Marina smiled. “How well your sheets worked and whether or not I was too tired to get up and strip the bed.”
Several women around the table laughed. Rex only nodded, but even through the window April could see the spark of amusement in his dark eyes.
“How about you, Carolyn?” he asked. “How do you sleep and would your position affect your decision to buy these sheets?”
Carolyn Rogers, 42, legal receptionist.
“My boyfriend and I start off the night facing each other like we’re hugging.”
Rex reached for his notebook, made a notation before he looked up and asked, “So far we’ve got hanging off the bed, spoons and hugging. Any others?”
When one woman tried to describe how she and her significant other slept, Rex looked stumped. He finally asked her to illustrate the position on paper.
While April may not be very comfortable around people, one area she excelled in was research. With just a few keystrokes, she’d pulled up close to a thousand hits on Web sites featuring information about sleeping styles. A few more strokes and she narrowed her search specifically to couples’ sleeping styles.
She visited the Web site of a psychologist who’d based his twenty-five year career on the study of how couples’ sleeping language indicated the emotional well-being of the relationship. Scanning the pages, April scrolled through the photographs that demonstrated each sleeping position in full color.
“April,” Matthew said, dragging her attention from the computer screen. “You’re on.”
She glanced up to find him pointing at the window and Rex and the respondents in the room beyond. “What?”
“Mr. Holt wants—”
“April,” Rex’s voice resounded over the speaker. “Please join me.”
“Oh, thanks,” she said to Matthew then slipped from the observation room, trying not to allow too much light in through the opening door.
She popped her head inside the conference room a moment later and Rex motioned her in. Smoothing her hands over her skirt, April entered and greeted the respondents with a smile.
“Ladies, this is my assistant, April. She comes directly from the client who is sponsoring our focus group today. She’ll help us clarify the positions you’re talking about.” He turned to her and she saw a smile in his dark eyes. “April, you’ve been following our discussion?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Circling the table, he motioned to the bed. “Come on over here. Ladies, gather around. I want you to talk us through these positions.”
It took a moment for April to realize what Rex intended, another to comprehend that he expected her to lie down on that bed with him. Direct contact. Exactly what she didn’t need with Rex Holt in front of an audience….
“Take off your shoes, April.” He toed off his own butter-soft leather slip-ons.
Then he climbed into bed.
The sight shouldn’t have been erotic, given the logistics—an audience, an observation window, a video camera—but there was no way watching this man climb into a bed couldn’t be erotic. That he was fully clothed didn’t minimize the effect of his long, sculpted body unfolding as he spread out over the sheets, a fact apparently evident to every woman in the room if the way they all watched was any indication.
His dark hair and tanned face looked striking against the pale pink pillows, his button-up shirt and knife-creased trousers a silent invitation to be removed piece by piece.
“Come on, April, join me.” He extended a hand and she had no choice but to accept it.
Smoothing her skirt, she slipped into bed and stretched out, careful not to brush against him. Her heart began to race. A voice in her head warned over the alarm bells that had started peeling wildly…calm down, calm down, calm down.
She breathed deeply, surprised that lying beside him left her with a curious feeling of déjà vu, which made no sense at all given that she had never even seen the man lying down.
Unless she’d been fantasizing about him.
As she’d slept so restlessly last night, she couldn’t discount the possibility. Just knowing Rex was in the room on the other side of the wall, in bed, perhaps naked…
“All right, Bonnie-Jean,” Rex said. “Let’s start with the butting-heads phase.”
Rolling to his side, he draped his knee over the mattress. “Like this?”
“Hang your arm down,” she directed.
“And where are you sleeping when your husband is hanging off the side of the bed like this?”
“On my right side with my hands tucked beneath the pillow.”
April mimed the position and Bonnie-Jean nodded.
“I sleep the same way all the time. My husband’s the one who changes. But see how the pockets with all that stuff in them are in the way.”
“I’m catching one with my arm and the other with my knee.” Rex shifted around to illustrate his point.
“It’s a wonder your husband doesn’t fall out of bed,” Marina commented. “I couldn’t sleep like that.”
“Actually, he has.” Bonnie-Jean laughed.
“So you sleep like spoons during your…” Rex hesitated. “Intimate phase, isn’t that what you called it?”
Bonnie-Jean nodded.
“With your husband on the inside or outside?”
“Outside.”
Rex rolled over and suddenly he was pulling April against him, much too close, much too male for her peace of mind. She actually tingled when his warm strength cocooned her, molded every solid inch of him around her.
His chest pressed full-length against her back. His crotch pressed against her bottom so she could feel the slight bulge nestled between her cheeks. His thighs slipped beneath hers, knee-to-knee, and if that wasn’t enough, he hooked an ankle over hers to pin her beneath him.
She wanted to ask if it was really necessary for him to take the closeness so seriously. They were only supposed to be demonstrating sleeping positions, after all. But she couldn’t come up with a way to phrase the question that wouldn’t make her sound stupid in front of their audience.
“Does this sum up your sleeping arrangement, Marina?” His breath came in a warm burst against her ear and to April’s utter mortification she actually shivered, a head-to-toe vibration that she sincerely hoped Rex hadn’t felt.
Marina approached the side of the bed to orchestrate their arrangement. “My husband’s leg crosses mine over the thigh. Like this.” She patted Rex’s knee to motion him to slide his leg upward.
April felt every inch of that warm weight dragging a trail up her calf, her silk hose and his trousers sliding sleekly against each other.
“Like this?”
Marina clapped her hands. “You got it. Nothing fancy, just really close.”
Really, really close. April’s temperature rose by slow degrees, a dizzying combination of nerves and awareness.
“All right, Carolyn. Your turn.” Rex clearly was as comfortable conducting business on these pale pink sheets as he was sitting at the head of the conference table. “Show us what you were talking about.”
Carolyn Rogers was an attractive divorcée in her early forties, a receptionist who’d recently gotten involved with a partner from her law firm.
“We face each other,” she said. “My boyfriend lies on his left side and I lie on my right.”
Rex turned over, and encouraged April to slide into his arms with a dashing smile. Meeting his gaze squarely, a bravado that was absolutely, positively all show, April rolled against him.
“Now thread your legs together with yours on top, Rex.”
He wedged a knee between hers and slid the other on top as directed. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he held her close.
“Well, this is cozy.” He laughed, a rumble she felt deep inside his chest, or more accurately, her breasts felt deep in his chest, because they happened to be the closest body part.
“Ah, to have such passion again.” Marina heaved a great sigh. “You and your boyfriend want to
fuse together, eh?”
Carolyn grinned and the women nodded appreciatively, gathering around the bed as though proximity might pass along some of the magic.
April, however, felt far from magical. She was barely staving off the effects of Rex’s hard body and her own case of nerves. The need to fidget was becoming torture.
“The Honeymoon Hug,” she squeaked out, needing to hear her own voice as a distraction.
His chest kept brushing her nipples so lightly she feared she’d wind up with nipple erections for all these women to see.
And Matthew. And the videotape…
“The what?” Rex asked.
“This sleeping position. It’s called the Honeymoon Hug. Couples sleep this way a lot when they’re in the honeymoon phase of their relationships.”
“Or after lovemaking, eh,” Marina said knowingly.
“A sleeping-styles doctor calls this position the Rolls Royce of intimacy.”
She was babbling. Not a good sign. The alarm in her head was shrieking wildly now and she willed her thoughts away from how his thighs snared hers between their muscular strength, from how utterly and completely perfect their bodies fit together.
“A sleeping-styles doctor?” Rex unwrapped himself enough from her to prop up on an elbow to peer down into her face. “Who’s he?”
“A psychologist who studies couples’ sleeping language. I pulled some information up when you started discussing the subject. There are a lot of sleeping styles.”
“Really?”
She nodded, any headway she’d made catching her breath lost. She’d pleased him.
She was pleased that she’d pleased him.
This was not a good thing. But for the life of her she couldn’t remember why at the moment. Touching this man had scattered her thoughts completely and April didn’t have a chance to dwell on this unfortunate development because Rex chose that moment to turn the floor over to her by addressing the group.
“Okay, ladies, let’s try these sleeping styles on for size,” he said. “Marina, my notebook is on the table. Will you do the honors.”
“Absolutely.”
“Tell us what other positions there are, April. Ladies, stop us when you recognize the ones you sleep in. Marina, write down the name and the style after it. Make sure you get yours and Bonnie-Jean’s down there, too.”
“Got it.”
“First there’s the Crab.” April scooted away so quickly the bed frame creaked loudly. “No contact. You sleep over on your side of the bed and I stay over here on mine.”
Worked for her.
“Any takers?” Rex asked their audience.
Several women shook their heads while Marina made notations in Rex’s notebook.
“That one isn’t so popular. I don’t like it either.” Rex rolled back toward her. “What’s next?”
“The Leg Hug.” Another position with limited contact. “Hook your leg over mine. That’s it. Nothing else touching.”
“My boyfriend and I sleep like that,” Nikki, the career woman who worked on the road with a Fortune 500 company, said.
Then the Sweetheart’s Cradle, which had April’s thigh draped casually across his, just a hair’s breadth below a bulge in his crotch…
The Buttocks Hug. Facing in opposite directions with bottoms pressed together. The perfect Zen position for giving each partner a sense of independence while still maintaining the intimacy through a physical connection.
“That’s me and my husband.” Sheila, a mom of toddlers, headed toward Marina and motioned to the notebook. “Put me down for that one. We sleep that way so the kids can climb in on both sides of the bed.”
The Loosely Tethered position drew a response from Elizabeth, the nursing supervisor. This position had the added benefit of keeping April facing away from Rex while he molded around her like a spoon, almost but not quite touching and still leaving her room to breathe.
But not for long.
The Shingle, a position that robbed April of her breathing space by placing both of them on their backs with her cradled in the crook of his arm. This was a protective position, with Rex assuming the dominant spot with that same lofty confidence she’d noticed earlier when he’d taken over these offices. He took advantage of the closeness, his nose hovering just above her head, his strong arms anchoring her close.
By the time they’d reached the Pursuit, which had him rubbing up against her, molding his body around hers as he chased her across the mattress, April was so high-strung that when he said, “All right, ladies. Looks like we got them all,” she shot away from him like a bolt.
She hadn’t counted on Rex hanging on though, and the top of her head connected with his chin so hard his teeth rattled.
April winced, tears springing to her eyes on impact, but before she could even say “ouch!” Rex had reared back and teetered uncertainly. April wasn’t the only one in the room to gasp as he rolled right off the bed.
Unfortunately the bed wouldn’t let him go that easily. The dual-temperature vibrator trapped his hand before the pocket ripped away from the sheet and Rex hit the floor with a thump. The vibrator shot across the carpet and cracked against a metal heating vent.
Then all hell broke loose.
“Are you all right, Mr. Holt?” Marina asked.
No, Mr. Holt was not all right.
“You’re bleeding,” Bonnie-Jean said.
“And your vibrator’s broken.” Carolyn had retrieved the cracked apparatus and held it up for inspection.
Their resident nursing supervisor wet a napkin at the water bar and brought it to him.
Rex glanced up at April. “I just bit my lip. No problem.”
But there was a problem. A really big one.
April Accidentally had struck again.
6
REX CRADLED the telephone against his ear and kicked the bedroom door closed. “You’ve got potential liability,” he told Wilhemina. “I suggest you send the Fetish Collection back to Research and Development to take another look at those open pockets. Maybe they can lower them or devise some sort of flap that closes over it. As it is the items hang out now, which can be dangerous when someone rolls off the bed.”
Or falls off, as was his particular case.
“What happened?” Wilhemina asked.
Tugging off his shoes, Rex recapped the day’s events and his concerns. He didn’t mention to Wilhemina that she’d provided him with an assistant who should have come with a warning label. The deed was done and now April was all his to deal with.
Perhaps he should say thanks.
He complimented April’s work performance and left it at that. This telephone call wasn’t happening quickly enough to suit his mood tonight, not when he could hear April moving around in the suite, which meant every second he was on this phone was another second he could be spending with her.
And he needed every second because today’s mishap only confirmed what he’d begun to suspect last night—April was feeling the chemistry between them and it made her nervous.
Rex had big plans for the night and he was eager to get on with them. They’d just arrived back at the hotel. It was late and he was hungry and he hadn’t even glanced inside the refrigerator yet. From the blips and beeps issuing from beyond the door, he guessed April hadn’t either.
Juggling the phone between his shoulder and ear, he stripped off his work clothes and donned sweats so by the time he finished talking business and bid Wilhemina a good night, he was ready to join his lovely new assistant for dinner and his first lesson in Relaxation 101.
Rex found her hard at work in front of her laptop, still dressed in her skirt and blouse. She’d pulled her hair off her neck with a clip and traded her heels for a pair of slippers. He marveled that she still had the energy to stand after one very long day and made his way into the kitchen.
“Busy?” he asked.
“Just breaking down today’s sessions.”
“I’ll give you a hand after dinner.”
>
“No problem. I’ve got it under control.”
She didn’t glance up. Perhaps he should have been pleased with her efficiency, but he found that he didn’t like being dismissed so easily. “Hungry?”
“Um, yeah,” she said absently. “Not enough to stop working to deal with it though. It’s getting too late.”
“Tell you what. You work and I’ll fix dinner. Something that won’t take long to prepare.”
She finally made eye contact. “Prepare? There’s food here? I thought we were in a hotel.”
“I leave standing instructions to have my suite stocked with groceries when I’m in town.”
“Really? The staff stocks your groceries. That’s rather…privileged.” Her eyes sparkled almost blue in the light.
“Well, I don’t know about privileged,” he replied. “I come from pretty run-of-the-mill roots, a fairly large Irish family with an Italian mother who ranks cooking right along with breathing.”
“My good fortune then.”
Pulling open the refrigerator, he inspected the contents. “How does steak and salad sound? No grill, so I can’t do real justice to this London broil, but it won’t take long.”
“Fine by me.”
She’d gone back to working and Rex retrieved the ingredients for a decent meal and went to work himself. After rinsing romaine lettuce and setting the leaves on a dish towel to dry, he contemplated April. He must have gotten used to all her high energy because right now, with the suite quiet except for the sounds of running water and her fingers tapping on the keyboard, she seemed almost subdued. True, she was working but still, there was something about her….
Rifling through the cabinet for a grilling pan, he wondered if she’d eaten today. Matthew had provided lunch for him, which he’d devoured between sessions. He’d assumed Matthew had done the same for her. But perhaps not, he thought, noticing the faint smudges under her eyes. She looked tired, though he guessed by the way she was typing away on the keyboard that she didn’t plan to slow down any time soon.
“Wilhemina asked how your day went.” He turned on the broiler and placed their dinner in the oven.
“Did you tell her I took out another dual-temperature vibrator?”
Between The Sheets Page 8
