Chapter 3
CADENCE
As is usual, I fall asleep easily; this day, more so due to extreme physical exhaustion and severe mental and emotional fatigue.
I have barely begun to enter true sleep when a deafening digital clamor arises from somewhere in the room, startling me out of my slumber.
Bolting upright with a gasp, I blink in the darkness, disoriented and confused.
I search the room, hoping the noise will cease on its own and allow me to reenter sleep.
It does not.
Red numerals to my right read 5:30.
An alarm.
I do not own an alarm clock.
Where am I?
A new sound strikes my awareness—the rattle of a doorknob; a widening crease of light from a hallway beyond the door appears. In that opening looms a massive masculine figure, backlit into a brawny silhouette.
I hear myself cry out in alarm—the clanging clamor of the alarm slices through my brain, pounds violently upon my psyche like fists on soft flesh.
A male is approaching.
Danger! Danger!
Where am I?
The figure is a shadowy shape moving toward me, and I scrabble across the bed, reach the edge of it, and topple off onto the hardwood floor, which is cold beneath me.
I watch the large figure—now partially illuminated by the light from the hallway.
Bare male flesh wraps around hard, rippling muscle.
The male is intensely fit, with low body fat and high muscle mass.
He does something to the alarm clock, and the awful noise is mercifully silenced. "Cadence?"
He knows my name?
I cannot move. Anxiety has my higher faculties short-circuited—I recognize my state, but I cannot do anything about it.
He rounds the foot of the bed, pauses, staring at me. "Hey, hey, hey. Cadence, try to breathe for me. Yeah? It was just my alarm going off. I forgot about it. I’m sorry. Are you okay?"
My head shakes—I am not okay. "Wh—wh—where—?"
The male approaches another three steps closer to me, and my body tightens into an even smaller ball. He reaches for something at the end of the bed—a quilt. He allows it to unfold, holding it up as he shifts closer to me. "I'm just gonna cover you, okay?" His voice is low and calm.
Soothing, somehow. My anxiety recedes a tiny amount.
Creeping cautiously closer, the man's eyes remain fixed with laser focus on mine, neither blinking nor wavering. The warm weight of the blanket settles on my shoulders.
"There," he murmurs, crouching before me.
"I need you to breathe for me, Cadence. Take a breath in, like me.
Ready?" He inhales sharply through his nose for four seconds.
"Hold it and count to seven with me. One…
two…three…" After seven, he murmurs again.
"Now let it out slowly for eight. One…two… three…"
His eyes are such a pale shade of blue, they are nearly white, and shocking in their intensity. They mesmerize. Hypnotize. I breathe with him for three cycles; the breathing slows my panic, and his deep, strong, soothing voice calms my raging tumult of overwhelm.
I return to coherence gradually, and then all at once, Riley is sitting cross-legged on the floor before me, between the bed and the wall. The hardwood floor is cold beneath me, and I'm covered in the quilt.
I am naked beneath it.
"You…" I swallow, finding words difficult to summon, these words in particular. "You saw me. Nude."
"It was dark, and you were in a ball. I didn't see anything. I did my best to not look, Cadence. I swear." He rests a hand on my bent knee; my breath catches sharply at the contact, and he removes it instantly. "I'm so sorry about my alarm. Are you okay?"
One of the many curses of my mind is my memory. Even in the grip of panic, I forget nothing; I cannot. I remember the way he approached, carefully and cautiously. His eyes did not seek or search or scan, but remained locked on mine, and he shielded me from his sight with the blanket.
"I will be well," I manage. "Thank you for your assistance.” A pause. “And your…consideration for my modesty.”
"Can I help you up?" he asks.
My muscles have not yet received the internally circulated memo that the time for anxiety has passed.
"I…I cannot seem to move," I say. "I would be grateful for your further assistance."
He rises to a crouch, gathers the extra material of the quilt around me, and scoops me up in his arms—without touching my skin.
He stands easily, lifting me as if I weigh nothing at all.
He moves around the foot end and sets me on the bed where I had been sleeping.
He covers me with the comforter, holds it up near my chin, and deftly removes the quilt, draping it over top.
It is apparent that he is taking great pains to neither touch me inappropriately nor accidentally look at me in my nude state.
The care he is taking to show respect is touching. More so, perhaps, is the calm, compassionate, patient way he nurtured me through the anxiety attack.
I look at him—bearing, for his sake, direct eye contact for as long as possible. "I thank you, Riley."
He shakes his head, sighing. "That shouldn't have happened. I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"
"I am alright now. I was…discombobulated, which triggered an anxiety attack due to unusual surroundings and an unexpected noise during the initial stages of REM sleep."
“Yeah, that'd do it. Well, again, I apologize. Think you'll be able to get back to sleep?"
I nod. "Yes. I believe so."
"I'll leave you to it, then." He smiles at me, and my goodness, the man is just so handsome.
The smile makes my stomach do flips, or so it feels. One's stomach cannot actually flip, nor can one's heart flutter—if it does, one should seek immediate medical attention. In this case, the flip of my stomach indicates a specific emotional response: I am attracted to Riley Crowe.
This is concerning.
My heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, would say that Riley and I are of vastly different stations, and thus eminently unsuitably matched.
It simply will not do to waste any further time or effort considering any manner of attachment between Riley and myself, as such is patently impossible.
He is debonaire, wildly, ruggedly handsome, confident, charming, a homeowner, and a man with useful skills.
Men such as he do not enter romantic entanglements with women such as me.
I shall simply have to recognize my attraction and endeavor to move beyond it without allowing hope to enter the equation.
But my gosh, that smile.
I hear myself sigh as I look in his direction once more, performing a smile in return. "Riley?"
He stops in the open doorway, partially turning back to me.
In the light of the hallway, his bare torso is displayed and illuminated to wondrous effect.
His abdomen is magnificently developed, with eight large, blocky rectus abdominis muscles which draw my gaze.
Most beguiling of all are his iliac furrows—those deep, sharp grooves running beneath the rectus abdominis and the internal and external oblique muscles, vanishing in a V beneath the waistband of his shorts.
Which are…well…quite short, and quite tight. They cling to the enormous girth of his quadriceps, hamstrings, and gluteus muscles, to the degree that little is left to the imagination.
To one with such vast and intimate knowledge of human anatomy such as I, little imagination is required to form a rather accurate visual understanding of his appearance, sans culottes, as the French would say.
I am being disrespectful. It is shameful, and I feel my cheeks burn with the flush of blood as a physiological response to mortification.
I force my gaze away, eyes shutting. I had been about to say something to him, but the thought has fled in the wake of my spinning thoughts.
"Cadence?" He leans against the doorframe. "Was there something else?"
I shake my head. "No. Only…no. Nothing else."
He slaps the frame lightly. "Cool. So, yeah. You need anything, I’m right out there."
"Yes. Thank you."
He closes the door, returning me to darkness.
This time, my sleep is uninhibited.
When I wake again, sunlight is a hot yellow lance bathing me in light and warmth. I am sweating beneath the blankets, and toss them away.
A glance at the cursed alarm clock informs me that I have, most unusually, slept until eleven.
I feel refreshed, although the specter of my failed fundraising attempt occupies a large portion of my attention.
But once one has rested sufficiently, one can reassess the situation and formulate a new plan.
First, however, I must see to my bodily needs.
Once I have finished in the restroom, I return to the bedroom.
I dress in the change of clothing from my rucksack—a pale blue ankle-length dress made from loose, breathable cotton with cap sleeves and a square neck- and back-line.
Clean undergarments, of course. My worn clothing I roll into a tight cylinder and slot into place with the rest of my things.
Dressed, I withdraw my small satchel of toiletries and brush my teeth and attempt a futile detangling of my hair; without a shower and my curly-hair regimen supplies, however, there is little I can do about the state of my hair.
I leave Riley's bedroom and find the living room empty, and any trace that he slept there has long since been put away. I do not find him in the kitchen, either.
I do find, however, a pale yellow sticky note adhered to the cabinet above a coffeemaker, the carafe for which holds hot coffee. "Help yourself to coffee," the note reads. "Cream in the fridge, mugs, and sugar packets in this cabinet. I'm down in the basement."
The note is unsigned, but I suppose it cannot be anything other than obvious who left it.
I am not an avid coffee drinker, but as a doctor, it is a necessary part of life, at times, despite my natural preference for a nice cup of green tea.
I fix myself a mug of coffee with a splash of cream, no sugar.
I carry the mug with me down the steps to the basement.