Chapter Forty-Four
‘Ow. Fuck, my head.’ I groan, trying to move it from the pillow without a great deal of success. It seems too heavy to lift, like someone filled it with sand overnight. Sharp sand, weighty and rough. A second attempt at moving proves my headisactuallystuck. My hair is caught around something. I twist it painfully to find Kai’s fingers twisted in my hair.Well, that explains that, then. Sort of.
‘What are you doing here?’ I mumble, untangling the strands and snapping a few in the process.
Hand free, he rolls onto his back mumbling something that sounds like ‘look around’. So I do, or at least I try to.
‘Ow, ow, oww!’
I bring my palms to the side of my head, because, not only does it feel too heavy to be balanced on just my neck, but it also hurts with the kind of pulsating pain that sends acid splashes of black, white and yellow behind my eyes as every hair follicle feels like a pin into my skull. And my head’s sandy filling seems to have migrated to my mouth as I sit. I run a rough tongue against my teeth and the taste... bloody awful. More like cat-litter than sand. Used.
The splashes of colour subside and I quit wishing I could cut out my tongue as I rub my eyes. My surroundings aren’t quite right. Familiar but... I open one eye. Not my bedroom. Not my bed. Kai’s. I’m inhisbed, not the other way around, although it looks like someone’s been doing a bit of remodelling and abandoned it in between. The chair—yes,thatone—lies on its side, my beautiful sweater torn and suspended from the arm. His dresser seems to have moved away from the wall, designer lamp and accoutrements swept onto the floor as a couple of pictures hang askew from the adjoining wall.
A flash of an image pulses in my head, a bit like a negative of a photograph: my back against the wall, legs wrapped around Kai. Was it really my arse that knocked everything from the dresser to the floor?Another image flashes—Kai’s arm sweeping across the wood, knocking things to the floor, his other gripped tightly around my waist.
And then the montage of images hovering at the edges of my brain begin to leak more rapidly. Recollections of the evening: Drinking at Club Cavalli, champagne followed by cocktails. And dancing. So much dancing. I absently rub my palms against the top of my thighs; no wonder they ache. Then, Iwasat home, suddenly starving and looking for a granola bar in my bag, but pulling out Kai’s hotel key and my phone.Calling a cab.The key-card slipping to the floor, stumbling to pick it up as a green light flashed to let me in.
‘Oh, God...’Drunk in the corridors and bouncing off walls. I drag my hands down my face. Even my jaw is sore.Was I singing? Did we go to a karaoke bar?I move it from side to side; it feels overworked, like I’ve spent hours at the dentist, mouth open to full capacity. It can mean only one thing with the absence of cavities.
Oh fuck.
I turn my head over my shoulder. Kai is naked, sprawled across the bed and determined to keep on sleeping.
‘Wake up,’ I rasp, nudging him. ‘What am I doing here?’
‘Can’t you remember?’
Suddenly I don’t need him to answer; it’s all there in unexpectedly open and wickedly gleaming eyes.
‘I think I’d rather not.’ I groan, fingers back to massaging my temples.
‘You and Rashid both.’
He stretches out unselfconsciously, but even the sight of his toned abs can’t take away what he’s just said. I turn away quickly, between my legs unreasonably sore.
‘Tell me...Oh, no.’
It’s all coming back, much more vividly than I’d like. My waking Kai with my mouth, his groan reverberating through me as he became more sentient. The feel of him growing and lengthening between my lips. Pushing him naked from the bed and into the chair, our joint sniggering as I tried to tie his hands with my jumper, then, abandoning my efforts, my head diving between his legs like a shark. The crash as the chair back hit the floor, spilling us over it and each other, laughing like hyenas. Rashid suddenly in the room—in his pyjamas, I think—holding a gun.A gun, really?
‘Rashid... I had my clothes on, didn’t I?’
‘Some. I, on the other hand...’
‘Shit a brick,’ I whisper.Because, yeah, I’m just that classy. I close my eyes for a beat before my gaze slides embarrassed to Kai’s.
‘Oh, you had much more to say than that. He laughs. ‘I hadn’t realised you have the language capacity of a sailor. You made Rashid—a former soldier—blush. Something about riding me dry. I hope you meant me, rather than... friction...’ He laughs again but I’ll credit him as trying not to. ‘Yes, well, in any event, it did take us a while. I’d, er, had a bit to drink, too.’
‘OhGod.’
I lie back against the bed, slowly, breathing in relief as my head touches the pillow.
Kai’s hands are braced on either side of the bed, butt perched on the edge. ‘Let’s go find you some paracetamol and coffee. I believe duty calls, unless you’re playing hooky today? No, I didn’t think so,’ he adds, smiling as I clutch my head, the results of a non-verbalno.
‘Does your family business have a pharmaceutical arm? Can you get your hands on black-market Ritalin? I’ll need to dose the kids so I can go die quietly in the resource cupboard.’ He laughs as he slips into his boxers. ‘On second thoughts, maybe you could borrow Rashid’s gun, he did have a gun, didn’t he?’A gun. Fuck. Wonder what that’s all about.‘Put me out of my misery. There’s no way I’ll ever be able to face him again, not after that level of inappropriateness.’ My throat is dry, unsurprisingly. It’s also the most I’ve spoken this morning.
‘Sweetheart,’ Kai says, pausing by the now open door. ‘You’re dating me, not him, and you should know by now I’m a huge fan of inappropriate behaviour. Especially yours.’
By some quirk of fate, I’m not late for work today. It doesn’t harm that the clothes Kai ordered are still in the suite. This time I don’t make such a fuss, just meekly, and without moving my head too much, grab a kick-pleat skirt and a pussy-bow blouse. And fancy undies and ballet flats.Gucci, far out!More designer gifts that would sit uncomfortably on my shoulders, if that role wasn’t already filled with my thumping head. Plus, I’ve bigger things at stake, like keeping my job for a start.
