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The pillow smelled of something flowery. His pillows did not smell flowery. Rousing to real consciousness, he remembered where he’d spent the night and pushed the fragrant pillow down enough to look around.
Petra’s bedroom. Petra’s bed. Sunlight streamed down from the big window above the headboard. He was alone in the bed. Wondering what time it was, he reached for his phone on the nightstand, hit a stack of books instead, and remembered that it wasn’t his nightstand, and that his phone was probably still in his jeans.
In search of a clock in the room, Jay sat up and blinked his vision clear.
Like the front part of her apartment, this bedroom was large and still had the look of a warehouse, with whitewashed brick walls, industrial windows, and obviously old, dark-stained, wide-plank wood floors with mismatched rugs laid erratically over it. Her furniture in here, like out there, was a funky mix of old stuff and new. She had art on the walls in here, too, but fewer pieces—and one whole sheetrocked interior wall was bookshelves, with knickknacks and framed photos mixed in with hundreds of books.
It was all a little intimidating. She was so much more ... just ...togetherthan he was. Fancy place of her own, thriving business of her own, obviously well-developed sense of style or whatever. She knew what she wanted and went after it.
On the other hand, Jake felt like he was play-acting half the time, putting on a show of being a lot of things he wanted to be but didn’t feel like he was. He couldn’t even say he was afraid people would figure him out and see he was a fraud; people were always seeing it. He wasn’t very good at putting on his show.
What he wanted to be: A mechanic. A Bull who pulled his weight and got respect. A son his parents were proud of. Like he’d told Petra last night, there wasn’t much more to him than what everybody could see, but he failed at it all.
When he’d finally faced his old man after failing half the ASE exams, Pop had called him ‘self-destructive,’ and said he made most of his problems himself. That statement had hurt more than anything Pop had ever said to him. He’d stormed away and had been avoiding his father since.
He didn’t want to be a fuckup. He wanted to pass his exams—and he knew the shit! He wanted to be respected at the table. He wanted to make his parents proud. He wanted to measure up. He didn’t make his problems—or if he did, he didn’t know how not to do it.
Like that shit from when he’d gotten shot. He’d only freelanced because he was having trouble making his dues, and he was getting heat for it. He’d needed to earn quickly and knew only one way to do it. He’d been trying to getrightwith the club, not fuck up more.
Yeah, he didn’t want to think about that anymore. Where was Petra?
He got up and stretched, then grabbed his jeans off the floor. Not seeing his underwear, he stepped into the jeans and left the room, buttoning his fly as he went. Oh, right—he stopped buttoning and pulled his phone out to check the time: just before nine in the morning. He wasn’t on shift until the afternoon, so he didn’t have to rush, but he had no idea how Petra would feel about him still being around.
She sat on a metal stool at the gigantic kitchen island, reading and drinking a cup of coffee. As he came in, she looked over and smiled. “Good morning.”
“Hi,” he said, feeling self-conscious. Her focus had dropped from his face and fixed lower. He glanced down and remembered he hadn’t finished closing his jeans. Everything but his actual cock showed. In other situations, he’d probably play that up, but here, with her, it felt wrong. “Sorry,” he muttered and started to close the rest of the buttons.
“Don’t,” she said. “I like it.”
His hands still on his fly, he looked up. Now her eyes met his, flashing heat. A small smile turned up a corner of her mouth.
“I like it,” she said again.
Jay left his fly alone.
“Do you want coffee?” she asked, slipping from her stool. “Or breakfast? I don’t usually have a big breakfast, but I’ve got juice, several different jams, bread or English muffins, some fruit ...” she waved at the wooden bowl on the island, beside the vase of callas. The bowl brimmed with apples, bananas, little oranges, a pomegranate, even a few kiwis.
He was hungry but felt too uncomfortable to eat. “Just coffee is great, thanks. Okay if I use your bathroom?”
“Sure. That door there.” She gestured at the slightly ajar door at the corner of the little hallway that led to what he assumed was another bedroom. “I’ll get your cup ready.”
“Thanks.”
The bathroom was just as intimidating as the rest of the loft. It was like something he’d find on his mom’s Insta, from one of those aspirational décor accounts. The frame of the room was as industrial as the rest of the loft, but the details were crazy: one of those really deep, long, modern free-standing tubs with a little table across it. An actual chandelier hanging from a long chain affixed to a slanting beam—right next to a skylight. Walk-in shower with fancy tiles. Sleek pedestal sink, beveled oval mirror. Candles everywhere. Floating shelves with rolled towels, all white, and little pots with tiny plants.
And on the longest brick wall, a massive antique armoire that he thought Mom might do actual violence to get her hands on. Curious, after he pissed and washed his hands, he went over and lifted one of the handles on the armoire—it was heavy, probably solid brass. He gave it a tug and the doors swung silently open. Good hinges.
Inside, one side was a column of shelves on which Petra kept her toiletries, makeup, and hair stuff. The top shelf had several fancy bottles of perfume. On the shelf with her lotions were also tubes and bottles of lube. Huh. That seemed like a lot of lube. Some of it was flavored.
The other side of the armoire had a couple shelves of rolled towels above a few drawers of varying depths. Jake pulled the deepest one, at the bottom, open.
And found an eye-popping collection of sex toys. Like at least three different vibrators, including one of those plug-in super vibrators. Anal beads. Butt plugs. A plastic tub of nipple clamps and suckers. Several dildoes of different sizes, shapes, and colors. And a strap-on harness.
Backing away as if some kind of slimy creature was crawling out, Jay stood in the middle of the bathroom and stared at that still-open drawer. He knew about sex toys, obviously. He’d never used any, but he watched plenty of porn. He would have said Petra was too classy for freaky shit like that, but wow. The variety and sheer quantity of toys she had intimidated him, but it was the dildoes and the harness that really freaked him out.
He didn’t know why he was so surprised and disconcerted, and he wasn’t very good at self-analysis, so he knew he wasn’t going to figure it out while he stood here. He pulled himself together, returned to the armoire, slid the drawer closed—moving carefully now, hoping she couldn’t hear what he was up to—and closed the armoire up.
Then he washed his hands again and left the bathroom, trying to act like he hadn’t been snooping and rummaging through her private things.
