Chapter Fifteen
Emma
I cringed a bit to myself as I started up the stairs to get to my apartment, feeling the ache in my thighs, the tenderness between my legs, all the myriad twinges and soreness from the long night I’d had. I didn’t regret the night, but I definitely regretted the fact that I had three or four flights of stairs to go up before I would get to my apartment. Worth it, I told myself, smiling a bit.
Stefan had still been asleep when I’d woken up, about an hour before, and I’d spent about thirty minutes debating what to do. I could wait for him to wake up, and maybe see if he wanted to continue from where we’d left off the night before. But even apart from the fact that I wasn’t sure that my body could take another orgasm, much less the physical effort that went into making it happen, I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue things with him beyond what we’d had together.
I’d taken the five hundred dollars out of my purse and left it on the coffee table, tucked halfway under the bouquet I’d delivered from his mom, and I’d managed to find my clothes and get them on, all without waking him up. And then—knowing that while I had his number, he didn’t have mine—I’d slipped out of his apartment as quietly as possible, hurrying down to the ground floor and getting a Lyft.
I finally got up to my floor and saw that Gretchen was sitting in front of my door, waiting for me with the clothes she’d borrowed the night before in her lap. “I was wondering where the hell you were,” she said.
I raised an eyebrow. “I can’t imagine you had a very good night if you’re here this early,” I said, taking my keys out of my purse. I let us in and, glancing at Gretchen, went into the kitchen to start the coffee maker.
“I could say the same for you, except that you look like you had a pretty terrific night,” Gretchen teased.
“Well, I guess you could say that getting off nine times is a terrific night,” I told her. I looked in time to see my best friend’s eyes widen.
“Nine times? Wait, you hooked up with somebody? On Valentine’s Day?” I laughed and took mugs down from the cupboard and got the milk out of the fridge.
“I did indeed,” I said.
Gretchen sat down heavily at the kitchen table and stared at me. “Well? Are you going to give me the details or are you going to make me die of curiosity?”
I laughed again; in spite of the aches and pains—and, I suspected, a few bruises here and there—I was feeling better than I had felt in years.
“The cover model,” I said.
Gretchen rolled her eyes. “Oh, please,” she said. “Just admit you got drunk at some club and found a hot guy.”
“Nope,” I insisted. “He called the shop and was looking for me, ended up talking to Sabrina, and…” I shook my head. “Basically, it ended up with me pretending to be the girlfriend who dumped him so he wouldn’t lose face with his friends, and then at the end of the night…” I shrugged.
“Nine times?” Gretchen shook her head in disbelief.
“Yep,” I said. “We kept score.” I snickered, remembering how that had gone. Ginger had been right about one thing: it had been worth it if for no other reason than the story.
“Well, if he was able to get you off nine times in one night, I say pretend to get pregnant and make him marry you, so you can keep that in your life for the next eighteen years,” Gretchen joked.
I snorted and brought our coffees to the table. “Nah, I’m going to leave it a one-time thing,” I said. “I don’t think it would work out, anyway.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Gretchen stared at me frankly. “You find an actual romantic hero, and you’re going to chalk it up to a one-night stand?”
“He’s not a romantic hero, he’s a cover model,” I said. “And he was nice and all, but I just don’t think it’s really worth it.”
“Not worth it to make something happen with a guy who gets you off nine times?”
“It was a fluke,” I told her. “Besides, sex isn’t everything.”
“It’s a lot,” Gretchen countered. “Whatever. You’ll regret it later, and then I’ll get to hear all the juicy details when you’re mourning all the hot sex you could have had.”
I plugged in my phone and turned it on; I’d shut it down once I’d gotten in the Lyft, since the battery was close to being dead. I already had text messages from Ginger and Sabrina, asking for details about how the rest of my night had gone. It was a pretty standard date. Dinner, drinks, talking, I told them both. I wasn’t about to admit to them how it had really gone down; I knew they’d be even more against me ending it there than Gretchen was.
“How was your big Valentine’s date with David?” I listened as Gretchen talked about her date, realizing that for all I’d been pissed at her and Becky both for ditching me, I was actually kind of glad they had. If we’d ended up doing what we’d planned, it would have just been more or less any other ladies’ night. Instead, I’d had the best sex of my life for several hours before finally crashing and getting the best nap of my life. I was definitely going to need another nap before I did anything else that day.
“So, all in all, I feel like things might actually work out with me and David,” Gretchen finished.
“Sounds promising,” I agreed.
Gretchen looked at me for a long moment. “Look, I’m really sorry that Becky and I both ditched you yesterday. I wouldn’t have agreed to go out with David if I’d known that Becky had already made plans.” I crossed my arms over my chest and felt a twinge of sensitivity in my nipples.
“I think you probably would have,” I countered, but there wasn’t any anger in my voice. “Ultimately, it worked out: I got a great dinner and drinks, and hot sex. But I do want us to make it a rule from here on out that if we make plans, we stick to them. Well, unless we’re sick or land ourselves in the hospital or something.” I grinned.
“No ditching each other from here on out,” Gretchen agreed. She stuck out her hand, with her pinkie finger stuck up and the other four folded over her palm, and we turned it into a “pinkie-promise” before going back to our coffees.
“Got anything going on today?”
Gretchen yawned and nodded. “I actually need to leave for brunch in a bit,” she said, half-grimacing. “I promised some girls from work.”
“Brunch sounds good,” I pointed out.
“I wanted to make sure to come here first,” Gretchen told me. “Not just to give you back your dress, but, you know…”
“To apologize for putting your man-ho before your she-bro?”
Gretchen snickered. “Never again, I promise,” she said solemnly.
“We’re good,” I reassured her.
“You’re really not going to go out with him again?”
I shrugged. “Why ruin the magic? If I date him, then it’ll just be a normal relationship,” I said, wrinkling my nose in distaste. “This way I had a magic, romance-novel night with a stranger and now I can just have that memory forever with nothing to taint it.”
“You are entirely too cynical for someone who’s only had, what? Six or seven serious boyfriends in your life?” Gretchen wagged her finger at me.
“I believe in quality over quantity,” I said haughtily. “Besides, most guys are going to end up disappointing you one way or another. I want to be selective about how my future husband—if he shows up—will disappoint me.”
Bast climbed up into my lap purring, and I scratched her behind the ears.
“Fine, fine,” Gretchen said, shaking her head. “Becky is going to agree with me.”
“And neither of you are living my life,” I pointed out. “So your agreement on what I should do means nothing to me.” I grinned, and we moved onto other topics until it was time for Gretchen to go home to get ready for brunch. I locked the door behind her and yawned, still exhausted in spite of the coffee.
Bast followed me into my bedroom and curled up next to me as I sprawled out, feeling every muscle protest against my stretching. Images and memories from the night before flitted through my mind, putting acts to each twinge of soreness. I was pretty sure I had a bruise on one of my ankles from how hard Stefan had held it above his head while he plowed into me, but that was nothing a pair of socks couldn’t cover up until it healed. We had gone at it on probably every horizontal surface in his apartment: the couch, the kitchen table, the coffee table, one of the chairs, and we’d even managed to make it happen in the shower a couple of times before we’d both been so exhausted that we were ready to call it a night and finish in the bed.
Stefan had been true to his word: he had been ready every moment I had been, which had surprised me a bit. I’d never been with a guy who could actually keep up with my appetite, just a lot of guys who liked to talk, who would go on to make me feel bad when I wanted more sex after they’d finished once or twice. I thought about Gretchen’s scolding, and even though I wanted to stick to my idea of keeping it to one night, I couldn’t help but remember that I did have Stefan’s phone number. Don’t do it. He’ll just disappoint you in the long run. But in spite of that I found myself getting out of bed, walking into my living room, and looking at the receipt he’d scrawled his number on. Why I hadn’t thrown it away the night he’d given it to me, I wasn’t sure.
I debated back and forth for what felt like ages; it had been four hours since I’d slipped out of his apartment as quietly as I could, and objectively, I had to think that he probably would have been just as happy to keep it to a one-night fling as I was. I could keep it as one of the best memories I had, or I could tempt fate and call him.
“God, just call him, Em,” I told myself, shaking my head. “Worst-case scenario, he tells you it was great but he’s just not looking for anything serious.”
I unplugged my phone from the charger, brought it back to the couch, and dialed the number that Stefan had given me. I had a panicked moment where—paranoid—I thought he might have given me a fake number; but hadn’t he called the shop, looking for me? Obviously, he’d been interested enough to follow up somehow. He wouldn’t have given me a fake number. And just as I’d reached that conclusion, the call went straight to voicemail.
“You’ve reached Stefan Doss…” I listened to it and debated whether or not to leave a message. It went straight to voicemail, so I had to figure that he’d forgotten to plug his phone in the night before and it had died, like mine almost had.
I hung up before the automated message telling me how to leave a voicemail for him ended, and set my phone aside. Just as well. I’d indulged the temptation, and now it was past me.