The Christmas Pact(14)
No. She wouldn’t….
Had she put the head back on that doll?
No. Wait. She’d thrown the vibrator across the room. She couldn’t be…
But she had gotten up to give me a blanket and then went to the bathroom...so she could have picked it back up without me noticing. Though, wouldn’t I have heard it? I could hear squeaking but no buzzing. Unless maybe she was just using her hands. I stifled a groan at the thought.
No way…she wouldn’t.
She couldn’t…
But there was that noise again…low but steady.
Squeak-Squeak.
Squeak-Squeak.
There was definitely something going on up on that bed. What the hell was I doing on the floor at a time like this?!
Apparently, Riley noticed I’d gotten distracted. “She what?”
Shit. I had no idea what we had been talking about. “Who?”
“Major Saunders.”
“What about her?”
“I don’t know…you were the one who trailed off mid-sentence. You said, Major Saunders told you… and then you just stopped talking. Did you fall asleep mid sentence or something?”
“Umm. Yeah. I must’ve. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “It’s late, anyway. We should get some sleep.”
I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be catching a wink all night after hearing that squeak, but whatever. “Okay. Goodnight, Riley.”
“Goodnight, Kennedy.”
I stared up at the ceiling, lost in thought—the kind of thoughts I definitely shouldn’t be having while sharing a room with this woman.
All of a sudden, the squeaking was back. And getting louder.
Squeak-Squeak!
Squeak-Squeak!
And then…
She groaned.
Definitely not the same groan she made when I said something to piss her off and she rolled her eyes. Because, yeah, she was pretty adorable when she did that. This was the kind of groan that you made when you were about to….
I swallowed. Hard.
What the hell?
And more importantly…can I get in on that?
After a minute of me holding my breath so I could listen for any more sounds out of Riley, she started to laugh. At first, it was a soft chuckle, but it quickly turned into a deep belly laugh.
Oh my God. Was she screwing with me?
She wanted me to think she had her toy between her legs?
I had to clear my throat to speak. “What the hell is so funny?”
She was laughing so hard that she could barely get words out. “My neck is killing me. It’s probably from the stress of the flight and all the lies that we fed my family today. So I’m lying here rubbing a knot next to my left shoulder blade, and I thought to myself, a little hand-held massager would probably do the trick. And then I started to imagine what you might do if I got out of bed, picked my vibrator up from the floor, and turned it on without saying anything when I got back into bed. You probably would’ve thought I was using it—using it—not just using it on my shoulder. And that thought made me crack up for some reason.”
I let out a big rush of air. She hadn’t been pleasuring herself after all.
Holy shit.
The last few minutes had been pretty damn comical, as they so often were with this woman. I started to crack up. Riley laughed some more, too, assuming I was amused by what she’d said. But this shit was too funny not to share with her. I literally had tears streaming down my face as I struggled to regain enough composure to string words together.
“Riley—I heard the bed squeaking the last few minutes, and I thought you were helping yourself with your little magic wand, or without turning it on, since I couldn’t hear any buzzing.”
“What? You thought I was…with my…right here in the bed with you five feet away? Have you lost your mind?!”
Now that she put it like that, it did seem a little far-fetched. A woman as uptight as she was, one who admitted to not having sex in a very long time, probably wouldn’t whip out her battery-operated boyfriend in front of a colleague…even if he was her pretend boyfriend.
“I guess my imagination got carried away with itself.”
“Gee, you think?”
After my body calmed down, I heard the low squeak of the bed start again. I seriously doubted that the knot in Riley’s neck was going to disappear without some help. I debated a few moments and then threw the blanket aside and got up. I walked over to Riley’s bed and sat down on the edge of it.
“What are you doing?”
“Relax, Riley. I’m going to help you get the knot out. You’re probably just irritating the other side by trying to rub it yourself.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“Yeah…neither was coming to your house and telling your family I’m an astronaut. Yet that didn’t stop either of us. So, come on, turn over onto your stomach and let me help you out.”
She hesitated, and eventually let out a big huff. “Fine. It’s my left shoulder.”
Riley shifted onto her stomach, and I put my hands on her shoulders, getting ready to start. But I just couldn’t help myself. I leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Trust me, beautiful, I’m way better than your vibrator.”