Page 65 of Screwed (Dad Bod Contracting 4)
I panic.
I’m totally frozen; I can’t breathe. How did this happen? How am I cuddling with James right now? When I fell asleep, he was on his back on the edge of the bed, and I was on the other side, rolled to face away from him. Yet now, here I am, wrapped up in his arms.
And feeling more content and more safe and sheltered and just…happy…than I’ve ever felt in my life. Just waking up in his arms.
Tears prick my eyes and I have to force myself to breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. Calm. The panic recedes a little, and the pricking heat of pooling tears abates. I focus on the moment. This doesn’t have to mean anything, right? It was an accident of habit—we’ve both had long-term relationships where the habitual norm when sleeping was to seek comfort in the arms of the other person. James especially—he spent twenty years with a woman, and those habits die hard. If he, even unconscious and passed out drunk, is in bed with a woman, his subconscious is going to take over, bring me into his arms.
And if I’m being honest with myself, a huge part of my unhappiness and loneliness is sleeping alone. I HATE sleeping alone.
Breathe in, breathe out. Be in the moment. Don’t panic.
This does feel really nice. He’s so huge, so strong—and speaking as a six-foot-tall woman, and one with the physique of a powerlifter at that, feeling delicate and protected and sheltered has not typically been something I’m familiar with. The majority of men simply cannot, through no fault of their own, make me feel that way. James is simply so big and so strong that I feel…utterly feminine. It’s nice, quite honestly.
His hand on my hip feels good. Warm, powerful. Rough calluses from a life of manual labor, but his touch is gentle. Just resting on my hip, cupped and lax.
He snores softly, a hoarse breath deep in his throat. Snorts. Shifts restlessly, makes a small, boyish sound as he seeks a more comfortable position. James rolls into me, and, without a conscious thought, I roll with him; just like that, we’re spooning. He’s behind me, now. A huge hot hard wall of man behind me, wrapped around me. His hand slides down my thigh, rests near my knee. Pauses, and slides back up to wrap around my belly, high, just under my breasts. His nose brushes my spine, and I feel his hips pressing against my butt.
So much of him—all James, all around me.
I’m not aroused, which is somewhat odd considering he’s pressed against my butt and his hand is inches from my boobs—I’m just comfortable. I feel safe. I feel sheltered, and that gives me a sense of…god, what? A kind of bone-deep, gut-twisting, chest-cracking kind of joy that’s too much, too big, too expansive to contain.
I feel sleepy again.
I peer at the alarm clock on my bedside table—9 a.m. Jesse and Franco told me they had a deck build they were doing today, so they probably won’t be here at all today, which means I can go back to sleep without worrying about them walking in and seeing this.
Not that I’m ashamed, or feel like this needs to be a secret. It’s just…
I don’t know. James was wasted last night, and even though it seemed like he was letting go of things so we could be together, he may feel differently in the light of day, and sober.
So, for now, I’m just going to go back to sleep and enjoy, for as long as it lasts, the comfort of having James’s arms around me.
If nothing else happens between us, at least I’ll have had this—this feeling is something I’ll treasure.
I fall back asleep with my hand over James’s, trying desperately to keep at least a tiny shred of objectivity.
Chapter 13
I wake up again, and I’m alone in the bed. James probably got up and left. Maybe he regretted coming here—or he remembered everything he said and needs time to process it. Who knows? Either way, he’s not here and I knew that was coming.
I have to pee.
I slip out of bed, groggy and still half asleep, my brain, body, and heart all working at different speeds and on different conundrums: my brain is trying to wake up, my body says I’ve been ignoring my bladder for hours, and my heart is trying to come to grips with James leaving.
When I’m half asleep, my brain doesn’t really process what’s going on around me. I don’t notice things right away. I’ve been known to sleepwalk, and to have entire conversations that I don’t remember.
So, when I get up out of bed and trudge to the nearest bathroom—the one that’s going to become my en suite master bathroom—I’m half asleep and not paying attention to anything except relieving my screaming bladder. I shove down my underwear, sit, and pee for a very, very long time, sighing in relief. And my boobs itch, so I reach up and give them a good rub and scratch, lifting my shirt to get at them more easily.
