Free Slammed by Kelly Jamieson

Christ!” she gasped, her hand flying to her throat.
    Dylan surged to his feet and strode to the doors to peer outside. “It’s hard to see anything,” he said. “But it looks like a tree came down.”
    “Oh God.”
    “It’s okay. There are probably a lot of trees down from this storm.”
    “But what if it fell on this hotel? Or the balcony?” It could have smashed the glass doors.
    “It didn’t. It’s okay, Brooke.”
    Still trembling a little, she washed her face and changed into her pajamas. For a moment she actually considered sleeping with her clothes on, since Dylan would be sleeping in the same bed. Hell, that wouldn’t be comfortable. She abandoned that thought.
    Dylan had resumed his prone position on the bed and had turned out all the lights except the one lamp beside the bed, which shone on his reading materials. She crossed to the windows and tugged the curtain aside, once more staring out into the stormy night.
    Weariness dragged her down and yet there was a jumpy excitement inside her, a fluttery sensation that she knew was because of the storm, but more so because of Dylan. She turned back to the bed and pulled down the puffy white duvet cover. The sheets slid cool and smooth over her skin as she climbed in.
    “Will the light bother you if I read for a while longer?” he asked.
    “No.” She turned onto her side, facing away from the light. She closed her eyes.
    Her body buzzed and hummed. She willed herself to relax. The workout had fatigued her body, the jet lag was clouding her mind, and yet still she couldn’t go to sleep. She adjusted the pillow beneath her head. She fixed her tank top where it bunched under her ribs. She rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow, flipped onto her back, and then rolled to her side again.
    She jumped when a hand landed on her back.
    “Hey,” Dylan said softly. “What’s wrong? Can’t get to sleep?”
    “No.”
    His hand rubbed over her cotton top in small, slow circles. “Are you worried about the storm?”
    “A little.”
    “Worried about me?”
    “What do you mean?” She kept her face averted and nibbled her bottom lip.
    “I’m not really going to molest you.”
    “I know that.” Some of the tension released from her muscles at his gentle touch on her back.
    “It’ll all be fine,” he said.
    She nodded. A slow lethargy began stealing over her and she sank into the bed. She rolled to her stomach again and he broadened his strokes, rubbing her back from her nape to the small of her back. Her buttocks tingled and then suddenly she was tense again. Geez! She wanted him to touch her butt! What was wrong with her? He was nice enough to give her a sweet, gentle, completely non-sexual back rub and she was getting turned on.
    When his stroke pushed her shirt up a little and his fingers touched bare skin, she tingled and tensed. When his hand slid under her shirt to stroke up and down again, only now on bare flesh, she bit her lip. God, that felt good. She swallowed a moan.
    “How’s that?” he murmured.
    “Good.” The word was muffled by the pillow.
    She felt the bed shift as he rose off it. The rustle of clothing reached her ears. The light clicked off, plunging the room into darkness, and then the bed again gave as his weight returned to it. He resumed his back rub, now lying beside her.
    “You take things so seriously,” he murmured. “You need to relax.”
    “I’m relaxed,” she lied.
    He laughed softly. “Yeah. Sure.” He curled his fingers over her shoulder, briefly kneading the muscles there. “That’s why your shoulders feel like rocks.”
    Just what her massage therapist always told her. She let out a long slow breath, trying to release tension along with it, and burrowed deeper into the bed. Dylan’s hand spread warmth and languor as it moved it up and down her spine. Her jaw relaxed, her eyelids closed gently instead of being squeezed shut, and she actually drifted off to sleep.
    Until she was awoken by