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I gasp when the words finally penetrate my 3a.m. brain.
MAGNUM?As in the largest condom size that’s manufactured in the world? Followed by the wordPlus?!
I squeeze my thighs together and pant. Is he joking? I scrabble for the lid seal and pull it open, shaking a mass of foil packets out onto the bed in front of me, checking that they are in fact real. I pick one up and hold the large square up to my face, a circular ring punctuating the surface beneath it. This must be part of the food poisoning process – hallucinations. But then I blink down at all of the wrappers between my legs and I’m having a hard time believing that they’re just a figment of my imagination. I pick up a handful and let them fall between my fingers. Good God. I’m more than half-tempted to rip one open – I’m not even sure why – but then suddenly I realise that Mitch having condoms next to his bed, in his top drawer no less, means that he’s having sex. In this bed. And the thought of that makes me shove all of the evidence back where it came from and stumble off the mattress, clutching my belly and heading straight for the bathroom next door.
Dark images flash behind my eyes as I hurl painfully in his bathroom sink. Another woman lying backwards on his navy comforter as he stands between her thighs. Not an oversized t-shirt or a fluffy bed sock in sight, her hair any colour other than my own. She’s in bespoke lingerie and he’s shoving his boxers down his quads – thickly muscled and rippling with the need to expend, to release. He pulls open the nightstand and grabs the first wrapper he can reach. She reads the wordsMAGNUM Pluson the foil as he tears it open. He rolls the rubber down his length with nothing but satisfaction on his features. He’s never seen her vomit. This moment is nothing but sex in its rawest form.
The sound of a light clicking on downstairs draws me back to reality and I quickly rinse the bowl before another wave washes over me. A tube of toothpaste sits on the side of the sink and I squeeze a streak onto my finger, lick it, then spit. Sweat has trickled into my eyes and it’s burning so bad that I’m sobbing quietly, my brows pinched together as I struggle through the painful hysterical embarrassment of this mortifyingly ridiculous moment.
Two hands suddenly reach around my face and scoop the fallen tendrils from around my cheeks, pulling them into a ponytail at the back of my head and holding it securely. I shield myself from his view as I cup water in my hand to rinse my mouth, and then I look up at him in the mirror, backlit by the faintest glow from downstairs.
He’s wearing flannel pants and a grey t-shirt that’s moulded obscenely to his expansive chest. When he speaks his voice is low early morning gravel, the deepest that I’ve ever heard it.
“It’s okay, Harper. Get it all out.”
I bend back over the sink as my stomach contracts and the movement has me arching directly into his groin. I’m already lightheaded and dehydrated, but the sudden firm press has my body boneless. I moan quietly over the bowl, my hips moving mindlessly against him.
He chokes on his breathing and moves one fist from my hair down to my hip, preventing my grinding.
“No – shit, no.” His reprimand is gentle, pained. “You’re not feeling well. I’m trying to make you feel better.”
I look back up at him through the mirror, his hips positioned strong and steady behind me. His shoulders shield the doorway, blocking most of the light, and his body is so tall that he had to stoop to get under the frame.
“I can think of something that would make me feel better,” I mumble.
He lets go of my body and stumbles backwards, shoulders hitting off both sides of the jamb. I turn around to face him and my eyes catch on the bulge beneath his waistband. He notices what I’m seeing and he covers it with both of his hands.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says, angry and breathless. Then he thinks back on what I just confessed and he heaves out, “That’s the champagne talking.”
I steel my jaw to try and stop the tremble. A month ago I was engaged and thinking about red carpet events for the movie I wrote. Now I’m single, curdled with food poisoning, and tears are threatening behind my eyes. I swipe at them quickly, brushing away any evidence.
“That won’t even be in my system anymore and you know it. You’re giving yourself a get-out.”
“I’m givingyoua get-out,” he argues back.
“Why?” I demand, incredulous. A guy is turning down a no-strings hook-up? If my head wasn’t throbbing I would be shouting at him, but as it is we remain to be having the world’s quietest argument.
“Let’s not go there, Harper.”
“I’ve seen you watching me when you’re on your site and I don’t think that I’m so bad at reading people that you don’t actually like me. I’m in your house, and you’re letting me throw up in your bathroom for Christ’s sake. So what’s the issue?”
I put my hands on my hips. He glances briefly at my fluffy bed socks.
“Don’t think you can control yourself with a hot young thing like me?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly the issue. That and the fact thatyouhave food poisoning.”
“Fine. If you think that I’m incoherent with illness then I may as well ask anyway. Don’t you feel this?” I defiantly keep my chin up despite the spinning in my head, the weakness in my body. “Is there something happening between us or am I really on a roll for the worst luck of all time?”
He closes the gap between us and I shut my mouth tight. “You want honesty? Okaybaby. When I came over tonight I was going to ask you on a date.”
The shock on my face must penetrate the darkness because his mouth curls into something almost resembling a sneer.
“You… I… what?” My voice is nothing but a whisper. After all of my provoking and teasing, I think that ninety-nine percent of me didn’t actually believe that he’d reciprocate any romantic interest.
I was going to ask you on a date.
I can’t remember the last time that I was asked on a date and, up until a month ago, I was literally engaged.
