Page 25 of The Flirtation
Chapter 9
Luke
It wasaround three in the morning, but I couldn’t sleep. After dropping off the jars of marmalade at Avery’s door and receiving her single text, I’d waited up in case she’d taken the hint and decided to ask me to join her for a midnight snack, but she did not. When I’d gone outside for a bit of fresh air and a stretch (and to check and see if Avery had accidentally fallen on her way to may villa) I’d caught sight of a very happy-looking Samson sneaking out of Stephanie Sloan’s room.Well done,you.
I was so tired I could hardly see straight. I’d nodded off earlier, dreamed of Avery bending over me and propositioning me the way that Stephanie had, and woke up feeling…restless. I opened up my laptop and re-read a distressing email from my assistant—the one where he informed me that he’d rescheduled all of my conference calls for later today, so that I could take the time to get used to the time change and “focus on Buck Reynolds and the fact that you’re in the Bahamas.” It was very depressing to know that these scheduled calls were so easily rescheduled, as if it were not nearly as important for these people to talk to me as I had led myself to believe. I was being ridiculous, of course. The only person I knew who would understand how I felt was Avery, and I couldn’t talk toher.
I was in bed, drafting an email to a client when I heard a quiet knocking at the door. The knocking was so quiet and hesitant, I wasn’t certain that it wasn’t just the wind causing the door to rattle, so I didn’t bother to cover up my bare chest when I went to check. I opened the door and saw no one there, but as I started to close it again, a lovely hand suddenly prevented me from doing so. The hand was attached to Avery, who slowly revealed herself and slunk into the room, leaning against the door once she’d shut it. She was wearing pretty peach-colored silk pajamas, and her eyelids were heavy. Bedroom eyes, if I’d ever seenthem.
She looked lost and confused for a moment, then looked up at me and smiled shyly. “Hello, sailor,” shewhispered.
My heart pounded in my chest, then promptly melted. I had to clear my throat to find my voice. “Hello,darling.”
Her sleepy eyes traveled down from my face, over my exposed torso, to my pajama bottoms, and back up to my chest again. I didn’t move or say anything, unsure of what washappening.
She reached out and placed her hands on my chest. She traced around my pecs with her fingertip. I resisted the urge to do the same to her, but it was hard. It wasdifficult, Imean.
Then she put her arms around me, drawing me in for what felt like a very innocent hug. I hesitantly placed my arms around her upper back and breathed in her vanilla and coconut-scented hair as she rested her forehead against my shoulder. I could feel her warm breath on my skin. It took all of my strength and will-power to keep from picking her up and taking her to bed right then and there, but to my surprise,shetook my hand and led me towardsit.
She slipped under the sheets and curled up, reaching her arm out towards me. “Let’s spoon,” she suggested casually, as if we’d been bedmates for years. “It’s okay,” she said, though she wasn’t responding to my obvious doubt as to whether I should join her, she seemed rather to be having a conversation with herself. “It’s just two work friends spooning on a business trip.” She nodded, decisively, confident in this statement. Her jaw tightened and she was grinding her teeth, and I realized she may have been under the influence of something. It probably wasn’t Ecstasy, so I deduced she might have taken a sleeping pill and been sleepwalking as a side-effect. My youngest sister had gone through a stress-induced sleepwalking phase not long before I’d left home foruniversity.
They say one should never wake a sleepwalker, so if that was what was happening,—what else could I do except get into bed and spoon with her for a while? But first, I put on a T-shirt. I saved my email draft, closed the laptop, and climbed into the other side of the Queen-size bed, careful not to wake her. She backed her body up into mine and pulled my arm around her slender waist. She made a cooing sound and settled into thisposition.
It had been years since I’d spooned like this with a woman. Certainly, I’d been maneuvered into a general sort of spooning arrangement by the women I’d spent the night with, but it hadn’t been comfortable for me in the least. Despite my misgivings about spooning with a business associate who had a boyfriend, I allowed myself to feel at ease with Avery. I told myself I’d lie like that for five minutes, until her eyes were closed and she was in some other level of sleep than she was in now, and then I’d get up and sleep on the sofa like a true English gentleman. But for four more glorious minutes, I would relax into this. My lips would gently rest on the crown of her head and I wouldn’t think about whether or not this was wrong, I would simply memorize the way the soft curves of her body felt as it was pressed up against mine, as her breathing rate continued to get slower, and my own foolish heartraced.
Avery
Iwokeup happy and smiling and feeling fuzzy in my head and dry in the mouth. The luxury sheets must have been a ten billion-thread count sateen-Egyptian cotton blend, custom sewn by angels and hung to dry in the fresh jasmine-scented Caribbean breeze. I stretched out, yawning like a cat, and sinking deeper into the cloud-like mattress-top and down-filled pillows. This sure beat waking up at my desk. Soft light poured in from the half-shuttered windows, and the gorgeous view outside was different from the one I remembered when I’d selected the room the daybefore.
“Good morning,darling.”
It took me a moment to realize that Luke’s delicious voice was coming fromoutsideof my cotton candy-stuffed head. I bolted upright, as if someone had lit my back on fire. He was on the sofa across from the bed, head propped up on two pillows, his long legs dangling casually over the side of it. I’d never seen him so relaxed. He was grinning at me, a twinkle in his eye. His hair was all mussed up—again, something I had never thought I’d see. His perfectly fitted ice blue T-shirt set off his tired blue eyes, and it almost distracted me from the overwhelming sense of panic.I look like John Goodman first thing in the morning—I can’t let him see me likethis!
“Um. Hi?!” I looked around as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and fluffed up my hair. This was not my villa. I looked down at myself, under the sheets. I was still wearing the pajamas I went to bed in the nightbefore.
Luke’s laugh was gentle. “Calm down, nothing untoward happened, I promise. I have proof,look.”
He pulled his personal cell phone from the side table. He started up a video and handed the phone over to me.Oh shit. If he’s showing me a sex video then I better look good in it.The lighting was dim, his face filled the screen and he looked into the camera, whispering. “Good morning, Avery. It’s not long after three in the morning here in the Bahamas, and approximately ten minutes ago, you knocked on my door and requested that I spoon with you. I believe you were sleepwalking. You’re fast asleep now, see.” He turned the camera to show me, fast asleep in bed. “I just want to go on record as saying that I did as you requested, for five minutes, and now I am taking two pillows and going over to this sofa, where I shall sleep. Do not panic. Nothing inappropriate happened here.” And then he was startled when he heard me suddenly snore like a barnyard animal, off-screen. He laughed quietly, and then looked back into the camera again. “That was alarming. I realize this may not be the most definitive form of proof, and may in fact be somewhat creepy, but it’s the only thing I could think to do just now. Good night, or goodmorning.”
The video ended, and I was not sure if I felt better or worse than I had before he played it for me. I certainly believed that he did not attempt to take advantage of me last night, but I needed to hide the fact that I didn’t feel great aboutit.
He ran his hands through his hair and covered his mouth as he yawned. “You don’t have to get up yet if you’re still tired. I think I might go for a quick swim and a run before breakfast, to wake myself up.” He smiled, politely, but his eyes betrayed him. There was something he was not tellingme.
“Um. I canexplain.”
“Noneed.”
“I took a sleeping pill last night, and sometimes—when I’m especially stressed out—I have this tendency to sleepwalk. I don’t remember any of that, I’m sosorry.”
“There’s certainly no need to apologize.” His voice was smooth and calm, but he was fidgeting with the hem of his T-shirt.
I stared at his mouth, raised my fingers to touch my own lips, as if they were remembering something that my brain couldnot.
He abruptly turned away, went back over to the sofa to fluff up the pillows, and cleared histhroat.
Luke
What I did not recordon my phone, and what I would never tell Avery or anyone else, is this: After I’d made the recording and fallen asleep, alone on the sofa, I woke up to find her languidly climbing on top of me, so feline, practically purring. She’d lowered herself down, her body pressed flat against mine, took my face into her hands and kissed me. She kissed me on one cheek, slowly, gently, then the other. She kissed me on the forehead, as if taking my temperature with her lips. I lay still, knowing that awakening her would be detrimental for both of us in many ways, but also hoping that perhaps she wasn’t sleepwalking at all, that this was something she’d wanted, consciously, as I did. I braced myself for the moment that I knew was coming next. She lowered her head down a bit more and placed her lips on mine, a slow, hesitant kiss at first. I suddenly became aware of my comically British rigidity, and as she parted her lips and I felt her warm tongue touch mine—fuck it, you only live once and her boyfriend sounds like a real git—I put my hands on her hips and kissed her back, long and deep and so full of intimacy, it startledme.
