“I’m going to fall asleep. I should probably head back to my room.”
“You could stay in here with me.”
Alex popped up with wide, surprised eyes. “Really?”
“I mean, you don’t have to. I get up before the girls most days. My alarm is set for six. You won’t hurt my feelings if you want to sleep in your own bed though.”
“Will you keep doing that thing with my hair?”
“Is that all you want me for now?”
“Yes,” she said with a confident smile.
Wrapping an arm around her waist, I hefted her over my body and onto the other side of the bed.
Alex quickly snuggled her way down under the sheets, then turned to face me. She was too far away for my liking. My large hand centered on her back, and I pulled her toward me.
“That’s better,” I said, and she stayed facing me as I reached up and began sliding my fingers through her blonde strands.
Under the glow of the lamp, I could see the fatigue growing in her eyes until she closed them completely. A tired grin rested on her lips, just the corners of her mouth tilting upward in pleasure. When her purring noises faded, I slowly pulled my hand away. There was a small fear that I’d wake her and she’d put my hand back, but Alex remained curled up next to me.
Carefully, I twisted around and turned off the lamp before returning to face her.
There were things we needed to talk about. Lines had been crossed, and a friendship was going to be tested. But we could do that tomorrow.
I slipped an arm under her pillow and settled her head under my chin. I placed a soft peck on the top of her head before slipping my other arm around her waist.
Sleep was going to pull me under quicker than ever. My therapist and I needed to add blowjobs to my list of things to help me sleep. Or maybe it was Alex that gave my body the rest it needed.
No, it had to be the blowjob. Right?
Blackness filled the room with only the slightest glow from the moon coming through the window, when the next thing I knew, my alarm went off. It had only been a few hours of rest, but it was one of the best nights of sleep I’d ever had. I felt rejuvenated and alive. It had been years since I felt anything remotely close.
“Mmm,” a soft moan sounded from beside me. “Is it time to get up already?” Her scratchy morning voice was intoxicating. Whatever morning wood I was sporting stiffened further.
“You don’t have to get up. I’m just going to get a quick run and workout in.”
Groggily, she sat up in the bed, the sheets pooling around her waist. Her lids only opened partly as she stretched her arms high above her head. My eyes shot to her breasts beneath the tank. I couldn’t help they were in my line of sight.
“I should go back to my room.”
“Okay. When I get back, we should probably talk.”
“I know, but I need coffee first. I can’t handle anything heavy without coffee.”
Alex sat on the end of my bed as I put on a pair of athletic shorts and sneakers. I learned this past week that it was warm enough in the morning to go without a shirt.
Even in her drowsy state, Alex’s eyes flared appreciatively. I may have flexed a muscle or two as I held out my hand for her. Together, we left the room, parting ways in front of the stairs. She continued down the hall to her room, and I quietly took the steps to the front door. I wore two armbands and each ear pod connected to a device. One was the monitor for the girls' room, which fit snugly in the holder, and the other was an old iPod I’d been storing music on for years.
The moment my feet hit the front porch, the early-morning air clung to me like a second skin. I spent a few minutes stretching before completing a round of pushups and sit-ups. I may have overperformed, hoping Alex was sneaking a view from her window, even though I was positive she’d gone back to sleep. Over the past week, I learned Alex was not a morning person. If she got her cake shop up and running, that was going to have to change. From what I knew about bakeries and dessert shops, which wasn’t much, it was that they started early in the day to get everything ready.
Finished showing off, I strapped on a reflective band that wrapped around my chest and waist. It reminded me of the safety patrol sashes kids in school wore on the bus. I enjoyed running on the main road, and I didn’t want to take any chances.
Today, I decided to take my run a bit farther than normal, telling myself I needed to make up for missing yesterday’s run. I was a creature of habit, after all.
I learned in college that I enjoyed long-distance running, but never on a treadmill. I needed the sound of my feet pounding against the asphalt to push me farther. It was a way to clear my head of all the outside noise and focus on whatever project I was working on. My best ideas and codes came to me while running for miles.
Today was no different. A problem that had been plaguing me regarding my newest prototype finally worked itself out by the time I made it into town. I’d been struggling with how to maintain the moisture level of the soil during the AI testing within the robot. There would be an initial reading and then constant measuring against different portions of soil on the land. We’d considered creating a vacuum around the sample, but that tended to pull moisture from the soil.
