Camden

That evening, Amber, James, Evander, Tony, and I met in the Mandarin Bar for a drink before dinner while we waited for Lizzy and Kate to return from their spa treatments. I knew from our collective past history that a nice stiff cocktail like the ones served in the bar at the Mandarin would be all the mending of fences required with these four. By round two, all had been forgotten, and we were laughing loud enough to draw glares from the rest of the guests in the bar. It was odd, nothing had changed, but I was starting to feel more like myself than I had in months–lighter somehow. When Lizzy arrived, she seemed to pick up on it as well. She cocked her head as she regarded me in her approach and suddenly a radiant smile crossed her face.

“There he is,” she said quietly to me as she kissed my cheek, beaming up at me. It was a little thing that my family had always said to one another when we were out of sorts but eventually emerged in a better place, and it showed on our faces. Hearing that from Lizzy suddenly made me feel a bit buoyant as I smiled down at her and kissed her on her forehead.

There wasn’t anyone I adored more than my baby sister. She had stood by my side these past few years even though I knew it had cost her enormously to do so. Someday, I hoped to repay her kindness, but for the moment I would hang on to her sweetness selfishly until I could, at some point, summon the nerve to let her go and spread her own wings.

Just as I was planning to order another round of cocktails for the group, Kate walked in, drawing my gaze like the fucking Pied Piper she always was. The massage had brought that rosy glow back into her cheeks that I had so admired when I’d first met her. Her hair was up in a wild wavy mass atop her head that I couldn’t help but imagine taking down and running my fingers through. She had on a simple little black dress that allowed her full breasts to sit in such a way that was wholly inviting and showed off all of her delicious curves in a manner that hinted at the kind of body that would bring a man to his knees. Her ensemble was accessorized perfectly with a beaming smile, the likes of which I hadn’t seen in days. My stomach lurched a bit in anticipation as I watched her draw near; the only problem was, she wasn’t alone.

“I ran into Matt on my way down. Is it okay if he joins us?” she asked innocently.

Not wanting to do anything to upend that brilliant smile of hers, I turned on my one-thousand-watt smile to greet her and said a bit too jovially, “Of course! The more, the merrier!”

I shook Matt’s hand as he joined the crowd. While I wasn’t even remotely thrilled to see Matt, I was happy to know that Lizzy and Kate had seemed to be getting on again. The two gushed at one another like sisters, and that alone had the effect of warming me…a bit.

“Well, since everyone’s arrived, shall we head to the bar?”

“I thought this was the bar?” Kate asked, obviously confused.

“It is, but I’m taking you…to the molecular bar,” I said dramatically as I swiveled Kate’s entire body to the bar behind her and ushered her toward a bank of stools at the hotel’s most exclusive dining destination. There were only eight seats in total, and they only did two seatings a day, making this Michelin-starred restaurant one of the toughest reservations in town. I had made the booking just hours ago and felt sure that the concierge had likely had to bump another group to accommodate us. The twinge of guilt that I felt for stealing someone else’s likely unforgettable, eighteen-course molecular gastronomy experience was a small price to pay for putting smiles back on everyone’s faces again. What good was it being a celebrity if you couldn’t throw your weight around once in a while for the hell of it?

The rest of the group quickly claimed seats around the bar that resembled a sushi bar more so than one for beverages. Like musical chairs, however, I had managed to screw myself yet again out of the seat next to Kate. I watched a bit forlornly as Matt dropped in next to her and Lizzy, boxing me out once more.

With limited options for myself, I headed down to Siberia at the opposite side of the bar and parked in a semi-secluded corner, feeling a bit like a third wheel at my own party. I watched everyone engaging excitedly with one another as they took in all of the strange foams and containers steaming with liquid nitrogen behind the counter and a bar-length display of small spinning dishes of garnish seemingly suspended in midair via some magnetic trick of the eye. Everyone seemed enthralled already, despite the fact that not a crumb had even been served yet. I couldn’t help but smile at everyone’s evident delight. My enjoyment, however, was interrupted as Kate made brief eye contact with me from across the bar. Her gaze narrowed as she seemed to momentarily mull something over in that pretty little head of hers and then she gracefully rose with the faintest hint of a smile and made her way over to Tony, who was about to seat himself beside me.

“Would you mind terribly if I switched with you, Tony?”

He was, of course, stunned as he exchanged a surprised glance with me. “Not at all,” he said, throwing me a knowing grin before relinquishing his stool and heading to the seat that Kate had just vacated at the other end of the bar.

“Do you mind?” Kate asked, not backing down an inch from my own gaze as she poised her hand on the vacant chair.

“Nothing would make me happier,” I told her, still a bit taken aback as I pulled the chair out for her, brushing her hand gently with mine in the process and feeling a gentle charge surge through me at the contact.

As I settled into my own seat, I had a momentary sense of calm to have her so close and Castell so far. I regarded him for just a second as I watched him regale my sister with a story, seemingly undaunted by Kate’s departure, and looked on as Lizzy’s cherubic face lit up like the Fourth of July. It was sweet, really.

I turned my attention back to Kate, who was busy arranging herself in her chair and ordering a glass of champagne from our server. My calm was suddenly replaced with an odd nervousness, which wasn’t a sensation I was used to when it came to women. As of late, bars had become a bit of a pussy buffet for me. I’d pick out a woman I wanted to fuck, approach her, order a bottle of something expensive with two glasses, and seal the deal. It wasn’t rocket science, but with Kate, I didn’t actually know where things stood at this point. Had she forgiven me? Where exactly did we go from here? I wondered as I watched her intently.

“You look lovely tonight, Kate. I hope it’s alright to say that,” I said cautiously, trying to carefully gauge her mood as I took a sip of a dangerously potent sake Bellini that had been set in front of me as part of the first course from the prix fixe menu that we would all be enjoying.

Kate turned to me with an upbeat grin. “Of course. What girl doesn’t love a polite compliment?” she said with a gloriously naughty gleam in her eye, just before leaning in and whispering in my ear. “And I’m sure you won’t mind me telling you that those jeans are doing amazing things to showcase that very impressive package of yours tonight, as well.”

Almost instantaneously, my cocktail was spewed all over the bar. I nearly fell out of my chair, drawing eyes from the rest of the group and immediate assistance from a slew of restaurant staff who came at me from all corners of the room as Kate laughed her ass off. The fuss that was being made around me as I tried to regain my composure was an irritation that I swatted away impatiently as Kate continued to laugh at me.

“Bloody hell, Kate!”

“I hope it wasn’t something I said,” she mused with an air of faux innocence. “I didn’t make you uncomfortable, did I?” she said with a grin.

I glared at her playfully as I wiped down my shirt with a napkin from the pile that the chef had laid in front of me.

“Just a little payback, Atwood.”

“Well played,” I said with a laugh. “I take it you’re feeling better, then?” I said with just a hint of residual bitterness as I dabbed at the droplets around my spot at the counter.

“I am, actually. Thank you very much for the massage.”

“Yes, well I had assumed that the massage and a nice dinner would be enough to even the score between us, but it would seem that that was a miscalculation.”

“You know what they say about assuming things, Cam,” she said in a melodic tone as she casually draped her elbow on the bar and eyed me intently. “I’m afraid you were in the wrong, hon. The score is even when I say it is.”

I met her gaze with a grin and something in me at that moment recognized that whatever confusion I’d had just hours ago about my feelings for her was now obsolete. The challenge inherent in Kate’s eyes made me want her more than I think I had ever wanted another woman, and I knew for a fact that I was going to enjoy every minute of pursuing her.

“Is that right?” I said, mirroring her stance as though accepting whatever gauntlet she had planned to lay down.

“Yep,” she said simply as the chef laid what they called “Carmel Corn” on the table which was essentially a smooth, creamy corn concoction that had been frozen in liquid nitrogen and then run through a cellophane-thin layer of caramel and displayed prettily on a delicate pedestal like an edible prize of some sort. I, of course, had missed the entire elaborate preparation as I was too busy being beguiled by the confection seated next to me, but could not have cared less.

“Besides which, Atwood,” she continued, “you and I both know that you’re just going to charge all of this nonsense back to your room. Then about a month from now, I’m going to get a call from the studio asking me to explain why they should cover the cost of a Michelin-star dinner for you and seven of your friends and massages for half your team, so ultimately—not really a win for me in the long run. A little fun at your expense, however, is far more satisfying,” she said, giving me that beautiful, confident smile that I had seen the day we first met.

“There she is,” I said with a grin.

“Pardon?” she said, not understanding my quip.

“Nothing. I’m just happy to have you back. The girl I met at my house a few weeks back has been sorely missed on this trip, I’m afraid.”

Kate shook her head regretfully. “I’ll admit I was a bit intimidated by this whole…situation, but I’ve got my big girl panties on now, so you’d better buckle up,” she said definitively, taking another sip of champagne.

One thing was for sure; I didn’t not like hearing her mention her panties, even if only in passing.

“So, I suppose I should get used to not having the upper hand where you’re concerned, then?”

“If you can get it, Atwood, it’s all yours, but I’m not gonna just give it to you.”

I couldn’t help but gather a far more profound meaning in what she had just said and smiled feeling as though it was “game on” where she was concerned. A wave of excitement washed over me. This was going to be fun, I thought, unable to wipe the shit-eating grin off my face. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Amber just a few seats away from me; she was watching Kate and me like we were a new reality series on Bravo, and she fully planned to “Watch What’s Happening.”

She gave me an approving wink and mouthed, “Make her come to you.”

I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. There was, of course, nothing more awkward than having the girl you used to fuck give you advice on pursuing the girl you hoped to be fucking, but I knew somehow that I’d do well to heed her advice. It was that realization that had made the rest of the evening entirely enjoyable. Having discarded my usual, somewhat predatory approach with Kate, she relaxed, and as a result, so did I.

“Help me with this, will you, Atwood?” she said as she tried to maneuver a weird little metal implement she had procured from the fancy mini-toolbox that was meant to suffice as a set of cutlery for this course. She was trying unsuccessfully to free meat from the tiny little ornate crab that now sat on her plate, a task that I had already completed. I feigned annoyance and assisted her with her fussy crustacean.

“What is this ‘Atwood’ business, by the way?” I asked as I forcibly released a hunk of meat onto her plate.

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “You insist on calling me Katie, so I guess now I have a nickname for you, as well.”

“That’s one explanation, I suppose.”

“You have a problem with that?”

“Not in theory, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this blossoming familiarity is more your effort to try and ‘friend-zone’ me,” I said as I nonchalantly raised a fork of food to my own lips.

She turned to me abruptly, freezing in mid-chew. I didn’t back down an inch from her steady gaze.

“Is that what you’re trying to do?” I demanded as she slowly stabbed the tiny piece of meat that I had just neatly arranged on her plate with her fork and guided it slowly and thoughtfully to her mouth. The whole proceeding momentarily transfixing me as I observed her.

“So, what if it is?” she said, trying to hide that she was a bit annoyed to have been found out so quickly.

I sighed. “Look, I told you, no more funny business, Prescott. I’m going to be a perfect gentleman from here on in. If you can put the attraction between us aside, then so can I,” I said blandly as I waved for the server to top off both of our champagne glasses. Kate just stared at me for a moment, uncertain of her next move. Upper hand achieved.

“Ok. Good then,” Kate said, clumsily knocking a knife on the floor, visibly a bit rattled.

“To friendship,” I said with a grin as I held up my glass.

She paused for just a second, trying to regain her composure, as a waiter retrieved the fallen cutlery. “To friendship,” she repeated, clinking my glass with hers.

We locked eyes for a moment longer than perhaps we should have, both absorbing the challenge of the other and the palpable energy between us until the first of five dessert courses began to be served.

It’s worth noting, I suppose, that the champagne never stopped flowing at our end of the bar as though neither of was willing to be crowned the “lightweight” of our pair. We had each been holding our own, but I had to admit that I was starting to feel it a bit. While there had been eighteen courses served each had been minuscule, and I felt certain had done nothing to tamp down the effects of all of the bubbly that we had just mindlessly consumed. When the last plate had been cleared, and the chef had wowed us with his final trick of the night, pulling a delicate paper crane from a seemingly unbroken eggshell and presenting it to Kate, the rest of my guests and I applauded the fantastic meal with gusto.

I eyed the rest of the group as they finished up their drinks and engaged in lively conversation, no doubt exchanging notes on which courses had been the most mind-blowing. I smiled. Mission accomplished.

I couldn’t resist making one last dig at Kate, though. I cleared my throat to get her attention as I handed my AMEX black card to the server to run.

“You just let me know when our score is settled, okay, Prescott?”

“I’ll keep you posted, Atwood.”

God, this was fun, I thought as Kate and I grinned at each other. Matt Castell, of course, had other plans for my good mood as he decided to steal the show once again. Bastard!

“Who’s up for a late-night swim? The pool has an amazing view of the city. You gotta see it.”

The group was quickly warming to the idea of spending the rest of the night poolside. Despite the fact that I would have killed to see what Kate’s petite, but eye-catchingly curvaceous little body looked like in a bikini, there was no way in hell that I was going to share that view with the likes of Matt Castell. Much to my great joy, though, Kate immediately declined the outing.

“I should really get to bed,” she said. “Cam and I have to be up at the crack of dawn for the morning talk shows.”

“Ahh, the hardships of being the leading man,” Matt said with a teasing grin. “I don’t start until eleven tomorrow. I’m hitting the pool, who’s with me?” And to my utter delight, everyone but Tony funneled out of the restaurant following Matt to the pool.

Tony and I exchanged a knowing look across the bar before he also rose from his seat. “I’m gonna go check your room and make sure it’s secure.”

I thanked Tony with my eyes from the bottom of my heart.

“Cam, it’s totally cool if you want to hit the pool, too. I trust that as my new ‘friend’ you won’t stay up all night and will show up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning at 7:00 am,” she said with the tiniest hint of a slur belying the impending drunkenness that was beginning to ascend upon her, as well.

I grinned at her. She never ceased to amuse me. “I’m glad you feel that way, ‘friend,’ but in truth, I don’t really have any interest in the pool right now. I was actually thinking of hitting the pizza bar for a late-night slice.”

“Wait, what?” she asked with furrowed brow.

“Did I stutter?”

“Cam, we just ate!” she said a bit louder than she had intended.

“Shh,” I cautioned.

“You were just served eighteen painstakingly prepared courses of delicious food at a critically acclaimed Tokyo gem, and you want to wash it all down with a pizza?”

“That may all be true, love, but tell me you’re not still fucking hungry.”

Kate just sat and stared at me, trying to stifle a grin, as I rose and took the first few steps away from the bar, seemingly uncaring of whether she was in this with me or not. I eventually turned back to her with my hand proffered.

“Are you coming or not? The train’s leaving the station.”

She briefly regarded the chefs cleaning up their over-the-top artistry and laughed in spite of herself just before skipping over to me like a kid ready to get into mischief and took my hand.

---

Now, if by some miracle Kate and I ended up together, and ten years from now our children asked what we did on our first date, I would describe this meal. Because while Kate would be loath to admit that she had agreed to go out with me while she had been supposedly “on duty,” in my opinion, if it looked like a date and felt like a date…it was indeed a date. I had asked, she had accepted, and we even momentarily walked hand in hand to our date night destination, and I was sure as shit going to pick up the bill. Admittedly, I may have tricked the lovely Kate into said date, but in my book, it was a date, nonetheless.

At the Italian restaurant on the thirty-eighth floor of our hotel, Kate and I had sidled up to yet another bar. This hotel seemed to never tire of them. This one was a sleek, white marble affair anchored by a giant flaming pizza oven that cast a subtly romantic glow on the room. Despite the luminous marble, the restaurant was dimly lit and surprisingly cozy in its emptiness as all of the evening’s customers had likely long since gone.

The two of us ordered up a piping hot margherita pizza, which they called a Bufala, to share just before the kitchen had closed. We had both been eager to try pizza in Japan and weren’t disappointed. It was precisely what the doctor ordered to ward off an impending hangover. We, however, stupidly ordered yet another bottle of champagne, immediately bonding over our mutual love of mixing expensive champagne with mundane foods like pizza or tacos. We fell into easy conversation the way that I wished we had back in Toronto before I had made a mess of things. I told her funny stories from set, of course, throwing in a few at Matt Castell’s expense. Kate confided in me about Evelyn’s ill-fated foray into BDSM with their firm’s accountant, which had me laughing to the point of agony, which unfortunately had had the added effect of drawing attention to our perch at the bar to passersby. Within minutes, our once private counter was met with a string of young Japanese women nervously requesting my autograph in slightly broken English. I was always happy to oblige and signed napkins and placemats with a smile.

“Sorry about this,” I said to Kate, who watched as I signed everything that was put in front of me.

“It’s fine. I understand,” she said as the last autograph seeker thanked me and left our spot.

“I know I should be grateful and my fans are amazing, but sometimes I miss just being able to go out to dinner without a fuss. Is that awful to say?”

“No. I don’t think that’s awful at all. I can understand that.”

I stared at her unconvinced. “You think I’m being shitty, don’t you? You can admit it,” I teased.

Kate laughed. “I actually don’t. Believe it or not, I kind of know how you feel.”

“I know you’ve been around this for a while, but you really have no idea.”

“Actually, I do, smarty pants!” she said defiantly.

“Oh, really?” I crossed my arms, challenging her to elaborate.

“It so happens…that I had a very, very short brush with fame myself.”

I smiled, feeling certain that I was finally on the cusp of getting to know this woman whom I now desperately wanted to know inside and out. “Do tell!”

“If you must know…I was a reality TV star for two years, starting when I was fourteen,” She said quickly moshing the words together, clearly trying to gloss over the bombshell nature of this information.

“Fuck off!” I said in utter delight.

Kate covered her face. “I can’t believe I just told you that. Fuck! I get so chatty when I drink, and then I say things…”

“Fucking awesome things! You’d better get on with it now, Prescott.” I leaned in, hungrily wanting more.

“Ugh!” She shifted in her seat nearly knocking over her champagne glass in the process. I quickly moved it away from her, wanting no more interruption.

“Go on.”

She sighed. “It’s really not that big of a deal. I was on this stupid Lifetime reality show called Theater Kids,” she said in a dramatically embarrassed tone. “The show followed the lives of children trying to make it on Broadway and the stage moms who managed them.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of it,” I admitted.

“That’s not surprising since I’m generally considered the one responsible for its demise.”

“This is really too good, Katie. Continue, please.”

Kate smiled at me as I hung on her every word. “I hated the show more than life,” she confided. “I can sing a bit, but I was never going to be like playing Annie on the Great White Way or anything like that. I never had that thing, you know, plus, I didn’t want it that badly. My mother, on the other hand, lived and died for that show. She wanted to be famous but never really had any stand-out talent of her own, so this was the perfect arrangement for her. Pimp out your kid and become a household name.”

“That sounds dreadful,” I said frowning a bit now as I noticed her demeanor darken ever so slightly.

“It was, especially since she was the table flipper.”

“Table flipper?”

“You know, the crazy one. The one whom the fans loved because she did insane things that got ratings. She slapped a casting director who took a phone call during my audition once. She even went so far as to lock a rival in the bathroom so that they would miss their audition– stuff like that. It was nuts.”

“You’re fucking kidding?”

“I wish I were. My mother wanted all eyes on her and would do anything to get it, even if it was at my expense. I knew halfway through season-one that being in the spotlight was for sure not for me. So, when I turned sixteen, I’d had enough and filed paperwork to get emancipated from her and quit the show.”

“Emancipated? Really?” I said regarding her a bit more seriously now.

“Yeah. I don’t know. I just wanted to have a normal life without having to be the sideshow in In Touch magazine to my mom’s antics or signing autographs for kids who for some reason thought my dysfunctional life was cool.”

Something shifted in Kate’s tone that had made this story turn from National Enquirer gossip to something far more personal and a bit melancholy.

“Anyway, my departure from the show inadvertently meant that my mom had to quit the show, too. You can’t be a momager without a theater kid, so that ended things for her. The show got canceled the next season, which meant, spotlight off and a one-way ticket back to Pittsburgh.

“Pittsburgh? Is that where you’re from?”

“Suburbs,” she nodded. Anyway, she sadly hasn’t really forgiven me for the whole thing,” she said, training her gaze downward as she fiddled with the napkin on her lap with a labored exhale.

Her expression slowly darkened, and I desperately wanted to return her to the good mood of just a few minutes ago.

“Wow. That was like the sort of story that you’d tell a good ‘friend,’ huh?”

Kate cracked a smile. “Yeah, I guess we’re off to a decent start.”

Just then, another female fan approached the table to request that I take a photo with her. Like a good publicist, Kate offered to take the picture for us, but the fan insisted that it had to be a selfie, so I simply leaned in for the shot, and the fan skipped off happily.

“Why is everyone so obsessed with selfies these days?” I asked, trying to move to a new subject smoothly.

“I don’t know. I guess there’s something more like—authentic about taking your own photo,” she said with a bit of a drunken exhilaration. “It’s not staged or someone else’s view of you. It captures the moment just as it was. Which, quite frankly, you should be doing more of. Your social footprint is pretty shitty, Atwood.”

“Oh, here we go! Katie’s back in publicist mode.”

“No, no. I’m not, but you’ve got really good abs. You should have more followers.”

I busted out laughing. “You like my abs, huh?”

Kate blushed the most beautiful shade of crimson. “Not me, Cam, but I imagine there are people out there who would be into…what you’ve got going on there,” she said waving a hand at my general torso area. I literally couldn’t stop laughing.

“It’s not funny, Cam. Social media is incredibly important. You have to let your fans like—into your world and stuff these days.”

I loved tipsy Katie. “Well, let’s do one now, then.”

“Do one what?”

“A selfie!”

I immediately slid in closer to Kate and wrapped my arm around her before she could protest, poised my camera phone overhead to capture us and the remaining carcass of our Japanese/Italian feast, and hit the button to take the photo. The camera, however, was set to the burst function and unexpectedly took multiple shots automatically and captured a series of images of Kate as she giggled with alarm and squirmed to get out of my arms and the picture.

“Cam! I don’t want to be in your selfies.”

“Why not? I thought you wanted us to be friends, love?”

“I do, but…”

“But nothing. If we’re friends, you’re ‘part of my world and stuff’ as you so eloquently put it.”

Kate held up a warning finger and narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t you dare post that, or we are no longer friends, Atwood.”

She slid off her stool, now focused on exiting, but there was no mistaking it now—Kate was tipsy, and almost the moment that she rose from her chair, she tripped over her own feet. I, however, was lightning fast and caught her once again. God, I would never grow tired of holding her in my arms. I tucked a stray lock that had come loose behind her ear, as now had become my compulsion, and looked into her eyes for just a moment, wanting to linger in their beauty for a bit longer but acknowledged the fatigue that lay beyond them. It had been a ridiculously long day, and I knew it was time to be the gentleman I’d promised her I’d be and walk her to her door.

“You look tired, love. Let’s get you to bed.”

Kate smiled gratefully and seemingly realized that she was a bit more intoxicated than she had expected. As a result, there was no protest when I slung my arm around her waist to guide her out of the restaurant.

She had grown quiet once we were in the elevator. We stood side by side, both attempting to maintain a sense of nonchalance. I knew we were both acutely aware that with each passing floor we were nearing a very uncertain end to our evening. Fuck, this elevator was slow.

I chanced a glance at Kate. “You alright, dove?”

Kate smiled up at me. “Dove. That’s so Britishy,” she said with a silly grin.

“I am a Brit, so sometimes that does happen.” Fuck, she was so cute like this, I thought while continually reminding myself to be a gentleman, which was getting more difficult by the minute, especially since we were more or less trapped in this confined space—her body teasing me as she swayed closer and closer to me.

Suddenly, she clasped my hand in both of hers, startling me a bit. “Cam, you’re not going to post that photo, are you?”

“What?”

“That photo you took. Evelyn will absolutely kill me. Like, she will murder me. Dead.”

She looked up at me with the most hopeful, pleading expression, and my heart lurched a bit just to look at her.

“Well, I don’t want you to die, love, so of course I won’t post it if you don’t want me to. I promise,” I said, stroking her face gently with my free hand. She squeezed my hand in gratitude, and I began to enjoy how tactile she had suddenly become. She was slowly killing me, though. It was taking all of my restraint to not just take her in my arms and reacquaint myself with those perfect bee-stung lips of hers. After what seemed like an eternity, we reached our floor. I held Kate tightly to me as we meandered a bit up to her door.

“Do you want to come in for one more drink?” she asked as she scanned her key card in the door and pushed into the room, nearly tripping over the carpet.

“Sweets, I think we’ve both had enough for tonight. How about we just get you to bed. Early morning, remember?”

“Right,” she said earnestly as she wandered off toward her bed and sat down.

I noted that her room was nearly a quarter of the size of mine but somehow just being in her presence made this feel like the more luxurious room as I allowed myself to be drawn in a bit farther, acutely aware of the door closing rapidly behind me. I watched in amusement as she began fiddling with the straps to her heels, trying to free her feet of them, but to no avail.

“Here, let me help you,” I said reluctantly as I kneeled in front of her, making easy work of unbuckling first her left shoe and then the right. “Better?” I asked as my eyes rose to meet hers.

Our eyes locked and before I could think, her lips were on mine, her hands lustful as they cradled either side of my face, and in an instant, I could feel my entire body come alive as if for the very first time. I slid my hands up her thighs, steadying myself as I took over the kiss, putting weeks of my own pent-up desire for her into every lick as my tongue explored her mouth hungrily. When Kate wrapped her arms around my neck and ran her fingers seductively through my hair, a thrilling charge shot up my spine, and I nearly lost it. In mere seconds, I could feel my arousal instantly surge almost to the point of no return.

As she pulled me on top of her, the now considerable bulge straining through my jeans made contact with the apex of her thighs, and it felt like Heaven. I groaned, and it took only that moment of pure ecstasy for me to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this woman would own me.

Kate grasped at the hem of my shirt, lifting it just enough to allow her hands to make contact with the bare skin of my abs. Fuck, that felt amazing! She ran her hands up their ridges, hungrily acquainting herself with my body in the most delicious way before letting her hands glide to my back, pulling me closer to her as she grabbed at my skin with lust, almost painfully so. She was completely uninhibited and in-the-moment, and it was sexy as fuck. I could feel just how badly she wanted me, and it matched my own desperate need to be inside of her.

I ran my palm up her toned calf as I continued to devour her lips greedily and gave her leg an authoritative tug as I wrapped it behind me to give myself more purchase to grind into her. A pleasured moan followed by a whispered “Oh, God” crossed her lips as I surmised she had gotten just a hint of my size as I readied myself to plow into her. I broke our kiss for just a moment as a quick buzzing on Kate’s bedside table momentarily distracted me. I could kill myself for looking away from this beautiful woman for even a second, but that was all it took to see the text that had come through on Kate’s mobile from Evelyn. Just two words:

All good?

I looked back at Kate, lying beneath me. Her lust-filled emerald gaze bore into me.

“Don’t stop,” she plead.

It was exactly what I wanted to do. Not stop. To just lose myself in her as long as she would have me, but I knew that the reality of the situation was that as soon as Kate sobered up, she would regret this. She would regret me, and that would just kill me.

I’m not sure where I summoned the restraint from, but I managed to pull myself away from the most perfect, lust-filled kiss of my life and rolled myself away from her, out of breath and trying desperately to slow my racing heart and mind.

“Don’t go,” she said with a plea in her gaze as she stroked my cheek gently.

I couldn’t believe what I was about to do.

“There is literally nothing I would rather do more,” I said, “but I think I should go.”

My heart broke a little as I saw the dejected look that crossed her face. “Please don’t be mad at me, Katie,” I said as I caressed her sweet face and dropped another slow but far more chaste kiss on her lips. “I’ll see you in the morning, love.”

One final kiss to her forehead and I took my leave, not looking back for fear that if I looked into those beautiful emerald eyes again, I wouldn’t have the strength to leave.

---

Once I had returned to my own room and settled into my own bed, I lie awake, replaying the evening in my head and wondering if I had made some horrible mistake or if for the first time in a long time, I had perhaps just done the right thing. I fumbled in the darkness for my mobile, which lay on the bedside table beside me. As it came back to life, I hit the camera icon allowing me to scroll through the photos that I had taken that evening. Since my camera had been set to the burst function when I had taken that selfie with Kate, it had captured more than a dozen photos of the two of us, almost all of them horrible except the very last one in the series. It was a perfect photo of the two of us looking into each other’s eyes with huge smiles alighting our faces. It was the very image of a happy couple, and I suddenly knew that what I wanted more than anything was for Kate and me to eventually be just that.