9 Hours Novels & Stories

5:00 PM One more bloody hour!

I just realised I don't know how long he was playing for. "How long what, baby girl?" He peers down at me. "Were we in here for?" He chuckles slightly. "It is past two, baby girl. We came in at nine, so five hours roughly." My eyes widen. Five hours? It's strange. It felt like forever at that moment in time but also felt like I hadn't been there long. "Sleep, baby girl, you need your sleep." He pulls me closer, and I wrap myself around his body. Relaxing and falling asleep.

“I can't leave now, Miss Yvette.” “Why so?” “The boss's orders,” he replied coldly. I nodded, not wanting to argue with him either. “How much time do I have left here?” “Hours. Three hours and twenty-nine minutes, to be exact.” “That's 1:30?!” “You got it right.”

While everything I'd been holding in came pouring out. We stood there for a long time. Long enough for the tears to slow. Long enough for breathing to even. Long enough for something like strength to return. Not much. Just enough to keep going. Just enough to take the next step. "Four hours," I said finally, my voice muffled against his chest. "I'll sleep for four hours. Then I'm back up. Back working. Back searching." "Six hours," Lucian countered, his tone firm but loving. "Four isn't enough. You need real rest. Real recovery. Six hours minimum."

The morning light had barely crept through the skyscraper windows of Blackwell Tower when Adrian found himself pacing the length of his office. The city hummed below, a restless machine of traffic and ambition, but his mind was still snagged on something far more intimate than quarterly reports or pending acquisitions. Nine hours. He had slept for nine uninterrupted hours again. For any other man, that was unremarkable. For Adrian Blackwell—the man whose insomnia had ruled his nights for nearly a decade—it was nothing short of shocking.

It was already midnight. "Just 16 hours more."

I smirked at him and watched as his eyes scanned across my body. "No, not an issue at all; you keep it," he says and looks at me. "What time is it?" I glance at the windows, and it's dark. "Nine, you've been snoring your pretty little head off for three hours." He smirks at me. "Well, at least you think it's pretty, even while snoring," I joke. Wait, nine, and I slept for three hours? "We were in the room for five hours?" No way.

I informed him after collecting all the snacks he had been munching on. “What time is it?” he asked, engrossed in what he was watching. Thankfully, it was an action movie, not a horror one. He fiddled with the remote in his hand. I glanced at the wall clock and saw that it was already 9:30 PM. “It’s 9:30, sir.” I wondered if I could handle the working hours in his office. He gave me until eleven, 8 hours in the office and 2 hours at home, unlike others who can rest by 9 PM.

This is the mess you got our people into, father. “DON RALPH… please… p-please… just give me one sniff… just one fucking—GIVE ME!” His arms shot out like a dagger—and our upper bodies jolted back, out of path, as those bony hands kept stretching desperately, grasping fruitlessly for us. “How much longer?” I asked. “About 12 hours—until he wears out and zonks out. Then he wakes and it’ll start all over again.” “Jesus Christ….” I sighed in exasperation.

I wanted him to see where I came from. The drive took eight hours. We left before dawn, the sky still dark, the roads empty. Eli drove the first shift while I slept in the passenger seat, my head against the window. Then I drove while he dozed. We stopped at a gas station for snacks and bad coffee. We listened to music and talked about nothing and everything.