Cure for Insomnia Page 9

  My phone buzzed. “Shitty shitsters!” I finished the tray, snapped off my gloves and pulled the phone out. Tiny bit behind. Give me 5? Or you can run up to my lab?

  I kept an eye on the Remi is typing message that flashed on and off while I caught a bit of air in my gloves to pop the fingers out, so I could put them back on.

  I’d love to see your lab!

  Second floor, door on the right. Knock. I’ll let you in. I worked as quickly as possible, painfully aware that the cushion of time we had to begin the date I had planned was slipping away. I could feel my whole family rolling their eyes at the hope I held for making it on time. “Almost done, almost done, almost done,” I chanted, finishing as I heard a tap at the door. I held up a finger as I passed by the door to the hallway and carefully carried my trays to the incubator before I let her in.

  “I’d hug you, but…” I held up my gloved hands. “I still need to clean up.”

  “I am fine admiring you in your lab coat.”

  I flushed under her admiration. “I’m sorry I wasn’t ready when you got here. With cell culture, you never know if they’re going to grow according to plan.” She followed as I walked to the bench to clean the area. I was nervous with her in the lab and was babbling. I snapped off my gloves and tossed them in the trash. I turned to find Remi studying me. “Too much?” I bit my lip wishing I had listened to Emma about shoptalk. “Valerie’s wife says I ‘prattle on’ when I talk about work.”

  “If I was not interested, I would have stopped you. I’m of the opinion that there is nothing sexier than an intelligent woman discussing her work.”

  Embarrassed, I searched for a diversion. “So this is the lab.” I pointed out each area. “Benches, cell culture room, darkroom.”

  She stepped close enough that I smelled her faint lilac perfume and felt the heat of her body. “I would greatly enjoy a tour of the darkroom.”

  I consulted my watch and grimaced. “We’ll be late. If you’re not early, you’re late.”

  Her eyebrows did a little dance and her gaze dropped to my lips. I imagined her weighing whether being on time was more important than kissing me hello. Was I reading too much? Would our appointment wait? I shoved the question aside and led the way to the darkroom. I knocked and, hearing nothing, opened the door. I was about to say there was not a whole lot to see once we’d stepped inside, but then Remi’s hands slid inside my lab coat and around my waist. I leaned around her to engage the lock on the door, my body tingling at the contact with hers.

  Remi leaned with me, whispering, “I could not wait another minute to kiss you.”

  Her lips met mine, sending a zing of electricity along my thighs. I longed to lose myself in the kiss, but I could not forget where we were.

  “You are uncomfortable.”

  “A little.”

  “It does not excite you, thinking about what you could do in the dark?” She found the light switch and left us with the faint red glow of the darkroom’s safety light. “I am guessing you have to be very adept with your hands in this light.” As if she were the one instructing me, she reached under my shirt, sweeping her soft hands across my belly.

  I hissed with pleasure, hoping her lips would return to mine. Instead, I felt her hot breath as she placed the most delicate of kisses on my neck, climbing from my collarbone up toward my ear. Slowly, deliciously, erotically, she traced my outer ear with her tongue. My entire body screamed the need to get naked with this woman. Her tongue traced my earlobe, and she paused suddenly.

  “What’s this? You have uneven earrings?” Again, she nipped below the lowest of the three hoops on my left ear. She returned to the right and circled the stud in the upper cartilage before slipping her tongue through the single hoop in the lobe.

  Her tongue on my ears was doing magical things to my body. “I do.”

  “I like that.”

  I took advantage of the pause and peppered the gentle curve of her neck with my own kisses. “Why is that?” I whispered as I clasped her ear between my teeth, delighting in the way her fingers clutched at my hips.

  “It makes me think you are edgier than I realized.”

  “What I do with my body is separate from what I do professionally.”

  She hmmmed at my response, her skin vibrating under my lips.

  “What else have you done with your gorgeous body? Tattoos? Other piercings?” Her hands traveled up toward my breasts.

  Muffled voices on the other side of the door made me grasp her wrists and step back. My face flushed hot and red, I waited for a knock at the door, my mind spinning on how I would explain Remi’s presence. “Now isn’t the time to find the others.”

  “Others. Plural.”

  Her voice rippled through me, and I wanted to lead her to every secret I had. “We have to go,” I whispered. “Friday traffic is going to hold us up even more.”

  “That is a shame,” Remi said. She tried to move her hands back to my hips and stomach. “Perhaps our date will provide a more private dark place?”

  “Stop!” I said, laughing. “I’m trying to figure out how to get you out of here without having to explain why you were in the darkroom and get you to our date before they cancel our…” I almost let the destination slip. I flicked on the fluorescent lights, regretting that it made both of us flinch.

  “Our what?”

  “You’ll see. If I can get us out of here. Let me peek and see if the lab is clear.” I filled my lungs and let the breath out slowly, hoping that as the air left my lungs, the blood pounding through my veins would leave my face. A prayer on my lips, I eased the door open. Clear, thank goodness! I ducked back in. “I have to get my things from my office. You’re going to head toward the back exit. Head left and wait for me in the hallway. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “I will allow you to rush me out of here only because I am intrigued about this mystery destination. Are you going to tell me why I had to wear jeans and boots?” Remi asked.

  “You’ll see when we get there,” I answered, trying not to look at her.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” I didn’t want to tell her that I never in a hundred years thought she would wear white jeans. Who owned white jeans?

  “It is not nothing. You are worried. Your eyes give it away.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough! Keep your head down. We have to get out of here!” I squared my shoulders and pushed open the door, walking away from the darkroom without scanning the lab. Nothing to see here! Not a thing out of the ordinary! I rushed to my office and then back through the lab to where Remi was waiting at the end of the hallway. I grabbed her hand and ran down the stairs, bursting through the back door.

  Laughing together, we ran to the parking lot where I had to stop, I was panting so hard. The way her eyes raked my body made me consider skipping our date and taking her home instead.

  “Are you running because we are late or because I was so close to stripping you?”

  She wasn’t even out of breath and I had yet to catch mine. I squeezed her hand with equal parts terror and titillation. “That’s where I work!”

  “If you saw how you looked in that lab coat, you would understand my struggle…the contents of a girl’s fantasies,” she said with a grin.

  I didn’t quite know what to say, and then she stopped in front of the most magnificent car. “Look at those wheels!”

  “You approve?”

  Something in her voice made me drag my eyes away from the sleek black car with the rearing stallion logo. “This is your car?” I could not mask the envy in my voice.

  “I didn’t get it new.”

  “Still!” I openly admired the impeccable exterior of the Ferrari and imagined what the interior must feel like.

  “It was a gift from my father.”

  “Damn! I can’t imagine…” I awkwardly cut myself off when her bitter tone registered. It was clearly not a welcomed gift. I wanted to know what he hoped to convey with the gift. It had to be about impre
ssing Remi. Making up for being an absent dad. I would much rather my father know me than be bought off with a luxury car.

  “No. You don’t want to,” Remi said honestly. “So, this date?”

  “For this date, we should take my car. But when you see my car, you might decide you’re not on the right date, Chica.”

  “Nonsense. I am with you, and I sense an adventure is upon us!”

  “I hope so.” I led her to my old faithful Sentra trying not to worry about the difference between her ride and mine. Once we were on the road, I picked up a conversational thread from earlier in the week. We’d been talking each night while I threw my dinner together. I filled her in on the progress of my research, and the pressure I felt from Judy as we moved toward the clinical trial. Remi talked about a run of stressful meetings with parents and teachers.

  Before Remi, Valerie was the only person I could talk to about my frustrations at work. It was such a relief that Remi understood the delicate balance of meeting someone’s demands while maintaining one’s own sanity. “What ended up happening with the hysterical mom you met with yesterday?”

  Remi growled, and though it had no innuendo attached to it, my adrenaline surged, making me think again what it would be like to drive Remi to my house.

  “She still doesn’t get it. She insists that I didn’t test her daughter properly. She probably spent five minutes on Google and now she’s an expert.”

  “She doesn’t agree with the tests? Or she doesn’t agree with the results?”

  “Such a nuance would be lost on her. She wants more support for her daughter. The real issue is that she wants to see her daughter’s test scores come up. I get that. All parents want their children to succeed, but there are limits. This is a mother who would step in and take the tests for her daughter to see the scores improve.”

  “How would that help her daughter?” I asked.

  “Precisely!” she said, her hands up as if to hold my sentence up as evidence. “Passing scores are most important to her, not figuring out how her child learns or what she needs.”

  “That’s so frustrating. I’ve been fighting the same thing with a student working in the adjoining lab. She wants to know how I got good grades but doesn’t want to hear that it took hard work and making a lot of mistakes, failing here and there. She thinks smart people get good grades. I tell her curious people do well, no-matter what their grades look like.”

  “Next time, I am calling you to talk to this mother.”

  I smiled at her. “And afterward, you would take me to…what do you have that’s like my darkroom?”

  She lightly smacked my thigh. “There are children where I work!”

  Her touch sent a very disproportionate wave of desire up my leg. “It’s good to know you have boundaries.”

  We drove in silence for several minutes, my mind traveling back to the darkroom, spinning on how far I would have let Remi take things had we not had to go. “Here’s why we brought my car.” I pulled off the paved road onto gravel. I slowed as the road took us closer to the coast. After five minutes of bouncing along the potholes, a small barn emerged. A dozen horses stood at a rail swishing their tails.

  “Horseback riding?” Her voice rose with surprise.

  “When I talked about racehorses, you said you’d rather ride, and you mentioned the burros being led to the beach. It seemed like a logical idea. Should I have warned you?” I eyed Remi’s white jeans.

  “No. It’s a wonderful surprise! I haven’t ridden in ages!” Remi leapt from the car and strode toward the horses unhesitatingly.

  After we checked in and signed our waivers, we returned to the sleepy animals. Remi patted the horses’ faces one by one. I walked beside her, my hands safely in my pockets.

  “I want to take this one,” Remi said, patting a small caramel-colored horse.

  “How do you know which one to pick?”

  “She speaks to me. None speak to you?”

  “The shorter ones look a little more friendly.”

  Remi observed my pocketed hands. “Are you nervous?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “Maybe.”

  “Have you never ridden before?” Her eyes twinkled with all sorts of emotion, mostly excitement.

  I looked away.

  “This is true? You’ve never ridden before? Why in the world did you pick this as a date?”

  “It seemed…” I wished I could hide the blush creeping up my neck.

  Remi maneuvered herself to recapture my gaze. “Romantic?”

  “Memorable.” I smiled.

  “You are going to be so sore,” Remi laughed. “We’d better pick the smallest one for you.”

  A young man approached, wiry thin with body language more skater than cowboy. “Hi, I’m Alex,” he said, his eyes still hidden behind his grubby baseball cap. “I’ll be taking you guys…” He glanced up and corrected himself… “gals out today. You have any riding experience?”

  “I do,” Remi said. “I’d like this little mare.”

  “Sure. M&M is as sweet as her name. Let’s get you in the saddle.”

  As he adjusted Remi’s gear, my heart rate accelerated. Until now, the planning had all been to create a memory for Remi. I had not considered my part in it at all. Before I was anywhere near ready, Alex was leading a darker animal toward me. I followed his instructions and found myself astride the beast, trying to get comfortable. “Maybe this was a terrible idea,” I said, gripping the knob in front of me with one hand and the tangle of leather Alex handed me in the other.

  “It was a great idea. This is going to be fun. Relax.” Remi held up her phone to take a picture.

  “Shouldn’t you keep your hands on these?” I held up the leather strips, worry in my voice.

  “She’s not going anywhere without you, is she?” Remi asked Alex.

  “No ma’am. They follow along once we get going. Keeping them moving is the tricky part. I hope you two aren’t afraid to kick ’em hard.”

  “I can,” Remi replied. “Karla? Can you dig your heels in?”

  Her words whipped me back to the darkroom, imagining Remi’s hands beneath my shirt, in my pants, bracing myself to feel her inside. I gulped, surprised by where my mind had gone, more so because of how far my imagination was taking things. I barely knew this woman, and I wanted her. Fiercely. “I’ll follow your lead,” I rasped.

  Remi’s eyes traveled up and down my body, warming more than my face. I thought maybe she, too, was remembering the darkroom.

  Alex swung aboard his own horse and gave a few more instructions before he directed us to the trail. As we departed, we passed a family of five on their way back. The mom and dad wore matching pinched expressions. The two boys were full of smiles, swinging their reins around, trying to hit each other’s horse to make them go faster. Last in line was a princess. She wore pink pants beneath her ball gown. I recognized Belle’s signature yellow dress, having watched Beauty and the Beast with Rosa many times.

  I was so intent on the dressed-up little girl that I didn’t even notice my horse turn to follow their crew, moving farther and farther away from Alex and Remi.

  “Remi?” I called, worry in my voice.

  Alex stopped his horse and turned in the saddle, his expression bored. “Bring Brownie this way,” he instructed.

  Remi trotted back and grabbed Brownie’s reins.

  “Do I have to worry about your eyes roaming?” she said with a grin.

  “That little girl!” I could not keep the wonder from my voice. Even now, I turned for another peek.

  “I agree. She has a certain je ne sais quoi.” With ease, she swung both horses around and swatted Brownie into a teeth-jarring pace to catch up with Alex.

  “Now that we’re on the trail, Brownie should be fine. Long as you keep his head up when we’re going through the brush.”

  I nodded.

  We followed a narrow trail above the ocean, and though the shrubs looked coarse and unappealing, my stupid horse kept jerking t
he reins out of my hands to grab mouthfuls. I was grateful when we reached the barren beach and headed toward the ocean. Alex led the way down toward the waves.

  “They have an easier time close to the water. You two have a half hour. You don’t want to go into the water. Lots of the horses will paw and splash you or even lie down. You can trot or canter them.”

  “You’re not going with us?” I asked.

  “Can’t get lost, and with the high tide, you can’t go too far.”

  “I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Remi said. “Come on!”

  Glad for Remi’s confidence, I gave my horse a nudge with my legs.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” Wind blew Remi’s otherwise tamed hair, and her wide smile was childlike in delight. The expression was precisely what I’d hoped for, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. I kicked harder and finally got Brownie moving. Not having Alex with us made it feel more intimate. The afternoon sun gave off little heat to counter the cool ocean breeze, so we had the beach practically to ourselves. The few people we passed admired the horses.

  “It’s okay I didn’t tell you what we were going to do?” I asked.

  “Not entirely.”

  “Are you mad about your jeans?”

  “I was thinking that I could have dressed better, but having seen Belle, I still wouldn’t have thought ball gown.”

  “She was lovely, but not my type.”

  “You’re not over there wishing you were on a date with Emma Watson?” Remi teased.

  “Hardly,” I said. “She lacks a certain je ne…” my mind was working on the pronunciation and something hit me. “How did you say that again?”

  “A certain something?”

  “Je ne sais quoi,” I said, hearing how dorky and strange I sounded. “You said it prettier. You speak French, don’t you?”

  Remi smiled. “What do I get if I tell you?”

  “Depends on if I’m right or wrong.”

  “You divulge the answer to my question about your tattoos and piercings.”

  I pursed my lips. “That’s a lot of information. I’ll tell you the number but not location. How about that?”