They said pleasure was a product of the mind and I had problems with that assertion but this time it was true. Whether it was the satisfaction of proving her wrong for once or the joy of commanding her body to meet my demands, I needed no other invitation to curl myself around her and fill the condom in a series of jerks and spasms so violent I was concerned I'd cracked a rib.
We stayed frozen in that awkward, sweat-soaked position for a few minutes while we tried to catch our breath. A peculiar little voice in my head wanted me to brush her hair away from her face and tuck the blankets up to her shoulders but I wasn't doing that. Peculiar voices got me in trouble. They were probably the reason I was here in the first place.
An elbow connected with my flank and Sara said, "Kindly get your slab of granite ass off me."
I rolled to the side with a grunt. I blindly patted the bedside table, thrilled when my hand connected with a box of tissues. This condom required attention but these legs weren't ready for standing of any sort. Not unless I wanted to turn this into a slapstick comedy routine, and I was too old for that.
A couple more minutes passed with only our ragged breathing and the creaks of an old home to set the soundtrack.
Where it came to fucking the words out of a woman who voraciously hated me, I was unclear on the appropriate aftercare. Was I supposed to hang out? That couldn't be right. Was she expecting another round? I could be talked into that but it was going to be a hell of a lot less athletic and it wouldn't be without some fluids first. Or was I supposed to leave? Just walk out and…what? This couldn't be the end.
And what fresh hell was that fucking thought? No, this wasover. I was a hundred percent certain of that. It was a fucking mistake if I'd ever seen one and now it was over. Done, finished, soul sold to the sharp-toothed cunt in the first row.
I tossed the balled-up tissue into the wastebasket beside the bed. "What was that you'd said about only coming once?"
She reached out to swat me for that but caught a stray pillow instead. "Shut up, Stremmel."
"Thatiswhat you said though. That you can only get there once." I was being a dickhead. I knew that. It never escaped my notice when I was behaving like a complete and total miscreant. Stopping myself when I'd stumbled down this path was often the issue. It was easier to drop dead than it was to shut myself up once I'd started. "It seems I proved you wrong."
"I think you should leave," she mumbled into the pillow.
I turned my head in her direction. I couldn't see her face but fuck, her body really was amazing. I reached down, grabbed her ass. "That's probably a good idea."
"Then what are you doing?"
"Don't know," I murmured. "I guess I just like making the most of my bad decisions."
Sara pushed up from the mattress, shaking off my hand. Her back to me, she tossed her hair, saying, "Don't be here when I get back."
I watched her walk to the adjoining bathroom on legs she was pretending weren't shaking. The lock clicked behind her then the faucet turned on. The walls were thin enough for me to hear her slap her hands against the sink and blow out a breath.
After a minute of willing my limbs to work, I started hunting for my clothes. I had to perch on the corner of her bed to step into my boxers and trousers to save myself from wobbling straight into a wall. My shirt was wrecked though I couldn't help admiring the wreck. Tiny tornado struck again.
I located one shoe, then the other, and took a moment to study Sara's apartment as I stepped into them. It was different than when Hartshorn lived here. The walls were a fresh new color, the kitchen cabinets spruced up, the furniture in pale pinks, yellows, and blues with lots of deep teal velvet. A woman lived here now and it showed.
I patted my pockets to confirm I had all the devices I'd entered with—god help me if I had to come back here tonight for my phone—and noticed an open shelf lined with glasses beside the kitchen sink. There was nothing special about these glasses. They matched the rest of Sara's pastel-y stuff—all rose quartz pink, watery blue, sunny yellow, mint green—and I wouldn't have cared but I couldn't reconcile that badass bulldozer of a woman drinking out of a princess pink glass.
For no good reason at all, I shuffled into the kitchen and picked up one of those glasses. It was adorable. It really was. But Sara wasn't adorable. She was…fuck, she was a cutthroat queen. She'd kill me and anyone else standing in her way, and, in a very sex-fogged way, I appreciated that about her. Even if it was a giant pain in my ass.
Since I was already holding it, I held the glass under the tap and filled it. It only took a moment to return to Sara's room and set it on the bedside table. I paused near the bathroom door. There were no appropriate parting words for this situation—theoops I just fucked the woman I hate and yes, I do have to slog through two months of conflict resolution sessions with hersituation—but I couldn't get out of the gravitational pull of this moment until I forced myself out of it.
"Lock the door, okay?"
She gave one of those short, huffy sighs, the ones smothered in annoyance and eye rolls. Then, "Shut up."
I was an expert in nothing but that sounded to me like "Yeah, babe, it was great for me too."
I stumbled out into the foyer, my shirt hanging open and my jacket in a ball under my arm. This place looked different. Also, my legs felt about as solid as gravy. Walking more than a few steps at a time was rough. Also, concerning. It wasn't like this the last time I'd had sex. It was never like this. What kind of sorcery was she keeping in that cunt?
I started for the stairs but the front door buzzer stopped me. Also, my brain was gravy. It was safe to say that gravy had replaced the internal contents of my body.
I crossed to the door, realizing as I turned the bolt that it was the delivery person with the burrito bowl I'd ordered in a previous life, one where I hadn't fucked a woman I wanted as much as I wanted to strangle her.
And it went both ways because she'd taken my cock like she owned it, but there'd been more than a few moments when she'd looked at me like she was debating whether it would be difficult to dispose of my body. She hated me more than anyone else had ever hated me and I had a bit of experience with being everyone's least favorite person.
I accepted my order and waved to the delivery person as I retreated into the scene of the crime. I couldn't see this space without remembering everything, but the one thing that elbowed out the rest was the beat of her pulse against my thumb.
I stared at her door for a minute or two. I wasn't sure how long it was, on account of the gravy and all.
