Page 111 of Experiments in Offline Dating

“Stop that! Do I need to put my jeans back on?”

I shook my head, sucking my bottom lip into my mouth and biting down on it. Then he got in the bed, and the whole ridiculous bouncing, rubbing space struggle started again, but this time without pants.

He was lying on his back, and try though I might, I couldn’t stop my body from touching his body. I did try. But trying to work my way up the slope away from him only made me wriggle around against him.

“You see? Is this what you wanted?”

I bit my grin and cocked an eyebrow with a shrug.

“Don’t you start!”

He flipped over in a huff, turning his vital bits away from me. But the movement rolled me closer, and now I was cupped against his ass, my breasts against his back.

Cold radiated up through the air mattress, and despite being under a duvet and two blankets and having a dog for a hot-water bottle, I was still absolutely fucking freezing. Tadhg’s body was like a heater. I only wished he would take his T-shirt off so that I could get closer to his deliciously warm skin.

“You’re going to have to—This isn’t going to work.” He huffed. “Look, can you just flip over? Please?”

That started me giggling again. He sounded so annoyed. I was slaphappy, punch-drunk tired. I tried to flip, but he was heavier, and I rolled right back. This made me laugh all the harder. I did it again, just for kicks.

“Would you stop it? This isn’t funny, for Christ’s sake. And can you keep your hair to yourself? It’s all over me!”

“Does it . . . smell amazing?”

“Shut up.”

“Can you”—I was cracking up—“not handle the sexiness of my hair?” I couldn’t stop.

“Maya Davis. We made that list as a precaution. Not to use it against each other. You’re making things worse!”

Little squeaks of laughter came out and matched the rubbery squeak of the mattress as I flipped over in small increments, turning a few inches at a time against his wall of back, until I was facing the other direction.

“There. Is that better?”

Because of our height difference, we kinda fit together, my ass nestled in the curve of his lower back, his ass cupped under mine. It was hot. It shouldn’t have been, but it was.

He sighed. “Not really.”

I started laughing again.

“Behave yourself, you hyena. Jesus fucking Christ on a bicycle. I’m never going to get any sleep. Good night.” He said it like an insult and tried to turn a little bit farther, but it was no use.

He was right, for the most part. He tossed and turned, and of course, every time he so much as breathed too hard, the whole mattress moved. Then Finn started having a dream and kicking us both. Tadhg gave her a gentle nudge to wake her up, but she started scratching, and then we were on a vibrating bed at a cheap motel with no shortage of quarters. And it was cold. It was still, so, fucking, cold. At least I had a damn good excuse to press the entire length of my body down his.

I was sure that the mattress was losing air. As the night grew longer, it felt like we were pressed even closer together, the edges of the mattress curling up to cradle us or trap us, or maybe I was slowly losing my touch with reality.

Could I sleep? Hell no!

The mattress wrestling we’d been doing somehow turned my fevered imaginings to the mat training in Fourth Wing. Only now it was Tadhg as the dark, broody Xaden, and in my sleep-deprived stupor, I couldn’t stop picturing Tadhg pinning me down against the mattress, flipping me to his will. Taking my daggers away.

One.

Blade.

At.

A.

Time.