Page 9 of Rafferty's Rules
I suppose things could be so much worse, but no more awkward.
Hey, thanks for bringing me home last night, erm... friend. Care to fill in the details?
Details I don’t really want to know.
Haven’t I suffered enough humiliation lately? I decide right there and then that I have. Maybe I can creep out and avoid the questions. Maybe I’ll find a piece of paper and a pen on my way out, and I can leave a quick thank-you note? This makes me immediately feel better about my plan even as I push away my actual plan, which is to get the hell out of Dodge as quick as I can.
Bra on, I stab my legs into my jeans then re-realise I don’t have my T-shirt.I’ll search for it on my way out, actually look for it, not like the paper to leave a note.
I pull an elastic from my bag, twisting my hair up into a hurried and probably messy topknot. Then, grabbing both purse and shoes (because it feels a little bit silly to put shoes on my feet when I’ve nothing but a bra covering my boobs) I open the door with a twist of the pretty brass doorknob.
I try not to think what might greet me beyond as I clutch my purse to my chest and poke my head out, glancing down a freshly painted and brightly lit hall before stepping out. I half turn to close the door quietly behind me then turn straight into a wall.
A wall of man, more specifically.
My purse and shoes hit the hallway floor, my palms now flat on a solid pair of pecs, nipples peeking between my fingers like warm pennies, my own squashed against the back of my palms. My eyes are level with his sternum, and he smells all kinds of warm and good. Maybe not the virtuous kind of good but the fun kind of good. But this is not typically the way I’d choose to greet anyone, even someone with a bod like his.
‘Oh dear,’ I whisper, my fingers flexing unconsciously. Be still my underperforming yet overbeating heart.
‘Easy, love.’ His voice is deep and gravelly, his accent Australian, and as his hands grasp my shoulders, I can’t help but notice the dusting of sandy hair on a pair of tanned and defined forearms. ‘How’d you pull up this morning?’
At the deep enquiry, I look up, and up again, having no idea what he just said, not the words or what they mean. Of course, I heard him, but I seem to have been rendered idiotic by the touch of a sports magazine cover worthy set of pecs, and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. Though, on second glance, blue doesn’t even cover it. They’re more aquamarine, which happens to be my birthstone, and fringed by the kind of lashes that are unjust to find on a man. The whole effect is kind of discombobulating and...
Okaaay, Lissa, it’s time to stop touching the hot stranger’s chest.
My hands fall away as I step back, but obviously not far enough as he reaches for me easily, his expression morphing through a range of expressions, each one fleeting.
Smouldering to amused, amused to something I can’t discern.
His hands move across my shoulders, one coming to rest in the tender spot where my neck meets. The other reaches for my chin, which he holds between his thumb and forefinger, tilting my face to his.Such pretty, pretty eyes.And to add to the perfect ridiculousness that is him, he has an honest to goodness cleft in his chin.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘I...’ I’m used to this question. Really, I’m overused to this question to the point it’s become annoying. But under his hands and his scrutiny, I can’t find it in me to be irritated because he’s not delivering the usual request for information. He’s asking howI am—the whole of me, not my illness or my heart. And Lord, the irony, because it makes my heart thunder against my breastbone until I feel a little faint.
‘Do you think he gave you something last night?’ He tilts my chin higher still as his words penetrates my lustful haze. His attention all business and no fun as I realise he’s examining my pupils.
‘I beg your pardon?’ I squeak.
‘The bloke you were with, did he buy you a drink? Did you feel weird at all after meeting him?’
Bloke? What bloke? Wasn’t I with him?As for weird, I can’t feel any more peculiar than I do now because yes, this situation is strangely messed up. But I feel like I know him, like Ishouldknow him as his thumb and forefinger release my chin and both hands come up to cup my cheeks.Hell, I am never drinking again—this not remembering business issonot fun, especially when I consider what I might’ve missed. I feel oddly disappointed and absolutely lost.
‘I... I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I eventually mumble.
‘I wasn’t sure if he’d slipped you something,’ he says more to himself as he releases me, satisfied that I hadn’t been drugged. Or maybe he sensed my mounting horror; it’s hard to tell as all thoughts of familiarity and safety drop away. ‘Easy there.’ Bile rises in my stomach, and as I stumble backwards, the stranger catches me by the elbows.
‘You mean drugs . . . you’re asking if I was drugged last night?’ Oh my God, that’s why I can’t remember! ‘How—by who? Oh God, I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘Deep breaths,’ he coaches. ‘I was kinda hoping you could fill in the details.’ As a sad little whimper escapes, he adds, ‘The main thing is that you’re okay.’
‘You mean nothing happened to me?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t quite put it like that.’ The corner of his mouth hitches at what seems like a one-person inside joke. ‘It was an eventful night, at least.’
‘Oh, this definitely isn’t my finest moment,’ I mutter, leaning against the wall. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’ve no idea who you are, where I am, and I thought I was still a little drunk when I woke!’
‘You probably were. Are.’ There’s that tiny smirk again, just a flicker ofI-know-stuff-that-you-don’t know. ‘And you did vomit in the car on the way back.’ His eyes flick to my torso so fleetingly I could almost convince myself they hadn’t moved from my face. I fold my arms across my chest anyway, waiting for him to ask about my scar, the scar that seems to define my existence.
