That leaves me with a predicament.
“Where should I sleep?” I ask Tai as we get ready for bed.
“Take their bed,” he says, heading into his cabin.
“Ew.” I grimace. My sister’s bed on her honeymoon? “No.”
He pauses and looks back at me. “Then sleep with me.”
I want to give him the same answer but I can’t.
Because it’s definitely not ew, and I definitely don’t want to say no.
“Or sleep wherever,” he says. “All I know is that I need the sleep for this upcoming storm and that couch isn’t an option.”
Tell him to sleep in Lacey and Richard’s cabin. It’s not ew to him.
And yet…I don’t want him to.
“Okay,” I say. “So as long as you don’t mind the company.”
He gives me a wary look that says he actually does mind the company.
“I promise I won’t snore,” I add.
“Or drool,” he says.
I blush. “Or drool.”
“Or talk. Or move.”
I nod. “I promise.”
I quickly grab my night clothes and change into them in the tiny bathroom where there’s barely enough room to turn around, my elbows banging into the walls. I use a makeup wipe to clean my face since the last time I used the sink I got water everywhere.
I have to say, getting into bed with someone that you’re not going to have sex with can somehow feel even more intimate that doing the deed. It doesn’t help that both Tai and I have to share the same sleeping bag spread on top of us, since mine got wet beneath the hatch.
Wet beneath the hatch, I repeat the thought to myself as I cautiously get under the covers. Suddenly everything seems lewd.
“Am I in the way? Drooling? Moving? Snoring?” I ask him as I place the pillow in front of me, which thankfully was spared the deluge.
“Not being quiet,” he says to me, rolling over onto his side so his back is to me.
Hmmpf. Fine. No fun at sleepovers, I see.
I mean, he could at least be going to bed without a shirt on. I’ve only caught a glimpse at him shirtless this entire time and it wasn’t long enough to really appreciate how magnificent his body is.
There’s actually enough room in the berth that we aren’t crammed up against each other, unlike his truck. Although it is a V-berth, which means our feet are more likely to touch than any other part of us. Maybe playing footsies is on the menu.
I decide to stick a toe out just to see.
I poke him right in the back of his calf.
“Daisy,” he warns me, his voice muffled.
“Was just adjusting myself,” I tell him, flipping over on to my back.
A pause. “Then how come I can hear you smiling?”
“I’m not smiling,” I protest with a gasp, but it’s a lie, because I am. How can he tell?
“Go to sleep Daisy,” he says.
As if I can just fall asleep sharing the same bed as him.
Yet, somehow, I do.
* * *
I’m having a most excellent dream.
I’m on a beach somewhere. A deserted island, the kind you see in travel brochures. You know the one, small and round with a green jungle interior, fringed by white sand, shallow blue glass-like water, palm trees dipping over the sand like hammocks.
I’m lying back on the beach, and it feels so real that I feel the sand hot and soft against my skin.
I’m completely naked but I’m not alone.
Tai’s head is between my legs.
I don’t see him. From my perspective I only see sky.
But I know it’s him.
My fingers are wrapped in his hair, luscious thick hair, and his stubble is scraping against the sensitive skin of my inner thighs.
His tongue is a work of art.
He laps at my clit like a cat at a bowl of cream, each powerful stroke sending shockwaves through my body. He’s so good that I’m on the verge of coming right away and then my body is shaking and he keeps going.
Again and again.
I stare up at the bluest sky and it’s like being born all over again.
And then…
My dream starts to dissolve.
Like the sky is suddenly brighter and brighter until it’s all white and…
My eyes open.
For real.
I’m lying on my back in the cabin, the cover off of me, my heart pounding especially loud in my ears, my breath ragged.
One of my hands is in my underwear, a few fingers inside me.
The other hand is at my breast, my nightshirt pushed up so that they’re bare.
Tai is beside me and staring at me with the most intensely primal gaze, his focus on my open mouth.
OH MY GOD.
I jolt, as if suddenly coming back to life, ripping my hand out of my underwear, pulling down my shirt.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, reaching for the covers and yanking them over me. “What…what was…”
Tai clears his throat. “You were having a dream,” he says, his voice sounding thick and throaty.