Page 97 of Live for Me

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

memphis

Something dragging along my hip stirred my brain to life. I usually slept heavily. Nightmares didn’t normally wake me. My body learned at an early age that being able to sleep through constant noise and in the worst of conditions was absolutely necessary. That had carried into my adult life pretty effortlessly. I had nightmares and I remembered them when I eventually woke up, but I never let them pull me out of being asleep. Sleep was more important than fear.

So, this wasn’t a nightmare.

That sensation moved from my hip to my stomach and then it was on my breast.

It was happening in real life, and something in the depths of my brain freaked the fuck out that I was back in the time when I learned to just sleep through the worst of things.

“Get up, Em! Run, now!” I screamed and threw the blanket off my body. I swung my elbow behind me as hard as I could and it definitely connected with somebody.

“Fuck, Memphis.”

I was already across the room before the name registered with me. I stopped just at the door and looked down my body to see that I had absolutely no clothing on. I turned back around to see Utah pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers while he stood from the bed to come toward me.

“Who’s Em, Memphis?” he asked. “Do we like this person, or is that who I owe a returned broken nose to?”

All I could manage to whisper was, “I’m so sorry.”

The knock on the other side of the door right behind me scared me so badly that I jumped right back across the room into Utah.

“You alright in there, hoss?” Indy called from the other side of the door.

So much panic.

I was completely naked. Utah was, too.

We hadn’t had to discuss it with Indy that we’d started sleeping together because it only happened twice. And apparently, we were already to the point of staying overnight with one another, because I obviously fell asleep in this room.

Utah’s chuckle brought me back to the problem at hand. Indy was still standing in the hallway.

He knocked again. “Utah?” Indy tried another time, with a little more concern in his voice.

Utah was forcing a giant shirt over my head the next second before he nearly fell over trying to jump into a pair of his shorts. He stumbled the rest of the way to the door and opened it while I tried to hide behind him.

“All good, man. Thanks.”

“Who was yell—?” he started to ask before he spotted me. I pulled the neck of Utah’s shirt up over my nose to try to hide in plain sight. At least it was still mostly dark in here.

“Ah,” Indy laughed. “So, I’m not usually one to pry into someone else’s sex life, but are you bleeding?”

“You’re absolutely the first to pry,” Utah said. “Especially when it’s about someone else’s sex life.”

“So, was it an accident? Or is she into like secret femme fatale mega domme shit?” Indy asked, standing on his toes to try and see me more clearly over Utah’s shoulder.

“Okay,” Utah said. “We’re all good. We’ll see you downstairs, Indy.”

“But wait,” Indy said while Utah started to close the door in his face. “I still have questions!” he yelled through the door once it was shut. “We’ve talked about this, Memphis! If he’s huge, you have to tell us. Me and Triss want to know. I’ll go text her now, so she knows to be ready for the update.”

“This might be the most embarrassing moment of my life,” I said and crawled right back into Utah’s bed to pull the blanket up over my entire body.

I heard Utah laugh. “I’d say he just does it because you react to it, but that really is just how he is. All day every day. He’s not even trying to embarrass you. He understands nothing about boundaries, and he lives for sex.”

“I’m not going down there. Ever. This is where I live now.”

I felt the bed move down by my feet and I started to sink toward the middle while his body weighed the mattress down. He pulled the blanket down until he could see my eyes.

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