Chapter Nineteen
There’s no need for an alarm clock when you have birds. I’ll concede that it’s nicer than waking up to the screech of brakes or a symphony of sirens on emergency vehicles, but it would be nice if the forest was as tuned in to life as I used to think it was. Smart, kind birds would let me sleep in after the nap we grabbed when sheer exhaustion kept us from grabbing on to each other.
My lips creep into a smile and I roll onto my side. Paul’s hair is mussed. One of his hands is under my pillow on the master bed. His eyes flutter open. Blink. And he breaks into a grin. “Am I dreaming?”
I squirm closer and press my lips to his. “What do you think?”
He pulls me toward him, and I roll in his grip. He tucks the back of my naked body against his front. Sighs into my ear. “I’m waking up with an amazing woman in my bed and I didn’t even have to leave camp for it to happen.” He splays his fingers over my ribs. “This is definitely a dream.”
My mouth goes dry and I bite into my lip. “Is that why you’re leaving? So you can find a woman to wake up with?”
“Yeah.” His voice is slow with sleep.
A weight settles in my gut. Because this is a dream. His dream. The one he wants badly enough that he’d give up the job he’s always wanted just to get it. A dream that’s my nightmare. I swallow over the lump in my throat. “Technically,” I say, “I think this is my bed.”
Paul trails kisses along my shoulder. “Let’s compromise. It’s our bed.”
My skin burns under his lips and I know I should move away. Put space between us. But his tongue drifts over my skin, and I melt into him. “Sure. Our bed. For six more days.”
He rolls me onto my back and leans an elbow on either side of my head. “Like I said the day you got here, I can stay as long as you need.”
The heaviness spreads from my gut to my limbs. I know I should go. I should crawl out from under him and break the connection we found last night. Because this morning I’m just the wrong woman playing a role in his dream. But I still can’t bring my legs to bend.
The phone rings in the living room. “You should get that,” I whisper.
He smooths my hair from my forehead. “It’s not important.”
The sharp trill pierces the morning again. “Maybe not,” I say, “but it’s annoying as hell. Please make it stop.”
He kisses my cheek and pushes himself off the bed. My eyes stay on his naked form until he’s through the door. Then I curl into myself and pull the sheet over my head. The phone’s screaming stops and I count my breaths in and out. Paul’s voice is muffled through distance and my cotton barricade, but the timbre is unmistakably his. I press a hand to my chest and knead the knot under my sternum.
He offered to stay. For as long as I need. But that’s not our deal. It’s not what I want. Our deal is sex until he leaves. Until he leaves, and I stay. Paul and Amy, filling the bang bank, getting the relief we both need.
And we can do this. Even though last night’s sex was the most intimate I’ve ever had. Even though we lost sleep to exploring each other in so much detail that I know his big toes are shorter than his second toes. Even though he licked my center while I sat over him, cock in mouth, balls in hand, his name falling on repeat against his silken skin as I came apart on his tongue.
We can do this even though I have to force myself to throw back the sheet. To get out of bed. To search for my dress so I can leave like I should have before we fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Paul’s socks are lying by the bed, but that’s the only clothing in the room. My head falls back and my eyes close. “Dammit.”
His eyes light up when I walk into the living room. My nipples turn to peaks and I tell myself that there’s no connection. That there’s a draft. I nudge Chuck off the dress he’d been using as a bed and shimmy into it feet-first.
“Laurie?” Paul says. “Listen. That’s great, but I have to go.”
My throat constricts and the elastic snaps over my breasts.
“Yeah. I got it. Three o’clock. And I can crash at your place after?”
Blood rushes to my head. It pounds in my ears and heats my cheeks. Of course he has women in town. In the city. That’s no amateur alphabet his tongue drew between my legs. He couldn’t have gone five years without any action. I just didn’t expect him to be setting up more while I was still here. Not when he’d worked so hard, deprived himself so much, to get all of me into bed.
“I don’t know,” he says. I reach for the door handle and the couch groans with the loss of Paul’s weight. “Got to go.” The phone beeps the end of the call and Paul’s arm reaches above my head. He pushes the door closed and turns me into his chest. “Leaving so soon?”
I keep the doorknob wrapped in my fist. Count the hairs on his chest. “Yeah, I should go.”
“And do what? Come on, let’s have some breakfast.”
I shake my head. “We shouldn’t. We have a deal. This is just sex, and breakfast isn’t sex.”
“To be fair, you’ve never tried my French toast. It’s pretty orgasmic.”
He reaches for my hand and I pull back. “I can’t, Paul. You asked for all of me, and I gave her to you. Last night was... It was...” I breathe in the smell of him. And me. And us together. I clear my throat. “You asked for the whole woman. The woman who wanted you in her bed—inside her—and you got her.”
“And now you’re trying to hide her away.”
Paul seeks out my eyes. I try to avoid looking at him. Try to keep my gaze on the floor. To count the knots in the planks. My eyes dart to his anyway. “You need to leave camp. To find someone who wants you in bed and out of it. Because I’m not that dream.”
He grazes his fingers down my cheek. “What if you are?”
I pull his hand from my face. “I’m not. Your dream woman would want you all to herself. She’d fight for you. Want to be near you. She’d care if you were setting up a date with another woman while she stood in the same room.” I drop his hand. “And me? I don’t care.”
Paul steps back. “What are you talking about?”
I set my face and force my shoulders to stay down. “Laurie.”
His eyes widen and he breaks into a grin. He laughs and reaches for me, but I cross my arms. Pull my elbows tight against my sides. “Don’t laugh at me.”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “I’m not laughing at you. I swear. Just, Laurie isn’t a woman. It’s a dude who had the unfortunate break of being born to very Scottish parents.” Paul buttons the khakis that he’d hastily pulled on. “He’s an old friend who’s set up an interview for me.”
The pieces click into place. My head falls back against the door. I hate that I can hear the relief in my voice. “He’s your lead. On that teaching job.”
“You got it. It turns out the principal wants to get his hiring done before he heads off on vacation, so it’s now or never.”
I look at my bare feet. Realize I was about to leave without shoes. That I nearly fucked up. Showed him how thrown I am. How terrified I am of sharing a bed. “When is the interview?”
His toes come into view. He lifts my chin with a knuckle. “Tomorrow. But I told him I wasn’t sure that I’d go.”
My gaze meets his. “Why wouldn’t you go?”
“Well, there’s Chuck.”
Chuck’s tail thumps at the sound of his name. “I can take care of Chuck,” I say. “Don’t worry about him.”
“And, you know, I haven’t put anything together for an interview.”
“What would you put together?”
He runs a hand along the back of his neck. “I don’t even know, to be honest. I just don’t have to leave. I mean, I don’t want to think about it yet. And honestly, now that I know what it’s like to wake up with you in my bed, I—”
I step into him and press my lips to his. I kiss him hard. Touch my hip. I nip his lip when I pull back. “That bed isn’t yours. It’s ours. And for the next six days I will come to you as Amy and I’ll come only for Paul. But then you need to go find your dream. For real. And I need to find out if I have any left.”