Sleeping With The CEO
Chapter 76: Smoke, no Fire

Chapter 76: Smoke, no Fire

The smell of smoke in the middle of the night was seldom a good thing. Smoke in the dead of night meant something was burning, and more often than not, that something burning was the very place that you were sleeping in.

But ever since he had started using Ayo’s salve, the smell of smoke had come to mean something else.

Smoke to Derek, now meant a chance to rest, to unwind a bit. He had not had to swim in an effort to tire himself out ever since he had begun using the salve. Now his daily routine was quite different.

He went to work, came back to the manor, and if his mother was hosting, then Derek mingled with the guests for a time. Or simply ate his evening meal alone, it all just depended on the night.

But it was the after, that Derek now enjoyed more than anything. With all of his obligations for the day met, Derek got to slip into the shower, or as had become his custom now, soak in his standalone bathtub for an hour or two, and then when he got out and dried himself. He did not put on lotion, instead, he got salve and massaged it into his skin.

The first few times the smell of smoke had been jarring, not in a bad way, it had just taken a while for him to stop searching for something that might have caught on fire each time.

And since then, Derek had been fully enjoying the salve. It did not put him into a chemical slumber like the sleeping pills. But it did...something. And whatever that smoky something was, it allowed Derek to go on what he liked to think of as standby mode

During that time, he was not awake, but he was not asleep either. Just floating in an in-between state that usually lasted for three to four hours.

But that brief amount of time was always so restful, that Derek had quickly grown addicted to the feeling. The fact that he could not have it every day had not sat well with him, so he had gone looking for more of it in other stores, but that had not worked.

The more modern ones run by people who barely looked to be old enough to drive, did not even know what he was talking about. And the ones that belonged to the more seasoned older people took one look at him and refused to even consider helping him. No matter how much money he threw at them, they would not budge.

Realizing that he would get nowhere using that route, Derek had gone back to what he was comfortable with...science.

He had gone back to Dr Cullen’s office, and given the man a teeny, tiny, sample of the salve (even giving away that small bit had felt like a waste) but he had still done it, sacrificing for a chance at being able to have access to a synthetic form of the salve.

But Dr Cullen had not come back with good news.

As it had turned out, every single one of the herbalists had been right in refusing to sell to him. The products in the salve were not illegal by any means, but they were very strong.

And one of the likely outcomes of prolonged use was skin peeling off. Given how much his skin protected him from, Derek was not willing to risk losing it. But some nights when he looked at his dwindling supply, Derek was tempted to just go ahead with it. But then he remembered that if he lost his skin, the pain would keep him up either way. He would essentially be suffering from the same thing, only this time his whole body would be one giant wound.

He might have been desperate, but he would not tie himself to such a fate. So with yet another method of getting sleep failing him, Derek had decided to just enjoy it for as long as it lasted.

That approach had worked for a little while, and he had been able to enjoy himself. But now each time Derek reached for the salve, he could not help but notice how little of it there was left in the jar. It was running out, and it was running out way too fast.

He had even begun rationing it. Using it every other day, instead of nightly like he had gotten used to. But it was still finishing fast, and within a matter of days, it would all be gone.

And though he did not like admitting it, Derek was not just scared, he was losing hope too. Why did he have to keep fighting like this?

Twice now, he had actually found something that worked, and twice now, he would be losing it.

’But Emily is still here, you can just ask her to sleep with you. It is no big deal, it is just sleep,’ His traitorous brain whispered like it was not a big deal, like asking his personal assistant for such a huge favor was nothing. But Derek knew better.

Emily respected him as a boss, and he saw her hard work as his PA and respected her drive and determination. If he were to ask her to sleep with him, their status as employer and employee would never be the same.

She could refuse him and quit, never seeing her again would hurt, that one he was certain of, he had grown rather fond of her in their two years of working together.

But there was also the chance that she would say yes, and agree to sleep with him. Even thinking about that possibility made Derek queasy.

Would she be agreeing because she wanted to? Or would her compliance be because he was her boss and she would be scared that if she refused, she would lose her job? That question would always eat away at him.

And so Derek was stuck between an rock and a sleepless place, his salve finishing, and his PA so close but so far away.