Chapter 27: Wet Girl
I woke up face down in the bed with my cheek pressed into the pillow like it personally owed me something. When I finally opened my eyes the bright sunshine hit me with absolutely no mercy whatsoever. I heard water running somewhere nearby and was still trying to figure out exactly where it was coming from when the door opened and a tall glass of hunkiness appeared in the doorway looking entirely too put together for someone who had kept me up half the night.
Paul was wearing black jogging pants and a crisp white t-shirt with his hair slicked neatly back. Looking entirely too good and entirely too rested for someone who had kept me thoroughly occupied until the early hours of the morning.
"Wake up sleepy head," he said, walking back toward the bed with the energy of a man who had slept like a baby. I tried to get up and every single muscle in my body screamed at me simultaneously and in great detail. I laid immediately back down and accepted my fate.
"I ran you some bath water. Nice and hot. Get up and let me bathe you." He said it while clapping and rubbing his hands together like a man who had decided to be pleasant and was fully committing to the performance. He deserved an award for the effort honestly.
"I cannot move."
"Come on Cadence. I am not a romantic man but after last night I figured I could manage being a little nicer to you than usual. We did have a very hot and exciting love affair last night." He smirked saying it like he was proud of himself and had every right to be.
I knew without looking that I was an absolute disaster. My hair was spread in every direction around my head like it had made its own decisions overnight and my body felt sticky in places I had not previously known existed, particularly between my legs. I was trying to piece together the full evening in chronological order. The elevator. The bedroom. More hours of the bedroom than I had originally budgeted for. A glass of wine. Lemon pie with extra whipped cream. A second glass of wine that I definitely did not need. And then Suga took over completely and enthusiastically and I was going to leave the rest of it right there where it belonged.
I blushed deeply at the memory and was grateful he could not see my face properly.
"Did you take advantage of me last night?" I said, still trying to get upright and failing. I knew full well it had been largely the other way around but I wanted to give him his moment and see what he did with it.
"Excuse me? It was absolutely entirely the other way around. Did you know that you are a complete and total freak Ms. I Was A Virgin Last Week? The things we did last night only two very experienced and extremely flexible people attempt together. The way you held that bar and worked that body had me losing my mind completely, but it is always the innocent looking ones that fool you most thoroughly. You are very talented Ms. I Am A Pretzel. How long exactly have you been a card carrying member of the I Am A Virgin club?"
"Now you have jokes," I said. "My entire body aches and I am fairly certain you broke something important."
"I broke you alright. I broke you in!"
He laughed and laid down beside me, pulling my hair back gently from my face with his fingers. He looked into my eyes and smiled. Just looked at me quietly. Like he was working something out slowly in his head and was in no particular hurry to finish. I looked back and rubbed my hair out of my face with what little energy I had left. It was surprisingly and unexpectedly nice just to lie there with him in the quiet without either of us needing to perform anything for the other.
"You are very beautiful and charming and after last night I think..." His phone rang from the nightstand.
He got up immediately. I laid there as he started speaking in what sounded like a foreign language with the confidence of someone completely at home in it. About five minutes later he hung up and came back. I wanted him to finish that sentence badly but the moment had quietly closed while he was on the call and a sharp pain shot through both my legs simultaneously reminding me that I had real physical problems to address first.
He must have seen my face because he said, "come on, let me help the poor baby to the bathroom," and reached out both hands toward me like a man extending genuine charity.
"If you drop me Paul I am going to beat you with whatever I can reach," I said looking up at him seriously.
I crossed over and when my feet finally touched the floor I stood upright. I was wearing a long white t-shirt that absolutely did not belong to me and I had no memory of putting on. I looked down at it properly.
It said Certified Muff Diver across the front in bold confident letters.
I looked up at Paul slowly.
"You chose it," he said, shaking his head and already laughing before I could say a single word. "You said you were cold and out of every single shirt in that entire drawer that specific one was the one you wanted. I held up three others and you pushed them all away. I am not responsible for your taste in loungewear."
I took my first cautious step toward the bathroom and stumbled immediately and without dignity. Big warm arms came around me and I was in the air before I could protest the situation.
"The poor baby," he said in an exaggerated whine that he was clearly enjoying. "Let me carry you to safety."
I smacked him on the back of the head.
"Ouch! I was genuinely trying to be a gentleman right now. Hit me again and I will absolutely drop you on that backside of yours."
I wrapped both arms tighter around his neck and buried my face in his chest before I could do anything else I would regret. His cologne was still there from the night before, warm and familiar already, and I had to actively stop myself from pressing my face further into it. What was wrong with me? I was in genuine physical pain and my first instinct was to inhale this man. I had completely lost my mind somewhere between the elevator and the lemon pie. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was a freak. No. No, no, no. That was absolutely not me. That was Suga. Suga was the freak. I was perfectly normal.
He carried me to the bathroom and set me gently down on the wide steps leading up to the biggest jacuzzi tub I had ever seen inside a private residence in my life. Lavender flowers floated peacefully across the bubbles. The whole room smelled of lavender and warmth and something expensive that I could not identify but wanted to bottle and take home.
Black and white marble everywhere you looked. A spotless glass shower without a single streak on it. I looked around slowly taking in every detail and then made the critical mistake of looking directly into the mirror.
"Oh shit!" I screamed at full volume.
He spun back around from the doorway in complete and immediate alarm. "What is wrong? What happened?"
"Why did you not warn me that I look like absolute death walking?" I tried desperately to smooth my hair down with both hands at once. There was white stuff in my hair. On my neck. On various other parts of my body that I was choosing not to examine too closely or too publicly in a mirror this large.
"Please tell me this is whipped cream," I said, closing my eyes and holding very still while I waited for his answer.
He was quiet for just long enough to make me genuinely nervous about the answer. I opened one eye carefully. He fell out laughing. A full deep gut-wrenching genuine laugh that started in his chest and took over his whole body and I could not help joining it despite myself and despite the state of my hair and my dignity.
I was feeling entirely too comfortable with this man and I knew it. He was paying to be with me. That was the arrangement we had both agreed to. And yet sitting here in this ridiculous shirt in his marble bathroom at whatever hour this was it did not feel like a transaction of any kind. It just felt natural. Easy. Like something that had always quietly existed somewhere and we were only now noticing it had been there the whole time.
"Sure," he said finally, composing himself with visible effort. "If that is what you want to call it absolutely."
I picked up the nearest loofah and launched it directly at him without hesitation.
"That is officially it. No more Mr. Nice Guy starting right now."
He picked me up and spun me around and I laughed in a way that came from somewhere genuine and completely unguarded and surprised even me a little. He set me on the bathroom countertop and kissed my neck like he was carefully retrieving the remaining evidence one piece at a time.
"Yep," he confirmed against my skin with great satisfaction. "Definitely whipped cream."
His tongue was a small specific warm flame against my skin and I closed my eyes before I could stop myself. He raised my arms and removed the shirt in one smooth motion and I was completely bare again underneath the bathroom light and I could feel him looking at me with those blue eyes that never seemed to fully turn off. When I opened my eyes he was standing in front of me in exactly the same condition and I genuinely do not know how he had managed that transition so quickly and so quietly. His erection introduced itself with complete confidence and I tried very hard not to make direct eye contact with it.
Too much of a good thing and all of that. I needed to survive the rest of the morning first.
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