Christmas in His Bed: Talking in Your Sleep... / Unwrapped / Kiss & Tell

“Okay, if you say so. I’d rather have you take some time off than not be able to give one hundred percent.”

As if she didn’t usually give one hundred and twenty? Wasn’t she due an eighty-percent day now and then? She nearly had to bite her tongue to stop from reminding him that she’d missed one meeting—one, in the entire time she’d worked there. Exhausted, she’d overslept and hadn’t made it in until noon. Yes, that was bad, but it wasn’t as if she made a habit of it.

“Gotcha. No problem.” She forced a smile.

When he was gone, she sagged in her chair. It was lunchtime, but she had too much to do, and she wanted to catch up and get back in the swing. It had to be the loss of sleep; she’d never been so dragged out.

Maybe saying she lived for work was an overstatement, but she certainly wasn’t as on top of things as she should be, and she wanted that promotion—more money, a bigger office, more job security, and her father would be very proud of her. Maybe once that was accomplished, she could take a vacation. After she’d established herself in the new position, of course.

Her stomach growled. She should see if there were any bagels left in the snack room down the hall. Grabbing her purse, she walked to the outer offices. Reaching inside it to find some change, her hands touched something unfamiliar. Then she remembered shoving the disk in there earlier.

Sitting down at a computer kiosk, she heard muted voices behind her and turned. The representatives of some new potential distributors were congregating outside Ken’s office, getting ready to leave for lunch.

She glanced at the masculine scrawl on the plain white paper, frowning. It was obviously from her neighbor—what was he up to? The note simply read: Play this when you get a chance. Thanks, Rafe. PS: I’m flattered.

It was mysterious and annoying, and she flipped the shiny disk out of its package and slid it into the computer in front of her. What could her neighbor be up to now? Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Still, curiosity got the better of her. He said he was flattered—flattered about what?

Squinting, it appeared to be a video, though not a very clear one. There was no image, only a dark smudge that looked like some kind of night shot, and the picture wasn’t good at all, but the sound was exceedingly clear.

“Oh, God, yes … there … harder …”

The sultry voice filled the room, and Joy sat back in total shock—it sounded like her.

“You’re so hard…. Rafe, I need you inside me….”

Realizing it was her, she sprang furiously into action, hitting the keyboard frantically and trying to shut the damned thing off, but somehow, due to the magic of computer technology and recalcitrant fingers, she ended up turning the volume up even louder instead. The room was ringing with moans and sighs. The sound triggered a memory, and she knew exactly what was coming next.

“Oh, no! Stop! I said stop!” She yelled at the console, hitting the button on the little disk slot repeatedly, trying to extricate the disk before it was too late.

Finally the slot popped open, and she removed the disk with shaking fingers, thankfully cutting short some of the more graphic descriptions of how much she loved Rafe’s … equipment.

My God, she thought, totally mortified. She’d never even thought half of the words she’d heard coming out of her mouth, let alone said them.

Disk in hand, she didn’t look up for a few minutes, afraid of what she might find. When she did, her first reaction was gratitude that most of the people had left for lunch. However, the few lingering workers—including one freshman college intern—were all staring at her.

Words of profuse apology forming on her lips, she recalled the distributors and closed her eyes in mortal agony. The sound of someone clapping loudly startled everyone back to life. A sick sense of dread punched her in the gut. She turned to find the men all staring at her, too, some smiling widely. Ken looked horrified.

Unable to process what had just happened, Joy fumbled the disk back into her purse and headed for her office. Slamming the door behind her, she leaned against her desk, trying to catch her breath, but finding it difficult. Ken came in behind her.

“What the hell was that?” Then he backed off, looking at her more closely. “Joy—what happened? Are you going to faint?”

Joy wasn’t sure, actually—she’d never fainted in her life, but she was tempted to give it a shot. The black world of unconsciousness was pretty appealing right now.

“I d-don’t know,” she panted, trying to get hold of her panicked breathing.

“How can you not know?”

“I don’t know,” she bit out. “Someone left me that disk and I didn’t know what was on it.” She could at least tell the truth about that much. Her PR instincts kicked in. She had to find a way to make this better.

“You should call security.”

“No, no. I think I know who it was. I’ll handle it. It was a joke, I’m sure.”

“A pretty sick joke. I’ll support you in placing a formal complaint against whoever gave it to you.”

“No. I mean, it wasn’t anyone here—it was at home. I found it in my mailbox.”

Ken stood gaping, unsure what to say. Obviously he hadn’t equated the voice on the recording with her, which was no surprise. When people thought of her, they didn’t exactly think “sex kitten,” and her normal voice was nothing like the sultry, sexy voice on the recording. Even she had trouble believing it was her, but it was. No need for Ken to know that, though.

“Ken, please, I’m okay. You have people waiting,” she reminded him. She just had to get him out of there.

“Shit, yeah. I’ll tell them it was a bad joke, and we’re handling it.”

“That’s good. That’s about right. Extend my deepest apologies.”

“I’ll do that.” He looked at her for one moment longer, and she started messing with the folders on her desk, waiting until he walked back out the door.

Crisis averted, hopefully. Still, it was akin to when the jury heard evidence that they weren’t supposed to—someone could tell them to erase it, but she knew this would become part of office lore, and remain on Ken’s mind for a while. She was going to have to kick butt on her presentation to get that promotion.

Armed with that resolve, Joy tried to get back to work. Her concentration lasted about five minutes.

How could he have done this? Her neighbor seemed like such a nice guy, but apparently he was a big pervert who taped women in their sleep.

Well, okay, maybe not a pervert, she admitted grudgingly. She supposed she had pushed him into proving his point, since she wouldn’t cowboy up about the sleep-talking. Yet what he’d done was wrong, and intrusive, and it had given her some bad moments at work. She was going to get through this afternoon and then she planned on making her neighbor her first order of business when she got home.

RAFE WAS HAVING a great day—one of the best he’d had in a long while. After a relaxing morning run, he’d finished up a few projects. He wondered what Joy was thinking as she listened to his video. Sure she’d grouse about being proved wrong in her denials of sleep-talking, but he hoped she’d be good-natured about it.

In the late afternoon he decided to wash Warren’s car. Several kids were playing football in the street. When the ball was tossed into his driveway, he pretended not to notice, but then turned the hose on the kid who bravely came after the ball. A frenzied water fight ensued. The kids abandoned their game in search of supersoaking water pistols, camping out behind the bushes, making sneak attacks as they plotted to get the best of him.

Though he adored his sisters, Rafe always loved the horseplay with his male buddies that he didn’t get at home. The kids’ eyes shone with delight when he blasted them with the hose. Kids loved water, and they loved play-combat, and that was the same no matter what coast you were on.

When he heard a sound behind him, he growled playfully and swung around. Gripping the trigger on the nozzle, he hosed the figure standing on the other side of the driveway—but it wasn’t one of the kids, and he released the hose trigger immediately, the jet stream of water flagging to a drizzle. Too late.

“Oh, shit … Joy, I’m so sorry….” He heard the chuckles and catcalls of young boys behind him as they delighted in his mistake. “I thought you were one of the kids…. You know, we don’t always think in the heat of battle.”

She stared at him silently, her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes cool—no, make that frosty. She was soaked from the blast; water was dripping down her cheeks.

“Are you okay? I, uh, didn’t see you there.”

She choked out a little laugh, one that didn’t sound humorous—this woman looked as if she was teetering on the edge. What he knew from growing up in a house with three sisters was that her black cloud of temper was centered on him, and it was about far more than getting soaked with a hose. His mind zipped to the tape and he intuited that it might not have gone over as well as he’d hoped.

A few silly comments were still floating around the yard, and he waved his hand behind him, shooing the kids away. They complied, groaning about their fun ending, but Rafe was focused only on Joy and how she was continuing to glare at him.

“How could you?” she finally said, her voice tight and low.

“I told you, I didn’t know it was you….”

“You know that’s not what I mean. This—” she looked down at her sopping-wet suit before continuing “—is adding insult to injury. What were you hoping to accomplish? Embarrass me? Get me fired? Is this some kind of sick revenge for your sleep problems?”