8

AFTER TOO LITTLE SLEEP

DOC

I CAN’T FALL asleep right away. Her snores are quiet, but it’s snoring nonetheless. That’s not what’s keeping me awake, though. My brain is spinning around all of this. Her. Me. The Tank-Wagon. I chuckle to myself and rub my nose along her shoulder. Nora curls herself into the crook of my elbow, her head resting on my bicep as she faces away from me. Leaving my arm trapped where it is, I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling.

After something close to two years, after assuming she was never coming back to me, after thinking having something like what I’d had with Nora with anyone else was next to impossible… she’s here. She said yes, and she’s holding my hand in her sleep.

And I’m in big fucking trouble.

Nora Bennett is bad news. She’s fireworks and candy, turpentine and rusty nails, vicious and sweet all rolled up into one woman.

No, saying she’s bad news is misleading. The truth is, she’s dangerous. To me. And no matter what I said to her, I want this to work. I want her to find a way to be with me, only me, for as long as we can make it. But she will fight me. And she will refuse to follow her own heart.

Last time ’round, everything was in secret until Sophie caught us making out on Monkhouse’s deck. Nora’d said, “It’s casual. If someone asks, we’re just having a good time.”

“We are having a good time,” I’d told her. “Why does it have to be—”

She’d severed my thought with a more intense kiss than before, and I legitimately ceased to care what we were talking about.

I once called her my girlfriend when we ventured out of the bedroom to get dinner. We’d driven to Venice Beach because Nora mentioned a sushi place there that she loved. A female friend of mine happened to stroll by on the boardwalk and stopped to say hi.

“Who’s your friend, Doc?” she’d asked.

“Oh, this is my girlfriend, Nora,” I told her, watching Nora blanch—then blush.

After we finished dinner, we’d ended up at a hotel steps away and had the most amazing sex. We barely slept and drove up PCH and back to Bodhi at five in the morning.

Then she didn’t return my calls or texts for three days after I dropped her back at her place. When I finally saw her and asked her what was going on, she ended it. “Too serious,” she said. Until we saw each other at The Post two weeks later and ended up fucking in the manager’s office.

It’s okay. We know the manager. Edwin’s cool.

As far as anyone else knew, though, it was over. I kept myself in the frame of mind that was happy with the sex—and that’s all it was for the latter half of our… whatever. I accepted it because I wanted what I could get. I thought if I didn’t push, if I relaxed a bit, she would come around. I truly didn’t care that we didn’t have a label. We were both busy with work, but we met up whenever time allowed and there were dirty texts and phone calls in between.

Then something I’ve never gotten details on triggered a massive freak-out and she said, “Don’t call me anymore. I can’t do this.”

I tried to call or text a few times, and I even stopped by her house once when I knew she was home. Every attempt only seemed to make her angry at me. I was definitely wounded—I can admit that at least to myself, no matter what I told anyone else. When she was around after that, I couldn’t help but flaunt whatever female attention I had. If I saw her at a bar, I purposefully tongue-fucked the nearest agreeable female mouth—within reason—until I was sure Nora was looking.

But that didn’t happen too often, because soon she started avoiding a lot of the events involving our mutual circle of friends. I cooled off relatively quickly, reverting to my usual dating modus operandi of messing around whenever and with whomever I felt like. I wasn’t drawn to anyone else the same way, and I didn’t know what to do about that. Nor did I want to think too deeply about it. Any companionship I engaged I took solely at face value. I thought of it simply as self-preservation, but the cold, hard truth is that I had to push Nora from my mind or I would have ended up in an uncomfortably dark place.

Something about us scares her. That’s what makes her act this way—I’m sure of it. And whatever that particular something is, no one seems to know but her. I’ve tried to pry it out of Sophie in a half-assed, had a few beers kind of way, but she claims she hasn’t been able to get to the bottom of it herself. I want to say she’s lying, but that’s not typically how Sophie rolls.

All I know is I’m not just messing around anymore. I’ve played the field and had a good time, but when I’m with Nora—sexually or simply in her presence—I feel different, something more intense. It’s just a fuckin’ tragedy that I can’t express it. Any sort of declaration would, without a doubt, be too much for my Beauty to handle.

For now.

***

When I wake up the next morning, Nora’s twisted around to lay her cheek against my stomach. Morning wood is literally inches from her face. I try to swallow a laugh, but the stomach muscles she’s resting on jump, causing her to stir.

“Why is your dick in my face?”

Fair question, I suppose. “That’s what dicks do in the morning. They pop up to say howdy,” I say, sleep surprisingly thick on my tongue. I pitch my voice extra low and bump up a hip so my dick bobs. “Howdy.”

“Asshole.” Her scolding is negated by her throaty giggle, which doesn’t help the at-attention dick situation.

I clear my throat. “Assholes have their own version of ‘good morning,’ but I guarantee you, it’s nowhere near as appealing. Or fun.”

She buries her laughter by pulling up and pressing the comforter to her face. A muffled “gross” filters through the fluffy mass of fabric. I sit up, kiss her head, and swing my legs over the side of the bed so I can go to the bathroom and deflate the wood.

“Hey, where you going?” she asks, like she doesn’t know.

“Unless you’d like to take care of this yourself, I’m gonna hit the head.”

She rolls her eyes and then her body onto her side. “You were warm. Now I’m cold.”

Her whine is tempting. Why the fuck is her whine tempting?

Luckily, Cameron is scarce as I leave the room, because I don’t feel like ducking back in to cover myself. When I return, Nora’s curled up in a ball, hogging all the covers.

I take a moment to look around the room in the light and nearly startle when I notice a huge, dollhouse-style animal cage complete with tiny furniture. As I wrestle with trying to figure out how I missed seeing this last night, Nora chimes in behind me, voice arousingly amused.

“It’s a little disturbing to see you standing there naked while you stare at Fitzwilliam,” she says. “Are you trying to intimidate him? Don’t misjudge him; he’s a ninja.”

“What’s a ninja? I don’t see anything in here? What the fuck is this?”

“Oh, I have a pet hedgehog. His name is Fitzwilliam.”

I turn slowly and stare at her, propped up on her elbows enough that her breasts peek out from under the covers. I’m left a little speechless at the dichotomy of this situation. A hedgehog with a fancy-ass name and my sexy Beauty. I think I short circuit trying to rationalize. “Um, okay. So, where is he?”

“Duh. Sleeping like a normal person.” The requisite “obviously” is implied in her expression, which softens when she curls onto her side and snuggles the pillow—on the side where I slept, by the way. “Didn’t you hear him on his treadmill last night? Hedgies are often nocturnal, you know.”

“I was drunk on you.”

She grins. “Are you coming back to bed? It’s early.”

“I would really like to, but I gotta run. You want a ride back to your car?” I ask, stepping into my jeans and pulling them up.

She groans. “Sleep.”

I nod. For a beat, I want to crawl back in and steal space, share her warmth, and kiss her skin. No, not just for a beat, but I should go anyway. I have work in Ojai tomorrow morning, so I’m going to have to get there tonight. “Enjoy it. I gotta get back and pack.”

“Pack?” A flurry of black hair flies around her face when she pops up, holding the covers to her chest. “For where? You’re not going to Australia again so soon are you?”

I fight my grin, but one side of my mouth loses. “Nah. As appealing as that flight is, I’m hopping a puddle jumper up north. We’ve got a quick shoot up there, and I have to corral my minions.”

She flops onto her belly, her bare ass on display behind her. My eyes are drawn to it, but I continue to button up my shirt. First. Then, when I finish, I lunge and sink my teeth into her left cheek.

“Oh my God, stop!” she squeals. “You freak, do not bite my ass! Jesus.”

I’d believe her, but she’s laughing at the same time. She wiggles around and out of my grip until she’s splayed underneath me. This is the opposite of my intention. I really do need to take care of some shit today.

“Why do you tempt me like this?”

“You started it,” she chastises. “I was asking a simple question, to be clear.”

My eyes track all around her face, each plane, each curve. The tiny freckle near the corner of her right eye, the barely visible scar on the very bottom of her chin. I wonder where it came from as I drink her in.

I feel her watching me watch her, so I meet her eyes: curiosity, mirth, affection.

This is my Beauty.