Page 43 of Bad Attitude
I do now.
Bastard.
Utter. Fucking.Bastard.
I pull the duvet up under my chin, seeking comfort I know I won’t find, but it smells of him, of us, of his cologne. I shove it away again, and blink back tears of humiliation.
Except it’s not just humiliation, it’s loss. The specific loss of his weight beside me, his arm across my waist, the sound of his breathing.
All gone.
Why did I think this would be any different?
Why haven’t Ilearned?
The worst bit is Ilikedit. And not just the orgasms and the intimacy, the way he felt inside me, but his dominance, the way he smashed past all my defenses and got inside my head. The way he read me like I was an open book, and made me do things I wouldn’t ever have considered doing.
Of course I wouldn’t be anything more than a notch on a bedpost to a man like him. Some silly girl, years younger, just a warm place to push his cock for one night, and gone.
And me, thinking we had a connection.
My fists thump into the mattress.
I’m such a damn fool.
And now I want nothing more than a shower, to wash him from my body.
My apartment is empty, his clothes gone, but his scent still lingers. I have air freshener in the cupboard under the sink, and half a can later, I can hardly breathe. Much better.
I stand under the hot shower, washing my hair and every inch of my body, thinking of where he touched me. Trying not to replay last night and the things he did. I did. He told me to do.
The way he pinned me down. The feel of his tongue.
The way my body responded, and is responding again, even now.
No.
Fuck, no.
Goddamn tears in my eyes, and Ihatecrying.
Why don’t I learn?
I knew this would happen. Deep down, I knew it would. I still let him get close. And damn, if ‘close’ wasn’t what he got. Not just inside me, but under my skin, too. In ways no one else haseverachieved.
So yay. Not just discarded and abandoned again, but fucked up too.
I let out a shuddering breath and turn the shower on full-cold. That wakes me up, and a minute later, I step out gasping, skin covered in goosebumps.
My apartment feels smaller, somehow, and I try to see it throughhiseyes. The couch, where he fucked me with his tongue. The TV, the cramped kitchen. The door to my bedroom, the wall he pinned me against.
And suddenly, I don’t want to be here anymore. Not in my apartment, not even in the goddamn city. I don’t even want to take a ride; it wouldn’t be safe anyway. I’d probably look at that edge, and wonder how it would feel as my tires crossed it, the valleydropping away steeply beneath me.
No. That isnotyou.
But where can I go?
As soon as I’ve asked the question, the answer comes to me: I can gohome.
