My hand is between my legs, nestled beneath the damp cotton of my underwear, as my body still pulses with the unmistakable aftershocks of a very real orgasm.
Oh, God. Ohgodohgodohgod.
Did I really just—did I just have a sex dream about Bastian? While sleepingin his actual bed? With himright next to me?!
The poor, overworked circuit boards of my brain are still shorting out when something else happens, the only thing that could make this worse.
I hear motion beside me. Stirring. Then a wry, teasing voice:
“Good dream?” Bastian asks.
38
ELIANA
intermezzo /?in(t)?r'metso/: noun
1: small palate cleanser served between courses.
2: the pause before the next thing happens—except sometimes, the next thing never comes.
The crime: having an extremely vivid sex dream about the man lying approximately eighteen inches away from me and thenfinishingwhile he was right there to witness the whole humiliating spectacle.
The verdict:sofuckingguilty.
My hand is still trapped between my legs, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “caught red-handed.” And while we’re on the topic of the color red, my cheeks are about that tint. They’re basically stove tops, burning at a gazillion degrees Fahrenheit, and probably glowing in the darkness.
“I don’t—” I clear my throat and try again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But evenIdon’t believe me.
My condition is now both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I can’t see whatever smug expression is currently plastered across Bastian’s face. On the other hand, my remaining senses have dialed up to compensate for my blindness, which means I canfeelhis awareness of me like a purring beast.
My body is still humming with aftershocks. Little tremors keep rippling through me, completely beyond my control. A moan almost sneaks past my lips and I bite down so hard that I taste blood.
Bastian’s voice lolls out again. “I’m not judging,” he says. “In fact, I’ve been lying awake for the past twenty minutes listening to you squirm and whimper, trying to be a gentleman and pretend I didn’t notice.”
Twenty minutes.Kill me now. Just take me out back and put me down like Old Yeller, please and thanks.
“But the way you moaned my name…” His voice drops another octave, practically subterranean now. “… Well, a gentleman can only be a gentleman for so long.”
I can feel him scoot closer on the mattress. The heat of his body radiates toward me like a space heater cranked up to“Inferno.”
“Want to tell me what you were dreaming about?”
The taunt in his voice is unmistakable. He’senjoyingthis. The bastard is loving every godforsaken second of making me squirm.
“Shut up,” I snap, finally extracting my hand from its compromising position and wiping it on the sheets, as if that’llsomehow erase the incriminating evidence. “It was nothing. Just hormones. Pregnancy brain.”
Bastian chuckles. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
He moves even closer. Still not touching me—he’s careful about that—but close enough that the heat of his body bleeds through the thin cotton of my sleep shirt. Close enough that wintergreen floods my senses, making my head swim.
“Your subconscious is trying to tell you something,” he murmurs. “All these boundaries you keep building between us… they’re just walls, Eliana. Walls you hide behind because you’re scared of what you actually want.” He licks his lips. “I think I know what you were dreaming about. Do you want to say it, or should I?”
My breathing has gone shallow and quick. My thighs press together involuntarily as that endless heat unspools in my belly.
“Stop,” I manage to croak.
