“I mean, that’s great and all, but that wasn’t my…wait, Reggie? You talked to Reggie about this?” he asked, sitting up straight and staring at me in horror.
I rolled my eyes, grabbed another clean towel, and threw it at him. “Do not lapse into histrionics. He brought it up when he thought I might be interested in sleeping with Clay.”
“Clay?” Luka asked as he hurriedly wiped himself before trying to yank on his shirt almost as quickly as he’d yanked it off. “I mean, if you wanted to get laid, you could count on Clay.”
“You would know, it seems,” I said, annoyed that I found that idea...irritating.
“I haven’t slept with him,” he said, sounding offended. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t slept with anyone in over a year. I was being...abstinent for a while.”
“Why?” I wondered. Even I hadn’t put myself through something like that willingly.
“It doesn’t matter,” he snapped, shoving the towel into the laundry chute. “But I sure as shit shouldn’t have broken my streak by fooling around with a guest. And not just any guest,myguest.”
I stared at him for a moment. “I’m not prepared to deal with...whatever meltdown is happening at the moment.”
“Ass,” he grumbled. “It’s not a meltdown, it’s a realization.”
“I believe some people call it post-nut clarity.”
He glared at me, and I thought I was about to be on the receiving end of his temper again before he turned his head away with a snort. “It’s...yeah, I guess you could call it that.”
There wasn’t much I could say as he stared into the distance, adjusting his clothes. We had already admitted that what we had done wasn’t a good idea, but we had done it anyway. There wasn’t much point in obsessing over it. Obsession was for the professional environment, as far as I was concerned, which in this case would be his professional environment. I suppose technically it was mine as well, though no one but me knew that, but it didn’t take much assessment on my part to realize this didn’t fall under the purview of ‘need to be worried’ either. I had never slept with someone working for a business, or charity in this case, that I was evaluating, but I trusted myself to know I wouldn’t let that come into play when I made my assessment.
“I...am going to go run and think long and hard about what I just did,” he said, shaking his head. “And the potential disaster we just invited.”
“Long and hard?” I wondered aloud. “Apropos phrasing.”
Luka stopped at the door, turning to stare at me. “This is when you decide to make the second joke I’ve ever heard you make? Really? And a dirty one at that?”
“My humor doesn’t just have to be dry.”
“Ugh, you irritate me sometimes.”
“You would not be the first to say as much.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I bet. I’ll see you later. Clothed, I hope.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Clothed.”
He hesitated before walking out, the computer system alerting me that privacy mode was still engaged. I briefly wondered whether the system was aware that privacy mode had been activated after Luka entered my room, and then figuredthat yes, it probably did log it, but I doubted it would stand out. After all, he was assigned to spend time with me, so why wouldn’t there be moments when we were alone?
As to whether he would allow us to be alone again, I would find out eventually.
LUKA
The talkingin the room dropped off, and I sat at the back waiting patiently. Group discussions were open to everyone who agreed to stick to the rules. The resort didn’t have many rules, but the ones it did have, they were sticklers about. One of them was that, in a group discussion, you showed respect for others, and while you didn’t have to participate, you had to be quiet when it was someone else’s turn.
Dr. Ramirez shifted in his seat and looked around the circle. “Does no one have anything to throw out there? Clay maybe? You come, but you rarely speak.”
Clay shifted in his seat, looking out of place in regular clothes. “Why, because I talk all the time, any other time?”
“Well, having someone who’s normally not shy about expressing themselves show reluctance to speak is an attention getter,” Ramirez said with a smirk, leaning back in his seat. “And you only seem to be shy when we have these discussions.”
“You force me to be here, Doc,” he said dryly, clearly not pleased.
The unfair part of my brain thought he was probably annoyed that he had to be here for counseling rather than having free run of the resort to try and get laid. The fair partreminded me that he was here because he needed, and in some way, probablywantedhelp not judgment. After all, he was as known for his sexual activities as he was for his friendly and chatty demeanor. If anything, I should be looking at his almost pathological need to get laid as a sign of a larger problem that needed to be addressed...preferably by someone better equipped to handle that sort of thing.
Considering what I’d done a couple of days ago, I was clearly not that person. Not that I would have fallen into bed with Clay if I were assigned to be his Guide. Hewasgood-looking, and I’d hope with all his experience, he’d be good in bed, but Clay wasn’t my type. Then again, I would have said the same about Rowan, and now look at me, suffering for two days from much-deserved guilt and shame because I had let a hot body and a nice dick make me break the rules.
