Page 17 of Sin

I let out a long sigh. “If I’m being honest, it was distracting. I’m having such a hard time focusing in general. It sucked having another thing to do. It took my attention away from things that actually matter.”

“Then we don’t need to do it anymore. The whole point is to find strategies that work for you.”

“I don’t think anything’s going to work.” I rub my temples to ease the tightness in my scalp. “I can’t think straight. My brain hasn’t worked since I stopped sleeping.”

“How much sleep are you getting?”

“Like four hours a night, if I’m lucky.”

“Four hours a night?” He sounds appalled. “That’s insane. How long has this been going on?”

A shiver runs down my spine. There’s something in his voice… Something probing, like he knows that my lack of sleep was caused by a single event.

That’s crazy. I’m reading signs that aren’t there.

There’s no way he could possibly know that I could tell him the exact date when I stopped sleeping. April fourth. The night after…everything happened.

Crazy. Mason overpowered my body for ten minutes, and I’m still facing the repercussions six months later.

I know what he did was a terrible thing, but I didn’t think I was this type of woman. How could I have let my life spiral out of control because of a man?

“It’s been months.” I keep my answer vague, not wanting Ethan’s meticulous brain to trace my problems back to my relationship with Mason.

“No wonder your grades are suffering. Do you know how important sleep is for your brain? You literally can’t function without it.”

“What do you expect me to do about it? Telling myself I need to sleep won’t make it happen.”

“No, but we can try strategies to get you to sleep. We’ll come up with a plan.”

I snort. “Good luck with that.”

“Here’s what we’re going to do.” He snaps my laptop shut. “I don’t care about Noah’s plans for our meetings. We’re nixing them. I don’t want you to even think about schoolwork before bed. It’s only going to stress you out and make it harder to sleep. We’ll take a walk.” He twists around to look out the window. “The sun is setting now, and I’ve read sunsets get our brains ready for sleep—something about the light. We’ll head over to a campus coffee shop and get you some chamomile tea.”

“Ethan, you’re making sleep sound like homework.”

“You got a better idea, Greenwood?”

His sternness makes a smile rise to my lips. In Ethan’s mind, every problem has a solution if you just follow the right steps. He’s so confident that he’s nearly convincing me that he can help me sleep tonight when nothing has worked so far. Then again, I haven’t tried much of anything besides my late-night walks.

“I don’t have a better idea,” I say. “Let’s do this, Coach.”

He grins. “I like the sound of that. From now on, I’m your sleep coach.” He stands up from the desk and crosses his arms over his chest, looking as commanding as his own Coach Rodriguez. “On your feet. Now. And no more whining.”

As I stand, warmth spreads through me. I ought to be annoyed that he accused me of whining, instead I find his high-handedness strangely…cute. It must be months of sleep deprivation making me delirious.

Chapter Seven

Ethan

The coffee shop is much emptier than usual, probably because we arrived an hour before closing. As we sit across from each other, Lily takes a sip of her chamomile tea and grimaces. Her nose scrunches up, looking so cute I want to kiss it.

Fuck this. I thought I’d gotten my recent attraction to her under control, at least for our hour together. When our session began, my focus was on helping her relax and warm up to me so she could potentially open up about Mason. It seemed to be working. We were getting along better than we ever have.

It all went to hell when I saw that entry in her spreadsheet. A vivid image immediately appeared in my head. Her head thrown back with her pretty lips parted and those big eyes glazed. Her little hand working frantically between her thighs. “Oh God, Ethan,” she whispered.

And then when she started getting specific, saying she needs a visual…

What if I gave her that visual?

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