Troubled Sleep Bookstore Novels & Stories

# Bonus Chapter 19: What She Built Valentina had a habit. Had it for years, since the first store, since the nights when the kids were finally asleep and Duke was at the garage and the house was quiet in that particular way that felt like held breath. She went to the bookstore. Not to work. Not to restock or plan or review numbers. Just to be in it. Alone. In the building she'd built from nothing. Tonight was one of those nights. Third location. The biggest one. She let herself in through the back, didn't turn on the main lights. Just the low ones—the warm kind she'd installed along the floor, meant to stay on through the night.

"Duly noted, and no snoring, I like having a peaceful night sleep." Nikolai scoffed and turned off the bedside lamp on his side, but I leaned over to switch on mine. I wasn’t ready to sleep yet. My nerves were still buzzing, and I needed something to distract me. To distract me from all this, from Nikolai and his family and my own thoughts. I reached for one of the books I’d brought with me from home. "The Housemaid" by Freida McFadden. The author that Leo and I had talked about during dinner.

The soft groan of wood rang out in the quiet bookstore as Lena turned over the last sign on the door: **CLOSED**. Outside, the city drew a breath, illuminated by amber streetlights and the quiet rumble of passing cars. Within, the world held its breath. Warm. Intimate. Holy.

The first stop was a bookstore—new to her, with high windows and an owner whose glasses were always slipping down his nose, the kind of place where you can hear paper breathe. “You said the library needed new friends,” Mazzo said, nodding to the shelves. “Pick them.” Sasha did not go to the one she and Nico had used as a rendezvous. She named a different address across town and watched him agree without reading the subtext out loud. Already she felt her spine loosen one vertebra at a time. Inside, the bell over the door made the polite sound good bells make. Stacks leaned like well-mannered towers. A cat slept in a sun puddle on the back table, pretending to be staff.

I somehow made it to work despite feeling like I had been hit by a truck. Maya noticed immediately. She took one look at me and nearly dropped her coffee. “Oh.” I sighed. “Please don’t.” “You look awful.” “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” I rubbed my eyes. “I got two hours of sleep.” Maya nodded seriously. “That explains the murder in your eyes.” I laughed despite myself. Then immediately regretted it because my head hurt. The bookstore was unusually busy that day. Normally I would have appreciated the distraction. Today it only made concentrating harder.

See you tomorrow! I dropped the phone on the bed and turned to look at Lisa. She was already out cold, breathing soft, one leg hanging off the bed, her big tits rising and falling under her tank top. Of course she’d sleep after that massive creamy orgasm she had right in front of me. My own pussy clenched remembering it. I lay down on my bed, staring at the ceiling, mind racing between Mike’s thick cock and Lisa’s slick fingers buried in her hole. Sleep took me eventually, but it was restless, full of heat between my thighs.

Just her own breath fogging the surface — and then clearing in a perfect circle, like something exhaled back. She didn't sleep that night. The hum was louder now, beneath the floor. Piper refused to go near the mirror. Aria curled up on the couch with every light on and watched the flowers. At 3:12 a.m., one of them bloomed wider and let out a sound. A tiny, glassy chime. Like the beginning of a lullaby. By morning, the bookstore was no longer pretending. Books shifted on their own shelves. Titles changed when she wasn't looking. The register printed out a receipt for The Blooming Path: One Copy Sold. She didn't sell anything.

I don't have a single book with me but that doesn't bother me. I can sleep when I get to the library. I step into the library and immediately feel self-conscious. I can't sleep, not with everyone bending over a book as if they are trying to stop a nuclear war. I stand by the bookshelf, hardly seeing the book and debating going back home. Another Friday night spent alone doesn't excite me. “Having trouble picking what you want?” A voice drawls behind me. I startle and gasp as I turn back. Zane.

I've had soothing tea, I've smoked a joint provided by a fellow hippie downstairs… I've tried literally everything, but hello, insomnia, feel free, since you insist! I look at the furniture in the room, whose shadows are like animals moving strangely in the dark. But that doesn't scare me, it makes me bored. To top it off, Loretta is snoring like an angel in the next bed. So jealous! On his headboard, a book whose new title catches my attention. I remember how effective the reading was in returning my dream and I risk trying the same strategy again. Carefully, I take the book from Loretta's bedside table and turn on a dim light on my cell phone so I can read under the blanket. I know it's no

“I have one, so I get it.” "She's eighteen that an adult!" Mother replied. I rolled my eyes hard as I climbed the stairs, each step making the burning handprints on my ass flare. My heart raced from the fight, but my pussy throbbed harder. I was soaked, swollen, aching. I couldn't wait to get rid of it. Getting to my bedroom, I slammed the door behind me and stripped off the dress completely. Climbing onto the bed, I kicked the duvet aside and spread my legs wide, then grabbed my earphones and hit play on my favorite audiobook.