And then: me, him, this bed, with its canopy and pristine sheets. He was trying to get me to drink water, exasperated with my drunkenness, my lack of caution, my lack of self-restraint. And I—oh God—I’d sprawled over his lap, offering myself up eagerly for any punishment he wished to bestow.
He hadn’t of course.
My arse clenched in shame.
“Why don’t you take a shower?” he asked, dismissal couched as a question. “You’ll probably feel better after.”
“Okay.” Like I was ever going to feel good again.
He disappeared into the living area, closing the doors behind him. There was a fluffy hotel dressing gown at the foot of the bed. I couldn’t help wondering if he’d worn it as I shambled over and struggled into it. Then shuffled miserably to the bathroom.
It was all shininess in there, hurting my eyes and making my head ache.
I curled up in the bottom of the bath and let the shower pound me. It was so typical that, after three years of student facilities, I wasn’t in any mood to appreciate the awesome on offer here. I’d missed really hot water and really clean baths. And hotels were exciting: all those little bottles of luxury shampoo and conditioner and body wash and moisturizer, jewel-bright in the gathering steam.
Right now, I was too depressed to even think about stealing them. I wished I could swirl away down the drain with the rest of the dirty water.
And I couldn’t help indulging myself with a mean little fantasy that, maybe one day, somehow, Caspian Hart would be vulnerable, exposed, and I would be the one choosing to be kind.
Except it would never happen. I was the faller-over and the fucker-upper, and he would never, ever be vulnerable to me.
And I owed him. I owed him big-time.
It was the hollowest feeling of all: gratitude to this man—this beautiful, cold, unexpectedly compassionate man—who didn’t want me.
I turned off the shower and toweled myself dry. Wrapped myself in the dressing gown again and went back to receive my third…fourth…fifth rejection from Caspian Hart.
He was sitting on the sofa again, his face turned toward the bow window, beyond which I could see the leafy boulevard of St. Giles and the intricate carvings of the Martyrs’ Memorial. It was a little odd to be parallel with the top of it. I’d eaten kebab-van chips on the steps often enough.
On the table in front of him was a properly impressive breakfast, complete with little baskets of pastries, racks of perfectly browned toast, those individual pots of jam I’d always found super tempting, and a collection of shiny cloches concealing what was probably full English deliciousness. I could smell bacon and while the spirit was definitely willing, the flesh was slightly dubious.
Caspian’s attention flicked from the picture-postcard vista to the decidedly less picture-postcard me.
“Um, hi.” I was all covered up, but there was something startlingly intimate about damp hair and bare feet.
Even more so when his eyes lingered on me. “You look different.”
Try defenseless. Without my tight jeans and my engineered hair, my jackets and my jewelry. My armor of queerness and accessibility. “Thanks for last night. I’m really sorry for putting you to all this hassle.”
“It was nothing.”
“How did you even find me? Were you looking for me?”
“I…yes. You’d posted pictures of your activities on various social media platforms, so you weren’t exactly difficult to track. I arrived at the club just as you were leaving with your…with your swain.”
“You didn’t have to do all this though.” I gestured at the room. “I’d have been fine.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t feel comfortable leaving you alone.”
Oh wow. Way to make me feel even more of an unpleasant imposition. “Look, I should, um, go—”
“Sit down, Arden.”
The command crackled up my spine. And, for once, I resented it. He didn’t get to do that. Not now. “Where are my clothes?”
“I said sit down.”
I sat down mutinously. Fuck.
