Chapter 12
ANNA
My head is throbbing.
The incessant pulsing works overtime, spreading down to the tips of my toes.
I groan and pull the blanket over my head. It’s abnormally bright in my room, which is strange because it’s usually the living room that gets all the sunlight.
The pain in my head makes me forget about the brightness. I snuggle further in my bed but cease all movement when my body connects with another and I hear it groan.
“Stop rubbing your ass against me.” Sylas takes a hold of my hip, keeping me in place.
I lie on my side stock-still, still not breathing. This can’t be happening. What did I do? Why is he here? Why does my arm ache? God, my head. What hap—
My probing questions come to an abrupt halt as I feel something hard poke my butt. I must’ve hallucinated that, right? But my thought gets debunked when I feel it again.
“Shit.” He lets go all too fast and shuffles away from me.
I turn, squinting to look at him, hating that my eyesight is unfortunately not the greatest. I’m proud of myself for taking my contacts out last night, but now I wonder where I placed my glasses.
“Here,” Sylas says, reaching on top of the sofa then handing me my glasses.
I don’t remember leaving them there.
“Thanks.” I put them on. His once-blurry figure is now clear.
The blanket pools around his waist, and I notice three things.
One, he’s shirtless, and his beautiful, sculpted torso is on display.
He has thick, corded arms, veins rippling down to the tops of his hands, and abs defined to perfection.
Two, we’re not in my room; we’re on the living room floor.
Three, he has a tattoo on his right arm, right below his shoulder. It’s new because it has the Saniderm.
Blurry flashbacks of last night filter in my head and then it dawns on me as my arm aches. My gaze drops to it, but it’s shielded and I gasp loudly, realizing what I’m wearing. But that’s a mistake because my head throbs harder.
“Did we—did we have sex?” I wet my dry lips, faintly tasting a mix of whatever we had to drink last night.
I’m not in my dress. Instead, I’m wearing his white dress shirt, and some of the buttons aren’t in the right holes or buttoned at all. I try to piece my memory together, but after we finished the second pitcher, the events are distant and muddled.
“No,” he replies, his voice still heavily doused in exhaustion. I shouldn’t be focusing on anything but finding out what happened, but the rough, groggy tenor in his voice derails my train of thought.
There’s no reason why his voice should sound as attractive as it does.
“No?” I echo.
“No.” His eyes roam over me, then the shirt, and stall there a few seconds longer before he meets my stare.
He swipes his tongue across his faintly painted red and green lips, and his Adam’s apple bobs.
“I remember you saying…” He closes his eyes, fingers massaging his temples.
“You didn’t want to sleep in your dress.
So I gave you my shirt because that seemed right. ”
A fuzzy image of him handing it to me surfaces. I don’t know why I didn’t grab pajamas when my room is a few feet away, just like my bed is.
“I promise I was on my best behavior.” He sounds half amused, half serious.
I believe that. If anything, I’m afraid I’m the one who wasn’t. At the bar, I kept placing my hand on his thigh and getting closer to him. I’m certain there were a few times in the night when I wondered why he hadn’t made a move.
Now that I think of it, I remember him helping me take my dress off and turning around to give me privacy and me hating that he did.
I made myself desperate last night. I was throwing all the signs, but he didn’t reciprocate.
The realization is mortifying. Now I feel sick.
“I would hope so,” I quip, hoping I’m masking my humiliation.
I cringe, hating how my brain is playing against me, letting me only remember the moments I’m saying or doing embarrassing things.
Grabbing the blanket, I pull back, adding space between us, but the moment it slips off from around his waist, I see the tent he’s sporting in his black dress pants.
My eyes go round, but he doesn’t look shy about his erection bulging from his pants. I knew he was large from the night at Salt, but seeing him in this position…fuck.
“Stop looking at it like that. It’s your fault.” He does nothing but tug at the fabric of his pants a couple of times. I think he’s trying to make himself comfortable, but it does nothing but move his dick in a different angle.
I’m flabbergasted. “My fault?”
“You were lying there, rubbing your ass all over me, wearing my shirt.”
“You act like I did it on purpose. I didn’t know you were behind me.”
A crease forms between his eyebrows, his jaw clenches. “Who did you think was behind you?”
“No one.” I thump his leg. “I thought I was alone in my bed. I thought we parted ways after the second pitcher…” My thoughts scatter, the rest of my words getting lost as I’m hit with something.
Tattoos.
“We got tattoos.” My mouth gapes open at his nod. “Oh my gosh,” I squeak, and he drops his head back and bursts into laughter. It’s deep and rumbly. I get lost in the rapt sound and find myself laughing too.
“I swear it was a mutual decision.” His laughter subsides.
“But we were also pretty wasted. I’m certain we got more drinks after getting them…
I think. No…we definitely did.” He pauses, pondering a thought.
“If it makes you feel any better, I let you pick and swore to you I wouldn’t tell my wife we got matching tattoos. ”
“We got matching tattoos?” I balk, staring at him and his fresh tattoo in astonishment.
My hand immediately reaches for my arm where it’s sore, but I don’t press my palm against it. Instead, I undo the button, not caring that I’m exposing my chest to him. Either way, he’s already seen one of my breasts, and I’m wearing silicone nipple covers.
I shrug the sleeve down, exposing my left arm, and gasp at the ink etched on my skin.
“You’re not upset, are you?” He drags his fingers through his disheveled hair. “Shit, I—”
I blink, snapping out of it. “No, I’m not upset.
” I chuckle, still in disbelief. “I’m just…
I got…” I scoff a laugh, bewildered. It’s really pretty.
A small chain holds a disco ball, then what looks like a string hangs from the bottom of it holding an upside-down whisk.
At the tip of the wires, there’s another string holding a single hockey skate.
And around them, tiny stars are scattered.
“A hockey skate. A hockey skate, Sylas. I know nothing about hockey. I’ve never even been to a game. ”
He appears relieved, but then his head rears back and his eyes narrow. He looks…offended? “You’ve never been to a game?”
I shrug. “Never thought about it until I moved here. Even then I didn’t care for it.”
We’re a Division 1 school. All the sports here are a big deal but KYU is most known for hockey. Still, sports never called my attention, and I’ve never had time for them.
He stares at me, at once insulted and disappointed. “That’s going to have to change. You’re coming to a game and—”
I smile at the excitement that exudes him. “I can’t, I work. I really can’t afford to take any days off.”
“Right.” He deflates.
I hate that he looks genuinely upset. I could take one day off. I never have, but now that I have a little extra from what he gave me, it wouldn’t hurt. No, what am I thinking? I seriously can’t be considering taking a day off for a guy I hardly know. What’s wrong with me?
His money won’t ever run out, but mine will if I’m not smart about it.
“Morning,” Jenny singsongs, padding out of her room in a fluffy pink robe.
“Oh fuck.” She stops in her tracks, eyes widening and eyebrows rocketing to her hairline.
She glances from my open shirt to where Sylas is on the floor, still sporting a tent in his pants.
He’s not as hard as before, but he’s so big it doesn’t even matter. Jesus.
He snatches the blanket, laying it over his legs to cover himself up.
“Morning,” he supplies, sounding more awake than he did a few seconds ago.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I blurt just as she’s about to spin around. I stand, my head spinning a little before it steadies. “We got matching tattoos.”
“No way.” Her eyes shift from his arm to mine. “Holy fuck.” She’s in front of me in a flash, grabbing my arm gingerly and inspecting the art. “And they’re matching? You guys are insane…wait, you didn’t elope last night, did you?”
Sylas and I look at each other. We don’t say it out loud, but we’re thinking it. No, that couldn’t have happened. It definitely didn’t happen.
“No…” He’s the first to speak up. “We just got these and were kind of drunk.”
“Kind of?” She makes a pfft sound. “You guys were drunk as shit, all over the place, and loud as fuck, but I appreciate neither of you throwing up or breaking anything.”
Sylas grins. “Sorry about that. I had no intention of staying, but someone just couldn’t let go of me.”
“You’re not saying I asked you to stay?”
He nods and so does Jenny.
“You basically begged him,” she says under her breath.
I frown, feeling more than embarrassed now. So I threw myself at him, got matching tattoos, and begged him to stay. Great.
I shrug it off, pretending I’m not upset and annoyed at myself. While he’s nice, I can’t pretend that after today or even after the break, we’ll become friends and hang out.
Plastering on a smile, I look at him. “I’m going to brush my teeth and change to give you your shirt back.” I don’t wait for him to say something. I slip out of the living room, Jenny on my heels.
“You okay?” she asks as we step into my room.
“Yes—no.” I undo the rest of the buttons, remove the shirt, and change into something else. “I’m embarrassed. Find me in the dictionary next to desperate,” I grumble. “You should’ve kicked him out and slapped some sense into me.”
Her lips twitch. “Stop being dramatic. He wasn’t rushing to leave. Matter of fact, I’m certain he wanted to stay. Once you gave him the green light, he was quick to make himself comfortable, helping you out of your dress and giving you his shirt. It was honestly really sweet.”
“So you saw all of this happening and didn’t do anything?” I glare at her.
She laughs. “Don’t look at me like that.
You wanted him to help you, but I did watch from a distance, making sure he didn’t do something stupid, and he didn’t.
I also tried to get you both to your bed, but once you hit that floor, it was game over.
I didn’t have it in me to fight with you, and I knew he wasn’t going to budge. Whatever you said, he did.”
“Really?” There’s a tiny flutter in my stomach, but I force it to stop as I step into our bathroom to brush my teeth. “Still screams desperate.”
“Not desperate when he happily did as you said.” She smirks, lifting a shoulder in a half shrug.
I stare at my reflection, face pinched in a grimace. My makeup is smudged under my eyes, my hair is barely hanging on to the bun I put it in last night, and bobby pins stick out.
But how I look flies out of my mind as I stare at the tattoo. I still can’t believe I got it and that it matches his.
Blinking last night away, I finish making myself presentable. Then I look for the extra toothbrushes I know we have and head back to the living room.
Jenny goes to her room, but not before winking at me and wagging her eyebrows suggestively, which I ignore.
Sylas is looking down at the table where my journal is at. “Hey! You know that’s an invasion of privacy.”
He jolts, standing up straighter. I should’ve thought it through because he stands in all of his six-foot-four glory, shirtless, abs rippling, and despite the tired look on his face, the ruggedness makes him even more attractive.
“I wasn’t trying to snoop. It was left open, and you wrote in bright red. It was hard not to look. Sorry.”
I’m weak because he’s smiling apologetically, dimples indented on each cheek, and the sunlight is shining on him like a halo. I’m struggling to remember what I was saying.
My journal, right.
“I swear I didn’t look through it. Just the page it was on.”
“It’s fine.” I hand him the shirt and the extra toothbrush. “It’s not a diary, just a journal I fill with random stuff and my recipes.”
He takes the shirt and toothbrush but doesn’t pull his hand away. “Random stuff?” he balks. “Did you really draw that?”
“Yeah.” I feel stupidly shy at the awed look on his face. “It’s not my best work.”
“Not your best work? That drawing looks so realistic.” He towers over me, and his smile is luminous. “And it made me hungry.”
I chuckle, brushing my bangs away. “Thanks.” Compliments and praise sometimes make me awkward. Accepting them feels strange, especially when it’s nothing that should be talked about. Why am I overthinking what he said? I distance myself from him. “Anyway, the bathroom is over there.”
His eyebrows scrunch and he looks like he wants to say something, but then he disappears down the hall. When he returns, he’s got his shirt on and it’s buttoned up, and his hair is damp and finger-combed back.
“You smell really good.”
“What?” I ask, bemused.
“I mean, my shirt. It—whatever you had on last night smells really good. My walk of shame won’t be so bad now.”
I roll my eyes, grinning. “You leaving is not a walk of shame.”
“Kind of feels like it…” The tease in his voice makes me feel jittery inside.
We stall in the middle of the living room, unable to look away or speak either. I want to say something, like maybe ask if he wants to stay, but I did enough begging last night. He may have been nice, but it’s still embarrassing.
“I guess I should go.”
“Yeah…” Stay clings to the tip of my tongue, but I don’t expel it.
He walks to the front door and slips on his shoes. “Thanks again for coming to the auction and going along with the fake dating bit, and everything else.” He peeks at his covered arm then at mine. “I promise not to tell my wife.”
I give him a warning stare, pointing my finger at him. “You better not. Jenny will hunt you down. Remember that.”
He grins. “I’ll never forget.” It sounds like there’s another meaning behind those words, but I don’t dwell on it. “Bye, Anna.”
“Bye, Sylas.” I smile at him one last time before he walks out, closing the door behind him.