alone.”
“How did you know it was me?” Raina inches closer, kicking up dirt beside my face.
“You’re a pest, buzzing around and grating on nerves.”
“You say the sweetest things,” she deadpans.
“Why are you here?”
“I let the universe guide me.”
I crack open an eye.
She stands over me, wearing one of my flannel shirts, nipples poking beneath the cotton, a thermos in one hand, and miles and miles and miles of tanned legs. If I shift a couple inches closer, I’d see under the hem and find out if she’s as bare as her thighs.
My groin tightens, a reaction I can’t hide as her dark gaze travels across my briefs. She continues her perusal, openly checking out my legs, my abs, my chest.
If I were modest before prison, I lost all traces of that by the time I was released. Nudity doesn’t affect me, but the way she’s looking at my body, eyes hooded and mouth parted, leaves a very hard, painful response between my legs.
“Hmm. No tattoos.” She holds out the thermos. “I brought you tea.”
“I don’t want tattoos. Or caffeine.”
“It’s decaf. An old family recipe for insomnia.”
I keep my hands folded beneath the back of my head.
She twists off the cap and sits beside my hip with her legs crossed. Tucking her bare feet under her thighs and knees wide open, she gives me a straight shot of the pink fabric covering her pussy.
I know for a fact she ran from John’s house without undergarments.
“Where did you get those?” I direct my eyes at her panties, wondering if they belong to Maybe.
She glances down but doesn’t move to cover herself.
“When I drove your truck into town yesterday, I stopped at Walmart and…” She pours the tea into the cup-sized thermos cap and shrugs. “I stole them.”
Little fucking thief.
I narrow my eyes. “Did the universe guide you then, too?”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“I’m serious. Stealing seems to be a habit of yours.”