Sarah Mayberry - Anything for You

Turning onto his stomach, he pushed his prickly dreadlocks out of the way, irritated by the feel of his ropey hair against his face. The sheets felt itchy and scratchy, too, even though he’d just changed them yesterday. Restless, he rolled over again, this time trying his side.

Maybe he should just wait out this thing that was going on with Delaney and the business. She was freaking over her biological clock, that much was obvious. Perhaps if he let her settle a little, she’d ease back on the idea of bailing on the magazine.

Because try as he might, he just couldn’t get his head around the idea of doing it all without her. She was so fundamentally essential to the way the magazine worked, to the way he worked.

Sighing heavily, he changed sides, making an impatient noise as his hair scratched his face and neck again. His feet got tangled in the bedsheets, too, and he kicked at them viciously until they came loose.

Why couldn’t he get to sleep? All he wanted was to stop thinking about all this crap and have a little bit of peace and quiet. Was that too much to ask?

But everything was annoying all of a sudden—his hair felt like pipe cleaners on his head, his sheets might as well have been made from sandpaper and his whole body felt too hot. After another few minutes of tossing and turning, he bounded from the bed and strode purposefully into the bathroom. Flicking on the light, he found the scissors in the bathroom drawer and grabbed a handful of dreadlocks. Impatient, he hacked away until they came loose in his hand and he could dump them in the bin. Within minutes he’d cut the whole lot off, plugged his hair clippers in and set the blade to number two. It didn’t take long to trim his remaining hair to a short, sharp buzz cut. Before he’d grown the dreads, he’d kept his hair like this for years. Satisfied that he’d done a decent job, he rinsed off briefly in the shower, then returned to the bedroom.

Throwing himself onto the bed, he ran a hand over his newly clippered hair. Better. Much better. His brain even felt cooler, less frenzied, if that were possible. Maybe now he could get some sleep.

Curling onto his side, he closed his eyes—just as the dull thunk of Delaney’s door shutting sounded below. His whole body was instantly on the alert. He held his breath, ears pricked.

Was Jake with her?

Sam couldn’t hear anything. Scrambling to the side of the bed, he craned his head toward the floor, knowing that Delaney’s bedroom was directly under his own. Surely if they were in there, doing…it, he’d hear them, right?

He felt faintly nauseous. And still he couldn’t hear anything. Sliding out of bed completely, he knelt on all fours and pressed his ear to the floorboards.

He was self-aware enough to be ashamed of his own actions—but not enough to stop them. Straining to hear, he held his breath until black spots floated in front of his eyes.

Still nothing. It wasn’t as though either Jake or Delaney were trained ninjas—he should be able to hear something.

Swearing repeatedly under his breath, he padded naked out into his living area and crossed to the sliding doors that opened onto his balcony. Creeping outside, he got down on his hands and knees again and peered through the cracks in the decking that made up the floor of his balcony.

He couldn’t see anything. And his bollocks were shrinking to the size of marbles in the cold night air.

Realizing at last how ridiculous and pathetic he must look, he went back inside.

Delaney was home. He suspected without Jake, but he wasn’t sure. It didn’t really mean anything if she were alone, anyway, since it was nearly one-thirty and she could have had several bouts of energetic, need-fulfilling sex at Jake’s place before coming home to her own bed.

Furious for no good reason, Sam punched his pillow into submission and threw himself back onto his bed.

Sleep seemed like a far-off oasis, never to be attained.

At around three, he groaned into his pillow. It wasn’t enough that his brain was feeling well and truly fried from all the back-and-forth bullshit he’d been indulging in all night, but he had a persistent, throbbing erection that would not quit. He was practically drilling a hole to China, the thing was so hard.

Rolling over, he got a grip on the situation. With a bit of luck, a quick bout of hand relief would also do the trick for his insomnia—in his book, an orgasm was nature’s most effective sleeping pill.

Closing his eyes, he gave himself up to the slow build of sensation as his hand stroked up and down. Images flashed in front of his mind’s eye as he trawled his own personal X-Files for inspiration: a pair of lean, hungry thighs, spread wide. A peachy backside arched high in the air. Small, pert breasts pouting for his tongue and his touch.

Sam grunted, building his tempo as the images began to coalesce into one sexy, hot woman. She was beneath him, her long legs wrapped around his torso as he hammered into her. Her back arched, her nipples demanding his mouth and her head tossed from side to side as she panted her pleasure.

“Oh, yeah, baby,” he encouraged in the privacy of his fantasy.

Then the woman opened her eyes, and he realized he was staring into Delaney’s pleasure-clouded face, and that he was riding her body, his erection buried deep inside her.

He swore angrily and jerked his hand away from his penis as though he’d just been electrocuted.

Wrong. So wrong, on so many levels.

But he’d been so close. So damned, temptingly close.

Lying in the dark, panting, Sam made a decision and slid his hand back onto his hard shaft. He could control his own fantasies, couldn’t he? For the sake of a bit of fulfillment? Squeezing his eyes shut tight, he concentrated on calling another woman to mind. Coco. Or that cheeky brunette…Sandra, that was her name. Or Mandy, with her sexy little laugh.

But it was no good. The only woman his subconscious wanted to have sex with was Delaney, and she kept snaking her long legs around him and panting in his ear.

After an unequal struggle, he gave up all resistance. He was so close, and too greedy for release. It’s just a fantasy, he told himself as he imagined burying his face in Delaney’s breasts. It doesn’t mean anything. And, more importantly, she never needs to know.

In seconds he was shuddering out his orgasm, Delaney’s name on his lips, her image in his mind. Afterward, he wallowed in unaccustomed guilt. He hadn’t felt this bad about a bit of harmless self-gratification since early puberty.

What a sterling day, he thought as he at last drifted off to sleep. Absolutely sterling.

DOWNSTAIRS, DELANEY TOSSED and turned for hours after Jake dropped her off and she’d crawled into bed. Jake had wanted to come in, but she hadn’t felt up to the pretense. It had been exhausting enough making it through dinner.

She felt bad about letting him kiss her, though. She hadn’t really wanted to, and she’d had no intention of following through. He must have thought he was in with a good chance when she let him press her up against her door and thrust his body against hers. But she’d only done it out of a sort of morbid curiosity, just to confirm how big a hopeless case she was.

Pretty big, was the answer. Not a single zing from Jake’s very practised kiss. Nothing but a realization that mouth-to-mouth contact was really kind of disgusting if you didn’t want to jump someone’s bones.

At six in the morning, she got sick of pretending she was ever going to sleep. Throwing off the covers, she strode into the bathroom and ran herself a bath. When it was foamy and full, she dimmed the lights and sank into the steaming water. If she couldn’t sleep, she could at least try to unwind a little. Yesterday had been a trying day, between breaking her big news to Sam, getting a makeover, and going out on her first date in over six months.