24
Sable
The morning was a little warmer than usual. Or at least I felt like I was sweating enough to water the plants in front of the apartment complex for a week.
Okay. So it was really hot for the time of year. Even if it never got super cool in Modesto, it wasn’t ever this fucking hot. But that was when I realized that the heat wasn’t because of the weather.
No, it was because there was another, much larger body in the bed with me.
It had been a while since I’d gone to bed with another person.
Anthony and I hadn’t shared a bed in months.
Even when we still occasionally hooked up after splitting, I went to the couch afterward.
There was no bed-sharing. No cuddling. No feelings.
When I opened my eyes, all I could see was the wide, freckled back that was half covered in tattoos in front of me.
How had I never noticed that before? Then again, I hadn’t been super focused on Orion’s back until now.
I’d only ever seen him from the front. Outside of his one sleeve, I hadn’t looked for more artwork on his body.
But hot damn. The man was a living furnace. I couldn’t stay beneath the sheets admiring him for long, or I’d die of heatstroke.
Fuck.
Last night came rushing back. I can’t even remember when they’d come into the picture.
The last thing I remembered was lying wrapped around him while stupidly telling him about living in the car with my mom and how she’d sold herself to some cops to keep us out of trouble.
At least I hadn’t given him too much more than that.
It helped that he’d told me a little about himself.
A bit about his situation with his wife.
All I could do was lie there. Cheating on someone was never okay.
He needed to open up and talk to her, but he was obviously closed off about a lot.
The fact that I’d gotten him to say anything to me at all was amazing.
We could work on the rest. It meant he trusted me.
If he trusted me, then maybe I could trust him.
And maybe that was why I felt okay to tell him a little about how I’d grown up.
I rolled onto my back, shoving the sheet off me, letting the cool air of the room wash over my overheated body.
I hadn’t been kidding when I’d said that I’d learned from the best. When I was twelve was the first time I’d walked around a corner to find my mother on her knees servicing the officer that had knocked on our car window that morning asking for her license and registration.
Her license was always expired, so I always wondered how she was able to drive around like she did, but with the man’s dick in her mouth, it all started to make a lot of sense.
So I had a lot of things to be resentful over.
The fact that she didn’t care that I was just around the corner and could walk in at any time seeing... I’d been exposed to a lot at way too young an age.
I thought about what Orion said with not wanting to be a dad.
That was such a pivotal thing to say. And maybe he was right.
Whitney? I think that was her name? They were sooooo young when they got married.
It was something they should have talked about.
As much as I wanted to prod about why he was so afraid to say something now, it was nice letting him open up on his own.
There were days that I still felt like I was really young. I was, compared to Orion, anyway. Though what was age when you’d lived through half the shit I’d been through? Experience had to count for something, right?
Orion was still sound asleep, and with as late as we were up, I wasn’t about to wake him. It didn’t matter that I had no idea what time it was. That was one of the nice things about working so late at night. I often didn’t need to worry about oversleeping.
I rolled off the bed, shivering the moment my exposed body hit the parquet floor. While they looked nice-ish, if it were my dream home, I’d never think to put wood floors in the bedroom. Who the hell did that? Nothing startled you awake quite as well as setting your feet on ice-cold floors.
No, I wanted a nice, fluffy carpet to sink my toes into.
Regardless, I was more than awake now. I sat up, still staring longingly at that warm, muscled back still lying in the bed. I wanted to wrap myself back around it because, despite how warm I initially thought it was, the room was actually freezing.
I scrambled from the floor, digging through my drawers for a pair of flannel pajama pants before making my way to the tiny ass kitchen.
If anything, I could at least make my guest a cup of coffee.
God, I hoped he liked coffee. I was a mess in the kitchen, but this was the one thing I couldn’t mess up.I was perfectly aware that you could mess up a good cup of coffee.
Add too little and you were drinking muddy piss water.
Add too much and you would grow hair on your chest. Over the years, I’d learned to perfect that moment right before you tipped into hair on chest territory. Strong, but not too strong.
The room had just started to fill with the smell of steaming coffee beans when Orion made his way out of my bedroom.
Fuck, the man looked damn delicious in nothing but a sheet wrapped around his waist. At first, I wondered why he didn’t pull his underwear on—then I remembered that he didn’t normally wear any. It was sexy as hell.
“What time is it?” he asked as he walked out, wrapping an arm around my waist and kissing my shoulder.
The move was so freaking familiar, like we’d been doing it for years, not like we’d just started out.
I wished it were real, that this man was mine and didn’t belong to someone else.
Though I still didn’t know all his facets.
There was a chance that I could change my mind the more I got to know him.
The analog clock on my microwave was the only clock I’d bothered to set.
At first, I didn’t want to believe the numbers as they registered.
I’d never slept so damn late in my life, but when you’d been up so fucking late blowing the most gorgeous man on the planet, maybe you slept really good as well.
I’m sure some of it also had to do with how worn out my body was from taking on so many damn clients.
Never. Fucking. Again.
“Twelve-thirty?”
Orion tensed for a moment before he relaxed. “I missed work, but fuck it. Dad can get the hell over himself. It’s not like I ever miss a day like this.”
I wanted to sink into his embrace. To soak up the moment, letting his warm body heat me back up like he had in bed.
He was the heated blanket that made me think of the comforts I’d been denied as a child.
The comforts I’d told him about last night because I was a fucking idiot who wanted to let this complete stranger into my life.
The coffee pot beeped, letting us know that it was done.
I reluctantly pulled myself from Orion’s embrace.
Fortunately, I had two mugs in my cupboard, filling them with the warm brew before pulling out a jar of sugar and a bottle of cream from the fridge.
I was a huge fan of all the fancy flavored crap, but with taking on a new lease, half and half was all I could afford with my first grocery trip.
Orion didn’t complain at all as he scooped two spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and poured a little creamer before stirring it.
Did it make me a creeper to stand there watching him drink it?
The way his Adam’s apple bobbed was almost pornographic.
I wanted to see what it looked like when he swallowed one of my loads.
Get it together, Sable. It’s already late, and he probably needs to leave.
“Do you have to go?” Fuck, the question sounded so damn pathetic and needy. Don’t leave me, my sexy man. Please stay. Dick me down properly.
I slammed my eyes shut as I held onto my hot cup of coffee. For a moment, I forgot to add anything to it. The bitter flavor washed over my tongue, making me cough.
Orion only laughed. “Yeah. Even if my dad probably doesn’t give a fuck that I no-showed for work, Whitney will probably be worried that I didn’t come home.”
That made something pull in my chest. It shouldn’t have. It was a good reminder that he wasn’t mine. Would never be mine.
“Did she call you at all?” It was a logical question.
We all had fucking cell phones. If the woman had actually worried, she would have tried to track him down.
Though that meant he’d have to look. If he had missed messages from her, I didn’t want him to feel guilty.
I completely understood why he felt bad enough already.
But my own internal turmoil wasn’t enough to stop him from looking. He found his pants that were still on the floor by my couch from the night before. When he pulled his phone from his pocket, he winced at the screen.
“Shit. I only have about ten percent battery left, with five missed calls and ten texts. She’s probably freaking out.”
Instead of letting him spiral, I took the phone from him, leading him back to the bedroom where I plugged it in to charge. “It won’t matter what time you call her. She’s still going to be upset. Let it charge for a little and come eat something with me.”
At first, he seemed like he wanted to object, even going so far as to open his mouth to say something, but I shot him a withering look, making his look of concern morph into a smile.
“Okay, what are we eating?”
That was the question of the century. It wasn’t like I had a ton in my fridge. We were past breakfast and creeping into lunchtime. This wasn’t when I should have been overthinking something so small. Orion probably wouldn’t care as long as I fed him.
I had five eggs, some cheese, an onion, and some lunch meat in my fridge. I chopped up the onion with the lunch meat before cracking open the eggs, mixing them together, and dumping them into a sizzling pan. Scrambled eggs with some extras.