Unbroken Pleasures (6 page)

He poured a
small amount in each of the glasses and raised his glass in a toast to the
evening with the backdrop of moans and sighs coming from the master bedroom. I
felt like an intruder listening to Sylvia’s ecstatic cries. From the way Nick
looked longingly in their direction, I suspect he wished he’d ended up with her
instead of me. I slumped my shoulders and took a large gulp of my drink letting
the liquid burn my throat and warm my belly. If this didn’t ease the tension
between us, nothing would.

“So, you’re a veterinarian,”
Nick said at a feeble attempt to make small talk. We’d already discussed my
employment at length earlier at dinner. I didn’t really feel like talking about
it anymore.

“Yes,” I said
simply eyeing up the bottle of amber liquid.

“Ben didn’t tell
me a lot about you.”

“What did he
say?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes.”

“He said you
were Sylvia’s friend, stunningly beautiful, and in desperate need of a good
shag.”

“I see.”

“He was right.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, about
the stunningly beautiful part. I’m not convinced you actually need a man,” he
said chuckling lightly.

I looked up
feeling my face going red. Had I been that obvious with Sylvia?

“I only mean
that you don’t need your friend to set you up with some guy you don’t even
know,” he added. If he knew why he’d suddenly made me so uncomfortable, he
didn’t make any sign of it. I let out the breath that I’d held and decided that
if we were going to do this, we might as well just get it over with. He seemed
like a nice enough guy and between my thoughts of the stranger and my dream, I
was definitely in need of something. I might as well take the chance. The alcohol
gave me a coat of bravery that I didn’t have five minutes earlier.

“I don’t seem to
have much luck with guys,” I confessed. I stood up and moved closer to him
reaching behind me to unfasten my dress in the process. In my mind’s eyes, I
was graceful and smooth but in reality, the alcohol had made my head so fuzzy
that I could barely manage the zipper. I tripped and fell into his arms. He
laughed again, this time at my expense.

“I think we
better cut you off the drinks,” he said trying to set me upright again.

We stood face to
face and his eyes softened as he reached out and tucked stray hair behind my
ear. He leaned in and kissed me and I melted into his kiss but once again
stumbled as I tried to close the distance between us.

“Maybe we should
just go to the bedroom?” I suggested. He picked me up off my feet and carried
me without a word.

Chapter 5

I knew the
moment I opened my eyes that I was in trouble. I heard a groan and peeked out
from under my elbow at the man lying next to me in bed. His hair was tousled
from sleep and his eyes barely open but he was still every bit the handsome man
I’d only just met yesterday. I heard movement in the hallway outside the
bedroom door and Nick and I looked at each other as if we were only seeing each
for the first time. I started to mumble excuses, apologies, any words that
would come to mind to break the silence but he put up a finger to stop me.

“Hello. You two
sleepy heads awake yet?” Sylvia said from the other side of the door with a
soft knock.

“Yeah, we’re
awake,” I said feeling my heart triple in speed. My head was still spinning
from last night’s excess and I wasn’t quite ready to face an awkward morning. I
slumped onto my back and covered my eyes with my hands wishing I could simply
teleport back to my own bed.

“Great,
breakfast is almost ready. Come on out and join us.”

I heard Sylvia
walk away and the sounds of her talking to Ben from the kitchen. She sounded
happy. I risked a peek from behind the cover of my hands to see if Nick was
still in bed beside me. It was probably too much to hope that it was all a
dream. He was smiling down at me in amusement.

“So…” he said,
“This is a little awkward, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, tell me
about it,” I agreed. I didn’t need to look under the sheet to know that I was
wearing nothing but the black lace panties. “So I guess we… I mean, I don’t
really remember much…” I fumbled for the right words as I tried to piece
together the details of a night that I probably didn’t really want to remember.
I expected to feel different somehow, satiated, satisfied.

“Relax, nothing
happened.”

“You mean we
didn’t…”

“No.”

That explained
why I didn’t feel any differently but it didn’t explain why I was in a bed
wearing nothing but a pair of panties with a man I suspected was wearing
equally as little. I looked at him skeptically, squinting against the pain
throbbing in my head.

“One guest room.
One bed,” he said reading the questions that were racing through my mind. He
shrugged as if it didn’t really matter and started to get out of bed.

“Wait,” I said,
still feeling confused. “Why?”

He shrugged
again and let his eyes trail over my body covered by the sheet almost as if he
were considering the possibility that something might still happen but then he
seemed to think better of it. He shook his head slowly and sighed. “You pretty
much passed out the minute we made it to bed.”

“Oh.”

He smiled and
disappeared to the bathroom. I sighed and sat up rummaging through my overnight
bag. I couldn’t wait to brush my teeth. He emerged from the guest bathroom moments
later wearing a pair of jeans but no shirt. I couldn’t help but notice that the
muscles in his chest were well defined. I waited until he left the room before
I jumped out of bed, wondering if perhaps I had been crazy to pass up the
opportunity to get intimately familiar with those muscles.

After two
aspirin, a quick shower, and clean teeth, I was starting to feel human again. I
pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and followed the smell of scrambled
eggs and bacon to the kitchen where I found the other three laughing. Sylvia
and Ben looked natural together the way they worked to prepare breakfast and
set the plates out on the table. I couldn’t help but to smile as I watched
them. Nick and I may have been a total bust but cupid had certainly made an
appearance for those two. Sylvia gave me a little nudge as we sat down at the
table to eat and I realized that she still thought that Nick and I had
surrendered to our own night of passion. I wondered if it was worth mentioning
that we hadn’t. The truth would come out eventually but it didn’t feel like the
sort of thing that qualified as appropriate breakfast conversation. Luckily, I
didn’t have to say anything. Sylvia and Ben chatted away about everything from
current events to their favorite colors leaving Nick and I to enjoy our
breakfast without the pressure of making conversation.

Once we finished
eating and I busied myself by helping to clean up the dishes, I was grateful
that Sylvia offered me a ride home. Ben took Nick. This also meant, however,
that I would be forced to confess all to Sylvia and I was pretty sure she
wouldn’t be too happy with the truth.

“So?” she said
before I even managed to buckle my seatbelt.

“What?” I
feigned innocence to prolong the inevitable.

“How was he? Was
it amazing? Come on, girl, I need details.”

“Look, Sylvia,
I’m kind of tired and my head is pounding. Do you think we could do this
another time? I just want to go home and take a nap.”

She scowled at
me and then focused on the road. Rain beat down on the windshield making
visibility less than perfect. I shivered with a damp chill but no matter how
much I tried to change my thoughts, all I could remember was the night I saw
him
standing along the road watching the couple on display in the window. I still
couldn’t get the stranger out of my head and it was starting to make me crazy. Sylvia
didn’t say anything until she pulled into my driveway. Much to my dismay, she
cut the engine and followed me to the front door despite the rain. We hurried
trying to shield ourselves from becoming drenched as I fumbled to unlock the
door.

Once inside, I
felt obligated to take her jacket and offer her a cup of hot tea to help her
dry off before sending her back out into the pouring rain, putting me right
where she wanted me. She followed me into the kitchen while I set the kettle on
the stove and searched the cupboard for tea bags.

“You and Ben
seemed to be getting along rather well,” I said trying to fill the silence
between us.

“We get along
okay.” She leaned casually against the counter and stared down at her feet at
the mention of his name. I looked over my shoulder at her and wondered why she
wouldn’t just admit that she really liked the guy.

“You’re going to
see him again, right?”

“It’s just sex,
Alex. That’s all.”

I laughed.
“Okay, if you say so. But you’re going to have sex with him again, right?”

“Yeah, probably.
At least until he starts getting all clingy again.”

“Is that why you
guys broke up the last time? Because he got clingy?”

She shrugged and
I knew that meant yes. “He seems like a nice guy,” I pushed, “a really nice
guy. He has a good job. He obviously cares about you.”

“Stop it, Alex.”

“Well, it’s
true. I guess I don’t understand why you don’t want a relationship.”

“Relationships
are for idiots,” she said, “Fall in love with a guy and that’s the end of the
fun. It just becomes a dull life of paying bills and watching the plants grow.
Not going to happen. I like sex too much.”

“Just because
you’re in a relationship, that doesn’t mean you have to stop having sex,” I
laughed again but I thought about Ed. Ed and I didn’t have a lot of sparks at
the start of our relationship but by the last six months, I could probably
count on one hand how often we actually got naked together. I added the hot
water to the mug with the tea bag and handed it to her. She went to the fridge
to find the milk.

“Was Nick
everything I promised you?”

I took a deep
breath and filled up my own mug, accepting the milk cartoon from her as she
finished and stirring slowly while I came up with a way to phrase everything
that didn’t happen the night before.

“I’m sure he’s a
nice guy and all,” I said, “but nothing happened.”

There, I’d said
it. She stared at me for a moment while the words sunk in.

“That’s what I
thought.”

“Are you mad?”

“Disappointed, I
guess, not really mad. The night was all about you, you know. Nick was only
there to get laid.”

“Gee thanks,
that makes me feel so much better.”

“I’m sure he was
dazzled by your sparkling personality too, of course,” she said smiling for the
first time, “but the whole point was that you were going to take out some of
those frustrations on him. I guess we’ll have to find you someone a bit more
irresistible.”

“No, thanks. I
think I’ll manage my own love life from now on.”

“I’m not talking
love, honey bunches. Just sex. Lots of sex.”

“Yeah, well, I
guess that’s the problem for me,” I said considering this, “I don’t really want
just sex. I don’t really like the idea of sleeping with a complete stranger and
feeling all awkward while we stumble around looking for our clothes the next
morning, exchange pleasantries, and never see each other again.”

“Oh really? So
that is why you’re dragging strange men home that you meet on the street?”

“That was
different and it’s not going to happen again, believe me.”

“Sure.”

“I swear, Sylvia.
I don’t want just sex. I want the whole package deal.”

“It’s better my
way, trust me.”

“No, what I
really want is someone that looks at me the way that Ben looks at you.”

“He doesn’t look
at me any differently. It’s just sex, Alex. Just sex, and it will never be
anything more.”

“If you say so,”
I said laughing again. We made ourselves comfortable on the couch in the living
room and I caught a whiff of her vanilla scented shampoo as we sipped our tea,
lost in our own thoughts. It reminded me of the way we’d danced together the
night before. I wondered if she thought of it. Probably not, I realized.
Luckily, the dream of the encounter with the stranger and the waitress was
already starting to fade from the forefront of my mind and I hoped it would
stay that way. I suppressed the feelings and tried to continue a casual
conversation. She was still my best friend and I didn’t plan to jeopardize that
no matter what my hormones might suggest.

“I still say
that you two make a very cute couple and you should give him half a chance.
What do you have to lose?”

“Only
everything.”

“I think you’re
being a little melodramatic.”

“You were
involved in a serious relationship and look how that turned out,” she said
giving me a sideways glance. I involuntarily flinched. I didn’t want to think
about Ed right now.

“It turned out he
wasn’t the right person for me,” I said brushing it off, “and besides, I only
suggested that you give him a chance, not that you marry the guy.”

“Thanks for the
tea,” she said getting up and taking her mug to the kitchen sink to rinse it
out, “but I better get going.” She looked at her watch as if she’d only just
noticed the time and realized there was somewhere else that she needed to be.

“Why the hurry?”

“Oh, just the
late night activities and all. It’s Sunday. I have a lot of catching up to do
before getting back to the daily grind tomorrow. You know how it is.”

She leaned in
and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, an ordinary gesture between us but I
felt my cheeks flush.

“Yeah, I know.”
I yawned proving her point.

“And don’t you
go thinking you’ve gotten yourself off the hook on this one, young lady,” she
added turning back to me before opening the front door.