The implication of other guys and the slur in her voice helped him keep his head. “Then do what I say and get in the house. And shut the door.”
Again, he waited for her to snap. Instead, she did as she was told. The latch clicked and suddenly her apartment seemed ten times smaller. Maybe he should have gone home with the driver. He put the kettle on the electric holder and flicked the dial. “Do you want tea or coffee?”
“I want another drink.” She moved to the white cabinet where she kept her liquor. “You want tequila?”
He crossed the room to ward her off. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“But I want…” Cheryl fumbled with the catch on the cabinet and almost toppled forward.
“Shit!” Patrick rushed to steady her, and she slumped into his arms. Her skin was boiling hot again.
“I don’t…” she mumbled. “I think I’m wasted.”
“Yeah, a little,” he said, smoothing her hair out of her face.
The kettle he’d put on bubbled as though in warning. “Why don’t you go have a shower while I make tea?”
“I just wanna lie downnnn.”
“Okay, you can do that.”
He lifted her, carrying her sideways so she couldn’t lock her legs around him again. Cheryl closed her eyes and hummed a tune. That walking down the aisle song. He grinned like an idiot. “Good to get some practice in before I’m engaged.”
“I’m never getting engaged,” she mumbled.
Ever? Or to me?
But if it wasn’t the right time to kiss her, it definitely wasn’t the right time to ask her thoughts on marriage.
Cheryl’s bedroom was purple. Purple walls, purple sheets, and lit by a thousand lavender fairy lights. Her perfume hung in the air, dark and sweet. He scanned the shelves for the bottle and found it beside a stack of books. Midnight Black Musk oil. It might as well have been ‘Painful Erections.’
Trying not to inhale too deeply, he placed her in her purple sheets. She snuggled against the mattress, her thick hair spreading around her the way he always imagined it on his pillows.
“Thanks, Patty-Bear,” she whispered, her eyes already closed.
“That’s okay.”
He stood for a second, watching her. She glowed under her twinkling lights, her skin flawless like the peaches on her kitchen counter. Was she already asleep? Would she remember any of this tomorrow? And if she did, would she hate him? The whole time he’d known her, she’d always been in control, smiling and making jokes to hide the fact she planned everything to the minute. She prepped her meals and budgeted all her expenses. She seemed to have everything figured out but now she’d gotten pissed and let him carry her off a yacht. Flirted with him and told him he was sexy. Would she regret it?
I won’t let her.
Yet part of him knew everything had already changed. The question was, what did it mean?
He backed toward the door and as he did, he looked where he wasn’t supposed to. On a white shelf near her bed, displayed like her plants and her peaches, were Cheryl’s toys. A pink vibrator, a lace collar, a glass bottle of lube, and the thing that haunted him the most—the silver butt plug with the lavender diamond in the end.
The first time he’d seen it he’d almost died. Almost keeled over and fucking died. She’d asked him to grab her water bottle while she was in a work meeting, and he’d gone into her bedroom like a teenager bounding into his first nightclub. He’d been hoping to check out her bed, maybe see a stray pair of panties and instead, he’d come face to face with that.
For a second, he’d just stood there, dumbstruck. The thought of Cheryl on all fours, that pale purple diamond shining in her asshole…? He’d broken out in a cold sweat.
He’d handed her the water bottle and rushed out the door, lying, telling her he had urgent footy business. He’d barely made it to his car before his hand was on his cock. It had been dark and there had been no one else around, so he’d pumped himself in the driver’s seat, thinking about fucking Cheryl with that plug in her ass. The way she’d look at him over her shoulder, tossing her hair as she said, ‘Take it out, Patrick. I want you there. I want you to fuck my asshole.’
He’d come so hard his ears rang and then he’d driven home feeling like a pervert. Still, thoughts of Cheryl with that lavender diamond shining in her asshole had been in his heavy wank rotation ever since. Thoughts of it played on him like a song he couldn’t get out of his head.
Safe on its little shelf, the lavender stone winked hatefully at him, reminding him that it knew what Cheryl felt like and he didn’t. Reminding him that maybe other guys—
But no, he wouldn’t let himself think like that. She only used it to get herself off, alone in her bedroom, when she gave in to her deepest, darkest fantasies about getting reamed by her best mate—
“Pat-trickkkk…? Are you still here?”
