Insomnia (Sexual Misconduct Volume I) (7 page)

Xander

I woke with a start.
Nude, disoriented, and completely alone. The shrill sound of my cell phone startled me out of my sleep. I glanced down at the screen and saw a missed call from Marcus. A quick glance at the clock showed it had been two hours since Avery had shown up at my door. I did a quick check of the house even though I knew I wouldn’t find her here. I stopped off at the bathroom before settling on my bed with the phone. I tried to convince myself not to call her, and it worked for about half an hour. I knew I wasn’t getting back to sleep, and I was a little pissed she’d come over here, turned everything upside down, and left while I slept. I tapped on Avery’s contact info and sent her a text.

W
here’d you go?

H
ome.
Her response was so quick I thought she might’ve been up waiting for me
.

W
hy?

I live here
.

Smart-
ass. I hit the call button instead of replying.

“Hello.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“You
never asked me to stay.”

“
I would’ve if I’d have been
awake
when you snuck off.”

“
I find it ironic that you’re complaining about falling asleep.”

“I
’m not complaining about
that
. I don’t even know what I’m complaining about.” I never had a problem with a woman leaving after sex. I couldn’t get them out fast enough, and now… now I was seconds from asking her to come back.

“You
got what you wanted, Xander,” she said matter-of-factly.

I know I did
.
But was it enough? Would it ever be? Every time I fucked her, the need grew. The silence on the phone stretched for too long, but neither of us made an effort to disconnect the call.

“
Avery,” I said, breaking the silence.

“
Yeah.” Her tone came across soft and breathy, like she was drifting to sleep.

“
I want to fuck you again.”

She moaned. T
he sound brought my dick from half-mast to fully erect in seconds.

“N
ext time, I’m going to tie you to my bed so you’ll be here when I wake up. You can be my own little personal fuck puppet.”

“
Wow
… do you have to be so crude?”

“
Yeah, I do. I’m a filthy-mouthed bastard who loves to fuck, and hopefully I’ll get you to be just as dirty. You know… maybe stain you with my hot, sticky—”

“
Xander.”

“
Yeah?”

“
Goodnight.”

I
smiled at her dismissal. “Goodnight, Avery.”

I hung up
with a ridiculous smile on my face and my other hand on my cock. She would quickly turn me into a sex-crazed maniac. Then she’d also be treating me for a sex addiction she afflicted me with. Before I placed the phone down, it began ringing.

“Change your mind
?” I answered, expecting to hear Avery’s voice.

“Xander?
”

Marcus.
“Yeah. What’s up?” I shifted into a seated position.

“It
’s about the doctor you wanted me to check up on.”

“You can call off the investigation.”

“That was quick.” He chuckled. “Never cease to amaze me.”

“Shut up. I don
’t need that info anymore.”

“Are you
sure?”

“
Why? What did you find out?” I tensed.

“Nothing.”
I relaxed, loosening my grip on the phone.

“Okay
, so why do you sound so worried?”

“Because I found
nothing
. It’s like she didn’t exist before eighteen. I don’t like it, Xander. Anyone who goes to that much trouble to cover their past has something ugly to hide.”

“How much could she have done before she turned
eighteen? She’s too straight and narrow for anything criminal.”

“You of all people should know when
you’re trying to bury a part of your past, you turn into a completely different person.”

“Trust me
, I know that, but not Avery.”

“
You’re blinded by the pussy. The taste of it is probably still on your lips.”

I smirked because I actually
did still taste her on my tongue. “Fine, dig all you want.”

“
You can’t afford any surprises right now, so I’ll update you when I come up with some answers.” The line clicked off and I dropped the phone on the nightstand. Whatever her secret was, it couldn’t be as bad as mine. And maybe if it were, she’d understand. Regardless, I knew who she was now, and I liked it.

*~*~*

In the next week, we fell into a routine. We’d text all day, she’d make excuses as to why she couldn’t come over, but by ten p.m., she showed up at my door and we’d fuck for hours. I honestly thought after a week or so I’d tire of Avery. But I’d been lying to myself from day one. I’d felt that powerful pull toward her, and I deluded myself, thinking it was all about tearing off her panties and sinking my cock in her.

This
shit was different. The kind of different I didn’t need in my life. I’d been here before. I recognized the feelings that were growing for Avery, and it was like a ticking time bomb in my gut.

I wasn
’t good with relationships and love. I thrived for years on fucking women and moving on, because love would destroy me. I wasn’t the candy, flowers, and tears kind of guy. I was the jealous, crazed, obsessed type. If this thing with Avery continued to grow the way it was, I’d start to fuck it up. I’d take desperate measures to keep her. I knew it. Saw it coming but couldn’t stop it if my life deepened on it. And trust me… it did.

By the end of the week
, I talked her into going to dinner with me. I took her to a desolate mountaintop park I used to visit when I was younger. Her hair blew in the wind, and her right hand gripped the seat as I whipped my pickup around the steep edges of the road. I reached over, running a hand up the back of her neck into her hair. She glanced over at me with nervous eyes.

“Can you pay attention to the
road?”

I smiled at her but returned my hand to the wheel. When we pulled up to the small
, secluded area, she jumped out and walked up to the guardrail and gazed at the city lights below.

Making sure to park so we
’d face the view, I set up a blanket and laid out the dinner I’d picked up in the bed of the pickup. I helped her up, and suspicion flickered in her glance.

“So you have a romantic side?
” She narrowed her eyes.

“I have a lot of sides and crooked edges, Dr.
Shaw.”

She
lifted an eyebrow and smiled. “I’m sure you do.”

We ate mostly in silence
, and when we were done, we leaned back—her back against my chest, my arms around her waist. It was the most peaceful moment I had in over ten years.

“
Why haven’t you returned to California? Not that I’m saying I want you to leave, but…”

“
So you want me to stay?”

“
Never mind.”

I
let her off the hook and answered her question.

“I haven
’t really accepted any scripts or produced anything in almost two years. I had my stint in rehab and I needed time off.”

“Was
the drinking because of your insomnia?”

“Partly.
It wasn’t as severe as it is here, but yeah, it would take the edge off and allow me to forget.”

“Forget
what?”

I s
hook my head. Mostly at myself because I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t just lay it all out there. She didn’t push, which was a relief.

“Did you grow up here?”
she asked.

“
Yeah. I went to the local high school and everything.”

“So did
I.”

“I
’m sure I was way before your time.”

“
Yeah, you were probably five years ahead of me.”

”How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“
And already in your own practice? Impressive.”

“
Well, when you have no one to fall back on, you dedicate yourself to being able to survive. So I doubled up on coursework, and I was actually taking some college courses while I was still in high school. I was in medical school by the time I was twenty-one.”

I whistled and she giggled
shyly. I think it was the first time I’d heard that sound from her. She sounded carefree and so unreserved, totally opposite from the bottled-up woman she usually was. Maybe I ought to loosen her up with wine more often.

“That
’s pretty amazing.”

“Well
, I had Ellie as a motivation.”

“
Who’s Ellie?”

“She
’s like my sister or daughter, depending on how you look at it. We were placed in the same foster home, and I took care of her.”

“Didn
’t you have any family to take you in?”

She
shook her head. “No. My grandparents were all dead, and I had an aunt, but she had too much going on to take care of me.”

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

“I
’m sorry you were left alone. That had to be hard.”

She
shifted around, looked at me, and shrugged, a slight sadness in her gaze. The stark contrast of her red hair against her piercing blue eyes got to me every time. I swallowed back whatever it was she made me feel. If I could, I’d purge myself of it. She reached out and ran her fingers over my eyebrow, down my face, and over my jaw.

Her
heavy-lidded gaze fell on my lips as she leaned in. Her lips were soft and pliant, her tongue gliding against mine aggressively. I moaned. I couldn’t fucking wait to get her tongue wrapped around my cock. If kissing her was any indication of what she could do with her mouth, I’d be shooting off down her throat in record time. She broke the kiss and gave me the same expression she always did. Shock and amazement with a huge side of
turned the fuck on
.

“Xander?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah?” I brushed my fingers through her silky hair.

“What are we doing?”

“I have no fucking idea what’s happening here,” I admitted before I dove back in, devouring her mouth with the intensity that matched the fire burning between us. If she hadn’t pulled away, I would’ve fucked her right there in the back of my truck, under the moon, with the city lights as a backdrop. But I hadn’t come there for that. I was trying to do something with her that didn’t involve sex. It went against every fucking thing I believed in, but I was building a relationship.

So I pulled a blanket over us and we spent the next two hours talking
about everything except
that day
. She didn’t seem to hold anything back, and I was convinced she was exactly the person I thought she was.

Avery

In the two weeks since I’d shown up at Xander’s door, we’d become inseparable. No matter how many times I woke up in the morning and said I would take an off day from him, I’d end up in his bed.

He
opened up to a certain extent. He told me what it was like growing up as the mayor’s son. How much he really missed his dad, and that he was close to his brother until he left town. He talked about his mom like she was the world to him, and he spent most of his days with her. He told me about moving to California and how it took him four years to get a part in a small movie, and from there everything took off for him. He even talked to me about rehab and dealing with the press.

Xander opened up about everything in his life.
Everything except what kept him up at night. I’d spent mostly every night at his place for two weeks, and half the time he woke up in a cold sweat. The other half he didn’t sleep at all. I was suspicious that whatever gave him this insomnia was the same thing that chased him away years ago, because that was the only thing he didn’t speak about, and I didn’t press him.
Yet
. Besides, I was sure I’d figured out who he was.

There
was a knock at my door, and Matt peeped his head into my office. “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure
. I’m done for the day.”

He
walked in, shut the door, then took the seat across from me. “So you’ve been scarce around here lately.”

“No
, I haven’t. I’ve been here for all my appointments.” I knew it was a playful dig at me being with Xander, so I brushed it off.

“How ar
e things with the movie star?” He wiggled his eyebrows, and I smiled at him.

“Not
as bad as I expected.”

“I
’m sure you were expecting doom and gloom.”

“More like heartache and destruction.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is your heart involved already?”

I shrugged. The last thing I wanted to do was admit there were some feelings developing between Xander and
me.

“I was all about you getting laid
, but if your heart’s involved… be careful.”

“
What?
Are you sure you’re a therapist? I’m starting to have my doubts. Let me see your certification.”

“What? I told you to get laid, loosen up.
Not fall in love.”

“Matt
, that’s the equivalent of leaving a two-year-old with a set of knives and telling them to play with it but don’t get cut.”

“So you
are
falling for him.”

I rolled my eyes.

“If any woman could have emotionless sex, I thought it would be you.”

“Why?”

“We were together for two years. The sex was great, but emotionally you weren’t there.”

“So you thought I was incapable.”

“Not incapable. I just thought it would take a lot more than a few nights of sex to get your heart pumping.”

“Well
, it’s not pumping yet. Let’s just say it’s flickering.”

“Whatever
. I didn’t come here to talk about your sex life.”

“
Then why did you come?”

“I saw Ellie last night.”

“Okay… She’s a big girl, Matt.”

“Yeah
, but she was acting all weird, then asked me not to tell you.”

“And here you are breaking her confidence in you.”

“I’ve known her since she was like fourteen. If I see her with a group of drunken chicks, downtown at two in the morning, I’m going to talk to you about it.”

“She was drunk?”

“She seemed sober… but her friends… I don’t know. You know how crazy some college girls get.”

“I wouldn
’t know.”

“That
’s right. You only went to like one kegger when we were in college. And you didn’t even drink.”

“I was focused.”

“You were uptight. Still are.”

“If
you’re done analyzing me, I have a date.”

“Oh
… well, don’t let me keep you.” He rose and waited until I gathered my things before he walked me out of the office and to my car. Xander was waiting for me at his place, and I had to stop off at home to change first.