I hissed as he pressed it to my nether regions.
“Oh, poor baby.”
The thing wasn’t scalding, but I mock glared.
He winked.
After he had me cleaned up, he went back to the bathroom. Assumedly to put the washcloth in the clothes hamper.Considerate guy. Somehow, that didn’t surprise me. For all his bad-boy biker persona, he’d shown me his soft underbelly.
And I liked it. Probably more than I should’ve.
He returned. “Turn on your side, Finn.”
“Please.” I exaggerated the word.
His bark of laughter amused me.
“Please.” He waved for me to do as told.
Admittedly, I’d cuddled with very few men over the last ten years. Intrigued, I rolled to my side.
He slid in behind me and then, to my surprise, he insinuated his arm under mine and placed a hand on my sternum. “So that’s what it’s like to fuck a firefighter.”
I chuckled. “Worth the detour?”
After a moment, he whispered. “I’ll never regret that detour.”
Then I, in my sex-hazed mind, heard him say something like,or so I’ll tell myself. Before I could provide a coherent response, I slipped into sleep.
Hours later I awoke with a shaft of moonlight across my bed.
I knew. I didn’t need to check the spot next to me to know I was very much alone. The optimistic part of me believed he’d left a note, so I padded out to the kitchen.
Of course, no note. I checked the bathroom and the front door just in case…
Nope.
Naked, I climbed the circular stars to my loft, the hardwood a comfort on my feet. To ground me. To remind me the world wasn’t coming to an end.
My grandfather had built this house for my grandmother and my mother.
My mother had held onto it, despite our dire financial circumstances some years.
One day I’d bring a partner home. Someone who would understand my attachment to the place.
I flipped open my laptop and selected a new document.
The flashing cursor mocked me.
I was a poet. A creator of words strung together. A purveyor of my interpretation of life. I wrote poems. Epic love poems.
My friend, Carter, wrote epic fantasy novels. Two very different endeavors, and yet we’d formed a friendship.
After a long moment, I closed the document. I didn’t write tragedies. I wrote poems with happy endings. After just one encounter with a mysterious man, I couldn’t write a poem about how this ended well.
Instead, I composed an email to Carter.
Then, exhausted, I returned to my very empty bed.
