That didn’t mean it was going to lead anywhere. But it was there, all the same.
She thought maybe he’d fallen asleep again, his breathing slow, his head moving gently with the rise and fall of her stomach. But then he propped his elbows on either side of her waist and looked up at her, his hair sticking up where she’d messed with it.
“Should we go to bed?”
Lilah had already brushed her teeth, so she got straight into bed while Shane was in the bathroom. She sighed with pleasure as she slid into the cool, crisp sheets, feeling herself start to drift off again as soon as her head hit the pillow.
She heard the door creak, followed by Shane’s footsteps. Felt the depression of the mattress as he climbed in next to her.
All of a sudden she was awake again, alert, waiting to see what he would do.
He shifted closer, until she could feel the heat of him at her back.
His lips brushed her ear. “Is this okay?”
She nodded, and he slid his arm over her stomach, closing the gap between them. She covered his hand with hers, loosely interlacing their fingers, shivering at the press of his lips to the back of her neck.
They were still in that position when she woke up the next morning.
20
Shane woke to the blaring of Lilah’s phone alarm. They didn’t have anywhere they needed to be, so she’d probably forgotten to turn it off the night before—and knowing her, the alarm was set at least a full hour before she intended to get up, so she could keep snoozing it over and over. It had driven him crazy when they were together, but now, there was something oddly comforting about the familiarity of it.
Lilah groaned and leaned over the nightstand to silence it, settling back against him and stretching languorously. He barely restrained himself from grinding into her in return.
“It’s not last night anymore,” he murmured into her neck. “Do the rules still apply?”
She didn’t say anything, just sighed and nuzzled her face into her pillow, baring the long stretch of her throat to him. He couldn’t resist gently raking his teeth over the spot where her neck met her shoulder, which made her sigh again, closer to a moan this time. He pressed a kiss to the same spot, and he felt her pulse race beneath his lips, felt himself get even harder in response. It was still second nature, touching her like this, knowing exactly how she’d respond, even after all this time.
He let his hand slide down her ribs, past the dip of her waist, onto the mostly bare skin of her hip, then rested it there, waiting. She exhaled shakily.
“I think we’re past the ‘sex without feelings’ stage of our relationship,” she said quietly, placing her hand over his and guiding it back to her stomach.
“So what stage are we in, then? Feelings without sex?”
It was meant to be a joke, sort of, but the words hung ominously in the air as soon as they were out of his mouth.
She was silent. They lay there, still, for another few breaths, before she rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom.
He sat up, leaning against the headboard. “Do we need to talk about this?” he called after her.
A few moments later, the bathroom door swung open again. “Probably,” she said through a mouthful of toothpaste. She disappeared to spit, and he heard the sound of water running.
“But are we going to?” he asked, not even bothering to hide the ripple of annoyance at how closed off she was being, as if the previous night—whatever the fuck it was—had never happened.
In the light of day, he almost thought maybe hehadimagined it, with how unlikely it seemed that they’d spent the better part of the last eight hours wrapped around each other. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept that soundly and woken up so rested, so it must have happened after all.
She reappeared, leaning against the doorway. “I don’t know what there is to talk about. We both agree that it would be a bad idea to start sleeping together again while we’re still working together, right?”
“Right.”
She shrugged.
“So…that’s it? We’re just going to forget it?” he asked, unsure what he even meant by “it.”
“I think we need to focus on the show for now. Whatever this is…” She waved her hand between them. “It’s a distraction. It always has been.”
He felt his irritation swell. Of course she was able to compartmentalize like that. Put him and her feelings in a box, label it “distraction,” and ignore it until it was convenient for her.
