Chapter Bex #3
I look up at him from beneath my lashes. “I’d be so much better in real life than I am in your head.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “You begged for some incredibly filthy things. I was pretty shocked.”
I laugh. “But you went along with it.”
“Reluctantly, yes.”
His arm wraps around me and pulls my chair closer to his. More champagne is poured. We toast to unconsummated marriages, the best kind. And they really must be because I like him so much more than anyone I’ve dated. I like him so much more than most women seem to like their husbands.
He leans over and kisses me, sucking the champagne from my lips.
“Tell me the incredibly filthy things I begged you for,” I demand.
I expect him to ignore the question but instead, he presses his mouth to my ear. “There’s almost nothing I haven’t imagined you begging for,” he whispers. “You ask me to lick you out. You ask me to fuck your throat, to come in your ass.”
I liquefy. My insides are molten, useless to me now. “Ah, husband, you’ve given me an orgasm at last.”
He sucks in a breath and slams the entire glass of scotch. “I’m sorry it took me so long. Believe me, I wanted to do that months ago.”
I’m so drunk that the room is starting to spin, and he’s so drunk that his cheeks are flushed, and he’s admitting things he never would sober. I’m going to finish this champagne with him and then I’m going to kiss him again, harder.
And who knows what might happen after that?
· · ·
Someone is knocking. On my skull.
No, on the door.
Jesus, I wish they’d stop. And I’ve got the hardest pillow under my head. I don’t even know why they’d make a pillow like this. It’s—
A thigh. My eyes are open and it’s a thigh under my head. Theo’s thigh.
“Fuck,” he hisses. “Fuck.”
I force myself upright and tiny slivers of the night flash through my brain. The two of us stumbling off the elevator, laughing and overly loud. My back hitting a door as he pressed me against it to kiss me. It wasn’t our door. Someone yelled at us, and we laughed at that too.
Tripping over something as we walked into the dark room. Landing on the floor with him above me, kissing me as his hand went into my dress.
And while these memories flash through my head, the knocking continues, gets louder.
“Shit,” I hiss. The woman is here to do my hair, but I’ve definitely got to shower because…he came. He came several times and in several places, and I’m fairly certain at least one of those places was my hair.
“Je viens!” I call. My own voice hurts my head. It appears to hurt Theo’s head too. “Can you get the door? I’ve got to shower.”
We both climb from the bed. Theo is naked. This shouldn’t be a shock to me, I guess, but oh my god. I grip the furniture to stay upright as I trip to the bathroom. The simple act of walking is enough to make me throw up.
I barely reach the toilet in time. When whatever god-awful things my stomach contained are expelled, I force myself to stand, turning on the shower and stepping inside before the water is warm. I step right back out to throw up again, so hot and dizzy I don’t know how I’m going to get back up.
God. How much did we drink?
A lot. I imagine I’m at fault.
I grip the sides of the toilet and force myself to my feet and back into the shower, which is now scalding.
My body is one long bruise. My ribs are sore. The entire area between my legs feels as if it was thrashed with a belt. Jesus, even my scalp hurts as I hurriedly massage shampoo into it. I only recall tiny glimpses of last night but…did he bite my ass?
I reach behind me and yes, there’s a particularly sore spot right where I remember it happening.
There are pinpoint bruises on my breasts. I remember the suction of his mouth, the way it made me gasp and arch and beg. I remember that I was soaked, that I begged him to fuck me, and he said it was a bad idea.
I’m not sure why he’d hold out on that one thing when it’s pretty apparent he didn’t hold out in any other way.
I’ve just gotten my robe on and am about to head out when there’s a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I call hoarsely.
Theo, hair still damp, stands there with his hands in his pockets, frowning. “The hairdresser’s waiting,” he says, but then he steps fully into the room and shuts the door.
His head hangs. His hands clasp in front of him. There’s a talk coming. A “last night was a mistake, and I hope you don’t think it meant anything” talk, and I’ve never wanted to hear anything less in my life.
Because I know it was a mistake and I know it was a bad idea, but from the little I remember…it was also incredible. And therefore a mistake I personally wouldn’t mind making again and again.
He winces. “Look, I just need to get this out of the way because it might be the last time we’re alone for a while but…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
My chest constricts. He’s doing exactly what I expected. I’m not sure why it hurts. It shouldn’t.
I force a casual shrug. “Just because we woke up naked doesn’t mean anything happened.”
His eyes widen, and though I’m still miserable and hungover and ridiculously, inexcusably sad, I sort of want to laugh.
He’s now thinking he has to explain to me that something did happen, and he’s also thinking I was so blackout drunk last night that it couldn’t possibly have been consensual, and to be honest… I was close, but he was too.
“Bex,” he says hoarsely, “I’m so sorry. We didn’t actually sleep together but I’m pretty sure we—”
I can’t let him keep going. “Yes, I know what happened. Sort of. I remember fragments of it.”
He sags against the wall, soaked in sweat. “Jesus, you scared me. Anyway, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have had so much to drink and—”
“The only thing worse than my hangover right now is listening to you tell me how intensely you regret it,” I tell him, nodding to the door. “It was a mistake, one I barely remember, and I assure you I’m not over here carving our names on a wall together. Let’s just forget it happened.”
I sense this has only made him more unhappy, and I have no idea why—he regrets it, he wants to forget, and I’m offering him that option served up on a silver platter. What fucking more does he want from me?
Any slight hope I had of somehow recovering from all of this, keeping Theo as my friend, is diminishing by the second. And who am I kidding? I didn’t want to keep him as a friend. I never let myself like anyone too much, but he somehow slipped under my skin…while I never slipped under his.
I don’t know why I’m surprised. I never slip under anyone’s.