The slurred words come through her phone with all the import of an Emergency Broadcast, and Nicole blinks blearily at the clock on her nightstand. She groans when she notes it’s sometime after 3:00 a.m., then shifts to sit up in bed before answering her obviously drunk costar.
“I think you’re drunk,” she replies flatly.
She can’t stop a smile from spreading at his antics.
“Tom, it’s almost 4 in the morning.”
“Fuckin’ ‘ell, is it? Shit. ‘m sorry, Nicole, I really am. Do you forgive me?”
In the past year and a half of working together, she’d gotten used to Tom popping up at random times, but he’d always been really good at not being annoying. She really wants to be annoyed now that he’d interrupted a really good steamy dream–in which he actually made a few appearances–on one of the precious few nights she got to fall asleep at a decent hour, but she thinks of him pouting on the other side, pink lips shiny, eyes earnest, and it just makes her sigh. Fuck him for being adorable and having a sexy voice even while drunk.
“I forgive you, Tom. Where are you?”
“Not with you,” he says in a voice so mournful it makes her smile again. “Can I come be with you, Nicole? I promise I’ll behave.”
“I do, too, I have the ress–the reese–the resseipts!”
Nicole bursts out laughing and suddenly she does wish he were here and she could study his face for as long as she wanted without having to worry he’d read too much into it. That he’d read exactly enough into it.
“Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it,” she says.
“I love you, you know,” he says suddenly, and her heart legit stops beating in her chest for a good minute.
“What did you say?” she breathes.
“I wish I could touch you right now. Can I touch you, Nicole?”
Nicole swallows past the sudden dryness in her throat.
“You touch me all the time.”
She can practically hear him shaking his head.
“Mm, no. Not like I want,” he replies.
“How do you–” she clears her throat. “How do you want to touch me?”
She asks it against her better judgment, but fuck it, nothing is really real at 3:49 a.m., right?
He heaves a frustrated growl-sigh that brings back to mind the naughty things he’d done to her in her dream and she presses her thighs together, wanting him to touch her as much as he apparently wants to touch her.
“Your skin is so soft, Nicole. What’s it like to kiss you? I think about it all the bloody time.”
Oh, god. Her heart has resumed beating, and it would be a relief, but it’s skipped past beating normally into racing like a speeding train.
“Mmhmm. Kissing you. Holding you. Exploring you with my tongue. Do you forgive me, Nicole?”
“Forgive you for what?” she chokes out past her pounding heart and dampening thighs.
“For thinking of you beneath me, loving me. Do you forgive me, love? God, I want you.”
At this hour, in this moment, she can admit to herself that she feels exactly the same way he does. In fact, she can’t even remember why she usually denies herself this. All she can think of is how low his voice has gotten, how it’s making her gush, how the drunken slur isn’t doing anything to undercut its sexiness.
“Do you really want me to forgive you?” she whispers.
“No,” he admits. “You can’t forgive me because I’ll do it again. ‘M bad.”
“‘M very bad. I need you. Can I have you, Nicole?”
His voice is getting slower now and she knows it won’t be long before he’s asleep. She wonders if he’ll remember any of this tomorrow. If he does, what does she want to have happen? Does she want him enough to break both their lives apart?
“You can have me however you want me, Tom,” she says, her heart feeling like it’s finally broken free.
“Mmm, thank you, love. You’re mine now, right?”
“Always,” she whispers, then remembers something important.
He murmurs something that sounds like “bed,” and she sighs a little in relief. If there’s a bed, he’s not in a ditch somewhere.
“You’re mine,” he says again, and he almost sounds lucid. “Remember, okay, Nicole? Mine now.”
“I’ll remember, baby,” she says softly. “Go to sleep.”
She hears a rustling over the line. After he’s settled, he speaks again.
“Sing to me, Treasure. Please. Promise I’ll behave.”
She obliges, singing to him until she hears deep even breathing. He snores softly, and she lets herself listen until the tension eases in her chest, and between her legs. She snuggles back into bed, cradling the phone to her ear.
She falls asleep to his breathing, imagining that he shares her bed, not knowing whether she wants the cold light of tomorrow morning to erase this from their minds.
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