Rob wasn’t falling asleep.
Kari wanted to sleep so badly. She craved the release into the dark abyss. She loved sleeping. Adored it. But now she lay on her side, her back cuddled to his front, waiting for his breath to deepen, for the arm around her middle to go slack.
It didn’t happen. Rob was quite definitely still awake. Her eyes flicked to the clock. They’d been lying here for two hours, neither of them sleeping. Kari was all too aware that the last time they’d made love she had fallen asleep soon after and Rob had spent a mostly sleepless night. This time, knowing that, she was unable to dive off sleep’s cliff headlong the way she usually did.
She bit her lip and turned in the circle of his arm. “You can’t sleep?” she whispered.
“You neither.” Yes. His voice was very clear, very awake.
“I can’t sleep because I know you couldn’t sleep before. Last time, I mean. I felt bad.”
“No reason for you to lose sleep just because I’m being an insomniac.”
She thought about this for a minute. “Are you usually an insomniac?”
A long pause. “No.”
Kari’s throat tightened. “Is this…about me?”
Rob’s arm tightened around her. “No. I just can’t sleep.”
Kari rolled over and reached out in the darkness, carefully letting her hand land on his face, caressing his cheek, running her fingertips through his hair. “Would you…would you feel better if you were sleeping in your own bed?”
“Do you want your bed to yourself?”
“This isn’t about me. I want you to get a good night’s sleep.” Not one hundred percent true. Kari was used to sprawling across her mattress, not needing to worry about crowding anyone else out.
“You’re not sleeping either.”
“Only because you’re not.”
He heaved to his elbow, his form more distinct now in the darkness. “I should go. You’d sleep better if I wasn’t here.”
Kari flopped to her back, looked up into the darkness. “You mean you’d sleep better in your own bed.”
A long pause. “Maybe.”
“Go. Sleep.”
He settled in beside her, his arm wrapping around her waist, his lips pressing her temple. “When will I see you again?” he whispered.
“I’m next door. Whenever you want.” Kari was unable to keep the acerbic rasp out of her voice.
“Are you okay? Is it okay if I go back to my place?”
He so clearly didn’t want to be here. Kari braced herself for offense, for feelings of rejection to overtake her.
Nothing.
She groped in the darkness until she found his face again, stroked his cheekbone with her thumb. “Go. Sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow. Or whenever.”
His lips found hers. A kiss that fired her bloodstream. She cupped his face with her hands and her body torqued with ache as he broke the kiss and got up. She lay and listened to the quiet rustle of him gathering his clothes in the dark. His hand caressed her cheek and his lips found hers again, fastening soft and sweet this time.
“Sleep well, Kari.”
“You too.”
She listened as he padded out, closing the bedroom door softly behind him, then the whipping cloth sound of his pants being drawn quickly up his legs, then his shod feet treading to the door, then finally the front door’s solid thunk as it closed behind him.
With a sigh, Kari sprawled across her mattress, arms and legs splaying towards all four corners and was out within minutes.
Rob’s shoulders started to relax as he closed his own front door behind him. He shambled to his room, chucking the shirt and undershirt he hadn’t bothered to put back on for his walk home at the laundry hamper in the corner. Toeing off his shoes, he staggered a little and put his hand on the wall to steady himself. Christ, he was tired. He shucked out of his pants and sent them the way of his shirt. He hadn’t been able to find his underwear in the dark, but he also hadn’t wanted to turn on the light and disturb Kari any more than she already was. Mia could never go back to sleep if he turned on a light when she was a little girl and the knowledge had never left him.
Guilt nagged at him as he stripped back the sheet and duvet and slid into his bed. His own bed felt right. He’d slept alone for a decade. But he had also loved the feel of Kari’s long body snugged up against his own. He had thought that maybe he’d be able to nod off if he felt her relax, her shallow waking breaths turning into deep, slumbrous ones. He had counted on that to soothe him into following her into dreamland.
Instead, she had been looking out for him, worried about him, unable to sleep because he couldn’t nod off. He wondered if she was still lying awake like he was, unable to relax.
He lay on his back and pushed his fingers through his hair. What kind of a jerk couldn’t sleep in the same bed with the woman he—no. He wouldn’t even think it. The feeling or emotion or whatever it was that had ripped through him with his orgasm might be something bigger. But more likely it was a side effect of physical release. Best not to prove Mia right and be impulsive and potentially ruin everything.
Glancing at the clock, he realized that yet again he was wound as tight as he had been in Kari’s bed. Tighter, maybe. Monday morning would come all too soon. He needed to sleep, but something nagged at him, as if he had forgotten something.
The heel of his hand crashed into his forehead. He had forgotten something. His phone was currently lying on Kari’s coffee table.
He would just have to go over there tomorrow morning and retrieve it. And hope Kari had been able to get a good night’s sleep.
The sun woke Kari before her alarm did. She rolled to her back, sending her arms and legs in all directions in a languorous stretch. She blinked and relaxed against the mattress, letting the world come back to her slowly. She’d slept soundly but for waking up in the middle of the night, released from a dream about not being able to find a bathroom, her subconscious’s way of fighting with her body’s desire to remain asleep when she desperately needed to pee.
The lovely, dull ache between her thighs recalled her mind to the previous evening, and when she glanced at the clock, her bullet vibrator and tube of lubricant on the nightstand brought back other memories that sent her lips curving in a smug little smile.
She sat up, surveying the room. Her clothes were scattered around the hardwood floor, her shoes lying at drunken angles where she’d kicked them.
The only thing missing was the man who’d caused the carnage.
She had clung to wakefulness, wanting to delay sleep until he proved to her that he could fall asleep beside her. Instead, he had remained awake and fled for his own bed at the first opportunity.
Another bed he couldn’t sleep in if she was in it.
Kari’s mouth twisted and she swung her feet out of the bed and onto the floor, standing and stretching again, yawning and blinking.
Well. She hoped he was as well rested as she was. She bent to pick up her dress and laughed as she realized Rob’s boxer briefs were resting on top. She tossed his underwear on her bed and gathered up the rest of her clothing from the night before, shoving the dress into the drop-off bag from her dry cleaner and the rest into the laundry basket in her closet. Snagging her robe and wrapping it around her, she grabbed Rob’s underwear and folded it into a neat bundle, tucking it into her pocket before she headed for the kitchen. Passing through the living room, she saw Rob’s phone on her coffee table.
Really.
Was the man congenitally forgetful or was he marking his territory?
Going into the kitchen, she started a pot of coffee and leaned on the counter, staring at her backyard, her brain ticking into planning mode. She had hazy ideas about a series of raised beds at one corner of the fence and she let her mind roam over the possibilities as the rich smell of brewing coffee filled the kitchen.
Her doorbell roused her from her gardening trance and she pushed herself off from the counter, fairly sure of who was ringing her bell. Gathering the phone off the coffee table, she walked to the front door and looked through the peephole.
Even distorted by the fisheye lens, Rob looked delicious. Kari opened the door and leaned against the frame, taking in his freshly shaved cheeks, shower-damp hair, and workday wear of khakis and button-down shirt, interchangeable with what he had worn to her little dinner party.
“Looking for these?” Kari offered the phone and produced the underwear from her pocket, pleased to see Rob’s cheekbones redden as he opened his hands.
“Thank you,” he said, receiving them.
“Coffee?” Kari asked.
“No thanks,” Rob said. “I have a staff meeting first thing. But—”
Kari’s heart hammered. “But?” He’d dashed out so quickly last night. Had he changed his mind?
He shifted uncomfortably and Kari realized she was holding her breath.
“I know it’s probably too much because we’ve already spent the entire weekend together, but would you have any interest in doing something tonight?”
“Something?” Her pulse didn’t seem to get the message that he wasn’t breaking up with her. Or maybe it did.
“Or nothing,” he added quickly. “Your place or mine. I just…enjoy your company. If you want to be alone, I get it.”
“No,” she said, realizing from the way his face fell that he’d misinterpreted her negative. “No, I mean I don’t want to be alone.”
His face split in an uncertain grin. “Great. I’ll see you when I get home, then.”
“Do me a favor and put my number in your phone?” she asked.
“Right.” His sudden off-kilter manner was adorable. She gave him her number and he typed it in with careful fingers.
“Text me when you get home,” she said. “Or during the day. We’ll figure out what we want to do.”
“Or we could do nothing.” He shot her a wicked smile.
Kari smiled. “Nothing sounds good too.”