It had been easy enough to talk Celeste into heading to bed. The truth was, Drake had had enough of that line of conversation. He didn’t like thinking about the time he’d spent living in Los Angeles. All it had succeeded in doing was leaving him jaded with most of humanity. He much preferred animals to people these days, but for some reason, he was actually enjoying having Celeste on this damned camping trip with him.

He’d figured it would be a chore, that he’d wind up babysitting her through the entire trip just to prove a point, but it hadn’t really occurred to him that she hadn’t ever seen what the stars looked like out on the mountaintops this kind of year. The colder air gave them an ever crisper quality than the summer would have. It was just the perfect time of year to out here. Cold enough so that you knew when it was time to go to bed and not so cold you were going to freeze to death at night. He’d still brought a pair of subzero sleeping bags for them to curl up inside for the night anyhow.

The tent was a standard two-person tent, but anyone who’d ever used one of those before knew it meant that you were getting up close and personal with anyone you shared the tent with. He couldn’t have afforded the backpack space for two of them, and there was nothing bigger he was going to be able to have the two of them carry up into the mountains so this was it. Maybe if Celeste saw how cramped quarters were going to be, she would cut the trip in half and have them hike it out of there after the first night.

Mostly, though, she was just so tired that it didn’t matter to her how tight the fit in the tent was. Drake hadn’t thought it was going to be a problem for himself, but he hadn’t counted on the exact combination of things that was going to conspire to keep him awake.

It seemed like Celeste fell asleep as soon as she got zipped into the sleeping bag. The tent was such a tight fit that the two of them had to slide in on their sides to get into the confined space which essentially left Drake spooning Celeste as she slept peacefully molded into his body. At first, it hadn’t been a problem, but when she slowly melted into him as sleep took her, it left almost her entire weight pressed against his body which responded like any other guy’s would have with a beautiful young woman essentially curled into his chest. In the end, there was nothing he could do, but drape his arm around her and just let her cuddle into him in her sleep.

If only things had left off there, maybe Drake could have brought himself around to sleep eventually, but it was as if everything was working against him tonight. As it turned out, Celeste talked in her sleep. At first it was amusing. She kept babbling about something incoherent he couldn’t quite make out in spite of the fact he was listening pretty intently. It was funny until the one word he made out was his own name.

“Drake…” He had no idea what she was dreaming about, but it included him. It didn’t help that the next sound that came out of her mouth was a soft whimpering moan.

Drake let out a moan and stared up at the roof of the tent. It was too close for him to roll over and try to get away without waking her, so he was struck with laying there listening to whatever played out. It only got worse from there.

She kept up the whimpering and the moaning as she squirmed against him, and even though there were two sleeping bags between them, it was absolute torture.

“No, we shouldn’t… I work for you.” That one was followed by her rolling her weight back into him and letting her arm fall between the two of them.

He wouldn’t have thought her possible of pulling him in with that much strength even when she was awake, but with her arm free of the sleeping bag, she looped it around his body and rolled back into him brushing a kiss across his lips. He wanted to return it. It had been the thing he’d wanted more than anything since she’d started up with this whole ‘anything you can do I can do better’ spiel. But it wasn’t fair for him to take advantage of the fact that she was asleep. Instead, all he could do was let her get whatever this was out of her sleep drugged system and try to fall asleep.

Finally, she pulled away, draping her arm around his body and soothed herself from whatever fevered dream she was involved in. He would have liked to have had a fly on the wall view of whatever was playing out behind those still closed eyes, but he was just going to have to judge based on the way she’d behaved. It was entirely out of character for Celeste, but he’d just met her. In all honesty, he had no way of knowing how she behaved when she wasn’t trying to be professional.

If you’d asked him earlier in the day, he’d have sworn she hated him, but now, there were other possibilities playing out in his mind. This camping trip just took on an entirely different dimension, and if she was going to keep on playing these tough city girl games, then he could play a game of his own.

Maybe it gave him an unfair advantage to be privy to her dreams, but he wasn’t necessarily a fan of playing fair when you had the upper hand. Now it was all just a matter of making this trip as torturous as she’d managed to make his night.

One of two things was going to happen, either she was going to crack and wind up in his arms or she was going to run away screaming. Either way, he came out on the winning end of the stick. He was going to have a gorgeous smart woman in his arms, or he was going to send her running back to the city as soon as she could catch a flight out of Denver and back to Southern California.

She had a lot of potential. He had to admit that to himself. She was determined, smart and stubborn. Every one of those qualities reminded Drake of himself, but she was impractical at times, and far too hung up on heading back to that hell hole of a city she’d grown up in. Maybe she couldn’t help it. She’d never experienced life outside of that urban sprawl and didn’t know what she was missing. There was hope yet for Celeste. Now, it was just a matter of whether she was going to rise to the occasion or run screaming.

Drake wasn’t certain how late it was when he finally got to sleep, but he knew it was well past midnight when he was finally able to turn off the wheels turning in his mind and drift off. He did know that he had a plan formed for the next few days that were designed to torture Celeste in the worst possible way, and he was going to have the time of his life enacting it.