The Edifice

27. Breakfast in Bed

-

Sleep doesn't come easily after that.

Luckily it doesn't matter because I'm woken three times anyway, each as startling as the next.

The first is to the sudden, violating shock of Lee's hand reaching roughly across my side and to my stomach, groping sightlessly around me.

I don't even remember the occurrences of hours past at first. Just that the rough hands of a man are pawing at me in the pitch black.

I jump away in a panic, almost tumbling over the bedside and to the floor, smacking the wandering arm away as hard as I can. "Lee! What are you doing?"

"Where's the fucking blanket," he grunts sleepily in return, pushing me aside and continuing to probe violently around my side of the bed.

Only then does the cool air of the night register on the skin of my bare legs. I join him in searching for the duvet only to find it bundled on the floor beside me. Despite the smooth arrival of sleep, I'd evidently returned to my usual fits of restlessness while I was out.

Lee snatches it up wordlessly the second I offer it to him, squirreling its warmth away on his side. His teeth chatter loudly in the dark.

"Oops. Sorry."

"Someone so small shouldn't be as strong as you are when you're fighting for blankets."

"Can I... still have some?" I ask meekly, though I barely feel the supposedly frigid temperature of the room.

A minuscule corner of duvet is tossed my way. It's barely enough to cover my shoulder, but I crawl beneath it regardless, sidling up to Lee in an attempt to gather more. Begrudgingly, he reaches out to spread a fraction more across.

"Fuck you're cold," Lee mutters as his hand brushes my arm.

"Sorry."

"For fuck's sake." He unfurls the duvet slightly more, left hand curling protectively around my waist. Despite the goosebumps across his skin, he's still so much warmer than I am and I lean back into his embrace. "Is this ok?"

"Uh-Uh huh," I breathe, as though I'm thinking of anything but the empty centimetres of space between our entwined bodies. I can feel his chest pressed firmly against my shoulder blades, stomach brushing the small of my back. His hips can't be more than an inch from mine... I'd only need to shift minutely for them to touch. To feel him-

It's not just the alcohol that sends my head spinning with vertigo. If I don't fall asleep, I'll surely faint again with the suspense of his touch.

"Goodnight again, you frosty bitch."

"Goodnight asshole."

I drift back off to the sound of Lee's laughter in my ear, lips so close his breath flutters the hairs on the back of my neck. The dreams that take me are of a much different ending of our night.

The second time I'm dragged back to consciousness, I feel like I've entered a waking dream. A fantasy too good to possibly be real.

Sleep has eradicated all distance between myself and Lee.

I'm thoroughly cocooned in his embrace, his left arm wrapped tightly across my chest, the rounded flesh of his right forearm tucked beneath my cheek as he cradles me. We've both rolled forwards until his body rests over my own, every inch of him pressed in against me.

Through the fog of euphoria, I don't even notice the weight of him beyond the very sensation that I'm being held. Touched in the ways I've only dreamt of for almost twenty years. I haven't been spooned since infancy. Never so tender an embrace since I lost my grandparents.