11
Andi
A Late Night Visitor
Ihave only two nights left in Lindsi’s home before she and Oz are due back home and my flight itinerary says I’m heading out, so when my bedroom window is cracked open and cool breeze rushes in, I don’t jump up and scream like a banshee and create a scene. I already saw his truck pull up. I saw the lights through my curtains and heard the rumbling engine in the night.
Lying on my side, I keep still and wait for him to make his move.
Quiet as a panther, Riley pushes the window up and brushes the curtains aside. My arms break out in goosebumps for the minute it takes him to climb in, then he drops to his feet with barely more than a muffled thump and slides the window closed again.
“If you’re awake, Dee, it’s just me. Relax.” The sound of his belt buckle makes me smile, not because I want to get laid, but because it’s the calling card Benny’s been waiting for all week. He swears I’m smuggling male company in at night, but until now, he was wrong. “But if you’re asleep, I beg you, don’t freak out. I need a hug, Deedee. I need to hugyou.” He shucks his jeans down and kicks his boots off. “Don’t scream. Don’t kick me out.”
Mercifully, I turn over in bed and let him see my smile in the moonlight. “I’m awake.” I toss the blankets back and make room for him. “Come on in, big boy. Tell me your woes.”
“No.” He tosses his shirt to the end of the bed and slides in wearing nothing but boxer shorts. “I don’t wanna talk about it, I just wanna hug for a bit.” Turning onto his arm, he lifts the other hand to my jaw and stares down into my eyes. His are haunted. They make me sad; whatever he doesn’t want to talk about, whatever he’s seen tonight makes me sad for him. “Truce, Dee? Just for tonight, no games, don’t run. I just need to rest.”
“Okay.” I don’t want to play games tonight either, so I pat my bare chest and pull him down. “Sleep on me, handsome. You can rest now.”
He lets out a deep sigh and burrows against my chest. My boobs are bare, my nipples literally within tasting distance, but he doesn’t touch. He doesn’t taste. He pulls me into his body, lifts his leg over my thighs, and bends me like a pretzel to make us fit. “Thank you.”
“It’s okay.” Uncharacteristically, I press a kiss to the top of his head and breathe in the scent of fresh shampoo. It makes me sadder that he showered recently. That he felt the need to. “Are you sleepy?”
He holds his breath and shakes his head.
“I saw you today.”
“Yeah?” He brings a hand up and circles my belly button with the tip of his finger. “At the gym?”
“Uh-huh. You were lifting mega weights and challenging me to lift heavier.”
“I wasn’t challenging you to anything. I didn’t even know that you saw me.”
I snicker. It’s fake and forced, but the doom he brought into this room makes my heart ache. “I saw you lifting like a machine, and I saw you watching my ass. So I had to step up. You know this about me.”
“I didn’t mean for you to do that, Dee. You could’ve hurt yourself.” His hand comes down to massage my thigh. “Don’t hurt yourself because you think I’m playing the same game as you. I’m not playing. I’m just trying to enjoy you while you allow it.”
“I’m allowing it now.” I wind my fingers into his hair and pull until his sad eyes meet mine. He’s so haunted, so broken, but when I lick my lips, his eyes drop to them. Scooting an inch lower in my toasty warm bed, I allow his large hands to circle my hips, and my breasts to be crushed under the weight of his chest.
Bending my neck to get closer, I brush my lips over his and swallow his surrender. “I’m mad that I kinda missed you this week.”
“I missed you so much it’s dumb. I’m not supposed to miss you at all, Dee, but you got yourself wedged up in my chest so high it makes it hard to breathe.” He climbs over me so his knees rest between my legs.
Opening them wider, I allow him in. “I’m going home in two days.”
Leaning forward, he drops a kiss to my chest, my shoulder, my jaw. “I know.” Another on my jaw. My chin. My lips. “And I’m kinda pissed that I’m gonna miss you.”
* * *
I waketo sunlight pouring through my open curtain and a heavy body pinning me to my mattress. Sweat beads between our bodies, but the way his lips pucker in his sleep is enough that I don’t want to wake him.
He lays on his belly, with half his torso over mine, the other half on the bed. His arm crushes my chest, and his heavy thigh covers mine so I’m stuck in every way beneath my very own sweaty weighted blanket.
The coffee machine crunches beans in the kitchen, and the heavenly scent of caffeine wafts down the hall and reminds me I’m supposed to be on kid duty, and now I’m kind of busted.
Ben’s going to be so pleasant this morning.
More skilled at this than I was a few nights ago – or perhaps Riley’s just more exhausted – I slide out from beneath his body and climb out of bed without him waking. I can’t grab my clothes and run naked into the hall like I did in his home, so I dress right beside the bed.Properlydress; yoga pants, bra, socks. The whole lot. When he still doesn’t wake, I lean over him and fix the sheet so his ass isn’t on show if one of the kids wanders into my room, then I move into the hall and bite off a string of curses when I pass Livi’s room and find her sitting cross legged on her bed with toast in one hand, a heavy paperback book in the other, and a steaming cup of tea by her leg.