I wake up when I feel the mattress dip behind me.
Panic grips hold of me for a millisecond before I realize it’s Walt.
I glance over my shoulder to see he’s sitting on the edge of the bed in his sweatpants and nothing else. He is very nearly the most wonderful sight I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Is that what you wore to dinner?” is the question my brain thinks to ask.
He laughs and shakes his head. “I got home an hour ago and changed.”
“Oh.”
“I came to check on you then and you were already asleep, so I didn’t disturb you.” He shrugs. “But, apparently, I couldn’t hold out. Scoot over.”
“What? Why?”
“So I can lie down.”
“In my bed?” It seems absolutely illogical.
“Technically it’s my bed,” he says, shoving me gently to the side when I don’t immediately move.
“That’s the pillow I like to hug at night,” I argue as he starts rearranging everything so he can situate himself beside me.
“Okay well, I’m not going to just lie flat on the mattress,” he says, pounding the middle of the pillow before flopping his head down on top of it.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Why?”
“Just…I don’t know. I just assumed you liked your space. I read a lot of books. Sometimes the surly men tell the heroines, like, No, sorry. I can’t sleep in a bed with you due to my deep-seated emotional problems. And then it becomes this whole thing.”
“That’s…really specific. What kind of books do you read?”
I blush in the dark. “Oh…just…the classics.”
He hums and rolls over to face me. I can just barely make him out in the moonlight.
“You can go back to sleep now,” he tells me.
“As if.”
He smiles, and his dimples slay me. Poof—I’m dust.
“Are you going to stay way over there?” I ask.
“I’m right by you.”
“Barely.”
With feigned annoyance, he reaches out and grabs hold of me, dragging me toward him until we’re all tangled limbs.
“God, you’re like a furnace. Do you always run this hot?” I ask, sounding as if I don’t love it.
“Do you always talk this much in bed? I’m starting to regret my decision.”
I squeeze him like an octopus with every limb I’ve got. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m not.”
I force myself to settle in beside him and relax even though every nerve seems to be on high alert. I realize, slowly, that I’m touching him everywhere. One of my hands is resting on his naked bicep, which is nice and bulky. The other is pressed against his firm chest. My leg is sandwiched between his.
“Doesn’t this feel so weird?”
He groans and blinks his eyes open. “I was just starting to fall asleep.”
“Oh, sorry. I’ll be quiet.” I turn and look up at the ceiling.
He reaches out and nudges my cheek, getting me to look back over at him again.
“Say it.”
“Right. Well, it just feels so weird that we’re sleeping together.”
“It’s simple, really. I wanted to be with you when I got home. It’s late. We need to sleep, so here we are. There’s nothing more to it.”
“Nothing more?”
“Elizabeth.”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t be quiet now if my life depended on it, truly. I’m buzzing. This is just totally wild to me. This morning I would have never in my wildest dreams imagined you’d be sleeping with me tonight.”
“But are we? Sleeping, that is?”
“Point taken.” I mime my fingers locking my lips and then I toss away the key.
His eyes drift closed again, and I study him as my heart swells in my chest. I smile, realizing I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time. I think I could stay awake all night watching him sleep and still roll out of bed tomorrow feeling fresh as a daisy.
I think I’m being sly about watching him, barely moving a muscle, right up until Walt groans in resignation, rolls up and over me, and pins me down onto the bed.
I yelp in shock.
He’s posed like a hungry lion who’s just captured his prey.
“I could feel you watching me.”
“I was about to close my eyes. Swear. Please don’t leave. Watch—I’ll sleep now.”
I pinch my eyes closed to show my good-faith effort.
The moment I do, his lips descend on mine.
My eyes flare open again and he breaks the kiss.
His gaze is narrowed, his brows furrowed in what looks like frustration.
I don’t make a peep. It’s as if his kiss was a poison dart and now I’m paralyzed underneath him.
Then, coming to some conclusion all on his own, he bends down and kisses me again, harder and longer this time. I part my lips and our tongues touch and sleep is officially off the table.
Walt’s hands grip mine, keeping them pressed down on either side of my head as he leads the kiss, turning his head, deepening it until I’m softly moaning into his mouth. My hips buck up to find his, and he rewards me by pushing them down, pinning me to the mattress. My silk pajamas are the perfect complement to his sweatpants. The thin material is hardly a match for him as my thighs part and he settles between them, grinding and rolling his hips in a rhythm that pricks at all my suppressed desires.