“Bad boy,” she says, tugging it out of my fingers. “We should get some sleep.”
“Yup. I have a ride booked for tomorrow, too.”
I flick the switch, plunging the room into darkness.
A minute drifts by. Two minutes. Three.
“You asleep?” I whisper.
“I’m trying, but there’s some dude next to me who keeps waking me up.”
I rack my brain, searching for fragments of a lullaby, but I’m drawing blanks.
“Sleeeep, little chiiiiiild,” I sing, making the words up as I go. “Don’t snoooore, for a whiiiiile…”
“Please don’t tell me you’re doing what I think you’re doing.”
“We definitely need to sleep,” I protest. “So, it’s either this, or I knock you out.”
“Have you considered knocking yourself out?”
I carry on crooning my made-up lullaby.
“Okay, now I’m begging you,” she says, her voice muffled under a pillow. “Just kill me now.”
“Driiiiift awaaaay for a briiiiight new daaaaay…”
“This is officially the worst song ever. It’s actually making me want to never wake up.”
“Wait until we get to the second verse. The second verse rocks.”
I crank up the volume, putting on my best rock star voice, completely forgetting that my friends are probably fast asleep next door.
“You beeetter sleep tiiiiiight, aaaalll through the niiii—”
“Oh my God!”
The mattress gives as she rolls onto her side and throws herself on top of me, slapping a hand over my mouth. I fight back the urge tograb her thighs and shimmy her farther up me. The vision of her in my jersey on top of me might just kill me.
“I’m trying to find inner stillness, here!” she hisses. “So, either you shut the hell up, or you take me home. Because considering howexhaustedyou are—you’re pretty damn chatty.”
“Carrie—you don’t have to pretend to be mad to get me to screw you, you know.”
I place a hand on the small of her back, my eyes drifting down to her mouth.
“Don’t even think about it,” she warns, rolling back to her side of the bed and yanking the comforter over her.
“All I’m saying is it could help us sleep,” I try.
“I’m not having sex with you in your bed.”
“I could clear off the desk—”
“Good night, Donovan.”
She turns her back to me, and I have never wanted her this much before.
CARRIE FALLS INTO A DEEP,restless sleep—thrashing in the sheets and flailing, almost knocking me out with her foot and elbow. Somewhere in the early hours, I find her face inches from mine, her mouth half parted in the near dark.
