o be sleeping in. This was a first date. Yes, they’d had sex, but sleeping over was a whole other thing. She’d never actually slept at a guy’s place before. “Um, I better get going. It’s late.”
Shaw’s face shifted into one of displeasure. “It’s the middle of the night. Your car is at the gym.”
“I can take an Uber back to it.”
“The hell you can.” He sat on the edge of the bed beside her. “If you want to leave, I’ll drive you.” He put his hand on her knee on top of the blanket. “Do you want to leave?”
She sat up taller, the question feeling loaded. “We agreed to keep this casual.”
“Right, but casual is whatever we decide we want it to be. I’m tired. You’re tired. I don’t want you driving all the way to Long Acre this late. It makes more sense for you to stay. But if sleeping here with me tonight feels like too much, I can crash on the couch.”
She put her hand over her face and shook her head, smiling. “We sound ridiculous. Sleep on the couch? You were just inside my actual body a little while ago.”
“I’m very aware of that. Acutely aware, actually.”
“I’m naked right now.”
“Yep. Very aware on that count, too.” She could hear the amusement in his voice.
She looked up at him. “Here I am, worrying that sharing a bed with you tonight might be crossing a line, and you’re sitting there offering to sleep on the couch in your own place. What is that?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I just don’t understand why everyone puts these labels on everything. It makes it more complicated than it needs to be. A kiss on the mouth means this. Sleeping over means that. Your penis was in my mouth, Shaw.”
His eyelids went half-mast. “Keep reminding me, professor, and neither of us may be getting any sleep at all.”
She smirked. “All I’m saying is that I shouldn’t feel weird sleeping beside you tonight, right? We should get some rest…next to each other…in the same bed. And not make a thing of it.”
He leaned over and cupped her cheek. “There is no thing to be made. I want you to sleep here. You want to stay. End of story. I’m going to take a shower, if you want to join me in there, and I’ll dig out a spare toothbrush because it’s not gentlemanly to leave a lady with penis breath.”
She laughed and touched her fingers to her lips. “I have no such thing.”
“Better let me double-check.” He caught her wrist, dragging her close to kiss her. The kiss was one that didn’t ask for more, just a simple, sweet I’m-glad-you’re-here kiss. All her worries softened around the edges.
This didn’t have to be a big deal. They’d just be sleeping.
After a little naked time in the shower.
No. Big. Thing.
Chapter
Twenty
Early the next morning, Taryn blinked in the golden light peeking through the blinds and, for a moment, didn’t know where she was. A shot of disoriented panic went through her, but when she heard soft snoring next to her and felt the heat of the man behind her, her mind came back online, the night replaying in quick, colorful highlights. Shaw. Singing. Sex. Shower. Sleeping.
She relaxed back into the pillow, relishing the soft bed and cozy warmth of having Shaw next to her. The pillow smelled of him, whatever shampoo or deodorant he used—masculine and fresh. It was the scent that had perfumed the steamy air of the shower last night when they’d touched and kissed and soaped each other until the water ran cool. She had a silly urge to bury her face in the pillow and inhale. She squinted at the clock on the bedside table to check the time, her vision blurry without her glasses. She didn’t have anywhere to be this morning—her usual Friday class had been taken over by another professor—which felt strange, but also a little decadent.
Shaw must’ve felt her movement because he reached out with that long arm of his and gathered her against him. “Not time yet,” he mumbled into her neck. “Early.”
She snuggled into him, letting his body spoon around her. He’d ditched the sweatpants for a pair of soft boxer shorts, and she was still wearing his T-shirt, but there was nothing else between them. Just sleep-warm skin and soft breaths. Her backside was pressed up against his crotch, and she felt the firmness there, the morning or her presence arousing him. But it wasn’t an urgent nudge or an invitation. He nestled her closer like he just enjoyed feeling her against him.
So this was what she’d been missing out on those times she’d left a guy’s house or sent one home from hers after sex. Maybe this was why people put labels on things. In a lot of ways, this felt so much more intimate than when they’d had sex last night. Now she knew what he wore to bed. What he smelled like after a shower. What brand of toothpaste he used. That he liked to cuddle and sleep late. He now knew that she wrapped her hair in a silk scarf at night to save her curls from becoming a flattened-out disaster. He knew she needed two pillows or she’d never fall asleep. She’d learned that he snored and liked to keep a hand on her while he slept, never completely disconnecting.
She knew she was the only woman who’d slept in this bed.
And was the only one who knew his real name.