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He doesn’t react. ‘What for?’
Good question. Maybe I’m still a bit drunk, because I don’t seem able to think clearly. Or maybe that’s just the proximity to this guy, his naked chest, his... All of him. ‘I guess just...drinking so much.’
He laughs, the sound filling the apartment. ‘Doc, I don’t care. You think I’m offended by that?’
I shake my head slowly, wishing I could regain the confidence of moments earlier.
‘I should go.’
He’s quiet and watchful. ‘Is that what you want?’ he says after several long beats have passed.
I don’t know what I want. Rather, I do, but I don’t know now if I should and my indecision is driving me crazy.
‘Where’s your daughter?’
‘Huh?’ I spin around, Ivy the last thing on my mind at that moment.
‘I presume she’s not home alone?’ he prompts, skimming his eyes over my face thoughtfully.
‘Oh...no.’ I shake my head. ‘She’s...with Aaron’s mother. Ivy stays with her every Friday night and most of Saturday. Sometimes Saturday nights too. They’re close...’ I’m babbling. I don’t realise until he crosses to me and lifts a finger, pressing it to my lips.
‘So here’s what’s going to happen,’ he says, speaking quietly. ‘You’re going to go back to my bed and sleep off the rest of your hangover. Naked, like this, so I can watch you if I want to, so I can see the way your breasts move as you breathe and your skin flushes as you dream of me. And then I’m going to wake you by kissing you here...’ He touches my breast lightly and drags his finger down my body, lower and lower. ‘And here.’
He touches the front of my underpants. ‘And I’m going to kiss you here until you are falling apart and you are begging for me and then, Doc, I’m going to blow every other man from your mind. Sound like a plan?’
* * *
She is a restless sleeper, like me. When I do fucking sleep, which isn’t often these days. She throws an arm over her head and her face scrunches up. I will myself not to wake her, not yet. I am testing myself—my strength and resolve—seeing if I can delay the inevitable. I am a man who enjoys instant gratification rather than delayed. I am a man who values instant pleasure.
And yet, with the Doc, I am savouring the anticipation of being with her, like I know the real thing won’t live up to what I hope, what I need. Like I know she can’t possibly feel and taste as good as she has so far.
But what if she does?
What if her body answers mine in every way? What if I feel a connection with her that is new and inherently dangerous for its impermanence? What if I get addicted to the way she feels and tastes and smells, to the small noises she makes in my arms. What if I become addicted to her smiles and her words, and her soft way of speaking?
Addiction is dangerous, so too the illusion of permanence, for nothing lasts for ever, and nor will this.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I DON’T KNOW what time it is when I wake. It is brighter; the sun has chased away the darkness, though the day is grey and gloomy. For a moment I forget where I am, stretching my arms over my head and expecting to connect with the familiar smooth wood of my bedhead and finding instead padded fabric.
A small frown as I consider this difference and then a noise, just a slight shift in body weight, and I look to the wall and see Noah. Noah Moore.
I’m in his apartment.
Memories of last night and earlier this morning shoot through me like flashes of lightning, spiking my blood.
He is reclining against the wall with a natural-born indolence, watching me. Staring at me. Devouring me with his eyes.
I sit up, the sheet tucked under my chin, my eyes doing their own hungry inspection of him. At some point since I last saw him, he has changed. Showered? His hair is damp. He’s wearing a pair of jeans with the button undone, and nothing else.
My throat thickens with lust and hunger. ‘Have you slept?’
He pushes off the wall but doesn’t smile. He has two smiles—mocking and charming. I think I prefer the former for its honesty. The latter I suspect is simply a shield. A defensive mechanism developed to beguile and charm out of necessity rather than pleasure.
It is an insight that comes from nowhere and that cannot be explained nor substantiated.
‘No.’ For a second I forget what I’ve asked him, and what he’s answering.
