It wasn’t until the sunlight tore through the crack in the curtains that I allowed my eyes to flutter open and let reality set in. That’s the thing about drifting off to another world—when you arrive back home, it can take you a while to gather your bearings. A few blinks aimed at the ceiling and I soon began to recognise the place.

I was back in my apartment in the middle of Leeds.

The weight of a girl in my arms had me smiling, and I closed my eyes for just a second as I waited for Natalie Vincent to release that sleepy moan of hers before demanding some form of caffeine in a hurry.

The groan came a few seconds later, but it sounded different, sharper and less content. It sounded unsure and…

Shit.

It sounded like someone else because it was someone else. I opened my eyes slowly. The smile faded from my face and the colour drained from my cheeks as I remained completely still, unable to move for fear of, well, everything.

The memories of screwing a girl named Tasha attacked me, and as if serving as further proof, all my muscles throbbed proudly after their overexertion through hours upon hours of our mindless sexcapades. That was all well and good for them in the post got-laid haze, but for the rest of me, the parts that would actually have to deal with getting rid of this woman I barely knew, things were about to get real fucking real.

“Morning,” Tasha croaked quietly, the sleep making her voice sound rough as she rolled onto her back, freeing me of her touch and allowing me to pull my arm slowly away from her. The imprint of her hair was all over my skin.

“Um. Morning,” I whispered back as I pretended to be half asleep.

“What… what time is it?”

I ran my hands up and down my face. “No idea.”

With a few groans of her own, she swung her legs off the bed and reached for her phone. “Shit. It’s after ten.”

“Crap,” I answered, not really giving the time much thought. My head was spinning with acceptable ways I could get rid of her. Maybe I could tell her I was married after all and my wife was on her way home. Or I could go make her some toast and burn it, setting off the fire alarm for the whole building, just to get her out of here…

Get a grip, Marcus.

I began to squint against the sunlight as I sat up in bed only to see Tasha scurrying around my bedroom trying to find her clothes.

“Everything okay?” I asked her.

Her head snapped up to me as she fanned out her skirt and made to step inside it. With her makeup smeared pretty much everywhere and her hair all limp, I got a closer glimpse into the person she was behind all the other stuff. Tasha was beautiful, there was no denying that, but the confidence that had been there the night before had vanished the morning after, and once the fake eyelashes had been pulled off, the uncertainty shone from her eyes like two neon signs of doubt.

“Yes,” she answered quietly.

“You sure?”

“I… I didn’t mean to stay this late.”

“Yeah, I guess we were both pretty tired after last night.”

She nodded slowly, biting her lip as she looked down and concentrated on getting dressed.

“Sorry. If I’d known you had somewhere to be, I’d have set my alarm or something.”

“I don’t,” she snapped back quickly but quietly, shaking her head as she hooked her bra over her shoulders and went to fasten the clasp at the back. “There’s nowhere else I need to be.”

“Okay.” I frowned. “Do you want me to get you something to eat? Or a drink before you leave?”

“No. It’s fine. You don’t have to do that.” Her movements became shakier, more urgent, as she looked around for her top in desperation.

“I know I don’t have to, but...”

“Really, Marcus. It’s okay. I’ll just get my stuff together and I’ll be gone.”

Despite wanting her to leave—my own embarrassment and unease still at the forefront of my mind—I pushed up against the headboard of my bed and folded my arms anyway.

“Tasha?”

“I’ll be two minutes.”

“Tasha?”

“I’ll just use your bathroom and get out of here.”

“Tasha!” I barked, my tone firm and even, causing her to flinch before she stopped in her tracks and looked up at me slowly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she answered, looking away briefly before she dared herself to glance back up at me. “I just… I don’t usually stay this long with a guy, that’s all. I know they like to have me gone before they wake up so they don’t have to see…”

“You want to finish that sentence?” I asked, raising a brow.

“Not particularly.”

“For me… please?”

Dropping her one shoe to the floor, Tasha’s arms went limp by her sides before she casually used her hands to showcase her face and her body to me. “Fine. Guys like you… they usually like to have me gone before they wake up so they don’t have to see this—the morning after the night before. The unsure girl without all the makeup and big hair to hide behind.”

“Guys like me?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Wow,” I mouthed.

“I know what I am, Marcus. I know what I’m good for. I know the purpose I serve.”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure I do. You’re going to have to expand on that for this idiot over here. It may or may not have gone by unnoticed, but I’m not clued up on all this sleeping around lingo and the shitty code of conduct that comes with it.”

Tasha swallowed quietly. “I’m the one-night stand girl.”

“Says who?”

“Everyone.”

“And what if I’m not like everyone else?”

She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut before she let her lashes flutter and focused on me again. “I was awake before you this morning. I haven’t really overslept. I was just enjoying lying like that with a man. It's not something I've experienced a lot of in my life. It felt nice to have my cheek resting on your chest. But then you woke up and as soon as you realised it was me beside you, you tensed.”

“Wait…”

“Like I said.” She smiled a sad smile filled with defeat. “It’s okay. You didn’t ask for me to waltz into your life, screw you and stay. So I’m going to go now.”

My hands came up to create a pyramid over my mouth as the reality of what she saw herself as and, more importantly, what I’d done to her sank in. The confidence she’d shown me last night, now clearly all a charade, had convinced me that she wanted me to use her and that she wouldn’t stop until she’d had her way. Never once had she let me think that bringing her back here and screwing her seven ways from Sunday would leave her feeling worthless.

Tasha let out a soft sigh and began to gather up her things again.

“Tasha,” I said, dropping my hands to the mattress and pushing myself up until I was crawling across it to get closer to her. The sheets eventually fell away from my waist, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. A woman was here, and she was hurting because of me. Suddenly my own vanity wasn’t important.

“I’ll be gone in a minute.”

“No, you won’t.”

Before she could see me or move away, I’d slid from the bed, made my way across the room and was grabbing her by the shoulders. She was so light and soft in the palms of my hands that my next move didn’t really take much thought. In a breath, I’d spun her around in my grip, moved my hands to her face to cup her cheeks, and I’d pressed my lips to hers.

She resisted at first. Her shoulders tensed until her whole body went rigid. I could feel it from the tips of her toes, up through her legs until it made her spine as tense as iron. But I pressed on, eventually coaxing her lips apart with my tongue until our breaths were mingling again, and she began to relax. Her body turned to caramel in my hands, and the moment she moaned softly into my mouth, I moved one hand from her face and slid it around to support her back.

I should have been desperate to get rid of her, and a part of me was, but the more she relaxed into me and the harder I began to get, nothing else seemed to matter but reassuring this girl in front of me that she was just as worthy of having sex with a man when he was sober as she was when he was drunk.

I stepped forward, moving her until the backs of her knees hit the side of the bed. I took that as my cue to lean her down onto the mattress. When our mouths broke apart, I watched her as I hovered above her. Tasha’s eyes remained closed, but her swollen lips parted slowly. Her legs dangled from the bed, and I leaned over, pressing one fist into the sheets beside her head. I ran my thumb under her eyes to remove the excess mascara from the night before, then I let it run down to the edge of her mouth, where a few dots of red lipstick remained, all smudged and out of the lines. My smile was genuine as I rubbed those away and watched her lips part even farther as she revelled in my touch.

Dragging a finger down her cheek, I let it roam over her neck before it went on a path of discovery between her breasts. Tasha’s breath hitched as she came to life beneath my fingertips again.

“Open your eyes,” I told her in a whisper.

“What are you doing?” she dared herself to ask.

“What every guy who is lucky enough to sleep with you should have done before me. I’m showing you that you’re worthy of affection, of some time. I’m showing you that I’m stone cold sober this morning, and if it’s possible, I want you even more than I wanted you last night when I was drunk.”

“But…”

Confusion littered her face, and had this woman come into my life at another time and in another place, who knows how much time I’d have spent putting her right on everything she’d learned about herself that was wrong. But I’d been there before. I’d tried to save too many innocents, and in the end, I’d only somehow hurt them even more. I couldn’t do that again.

“If you want me to stop, just say, and I’ll let you go.”

“N-no,” she stuttered breathlessly. “Don’t stop.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded against the mattress, her hair rustling as she smiled shyly. “You’re even more handsome in the daylight.”

“You, lady, are full of compliments, aren’t you?”

“I forgot how good you looked naked, that’s all. You’re incredible.”

I silenced her with another small kiss before I pulled back one final time. “I want to be honest with you, if you’ll let me be, before we go any further.”

“Okay,” she whispered, barely making a sound.

I brushed a strand of hair away from her face and sighed. “Last night you walked into a pub and you made a guy who hasn’t had much reason to smile for a few weeks smile hard. If someone had asked me yesterday if I’d be able to take a woman I didn’t know to bed and lose myself in her the way I lost myself in you, I’d have called them crazy.”

She pressed her lips together, trying to hold back her smile.

“And, as grateful as I am for that, I don’t want to fill you with false promises just so I can get laid again. I want you to know that I can’t get into anything more than this with you. Once you walk out of that door today, this will be over. I’m not in a good place right now. I don’t want you to look at me or hear my words and think this is me fobbing you off because I’m not. I’m not that kind of guy. You can go around and ask everyone in Calverley and they’ll tell you the same thing.”

“I believe you,” she breathed.

“But if you’re okay with that, knowing that I am definitely okay with having you here a while longer, I’d love to get lost in you again and show you how a good man can treat you when he’s sober.”

“I think I’d like that.” She smiled brighter, showing her white teeth to me fully for the first time.

“I’ll even make you some breakfast after.”

“Poached eggs on toast?”

I huffed out a laugh and gave her a small nod. “If you promise me one thing?”

“What’s that?”

“That after this, you’ll stop pretending you’re okay with being used by jerks like me for just one night. And if you decide it’s what you want to keep on doing then that’s great. But make sure it’s for you, and for the love of God, don’t you dare act so ashamed the morning after.”

Tilting her head against the bed, she narrowed her eyes and studied me for some time before she spoke. A sheen of moisture coated her eyes, and it was impossible to miss the way she kept gulping down her emotion to try hide it from me. It was okay. I was okay with seeing all of it. I understood. I felt it, too.

Sometimes, two fucked up people come together and see a reflection of each other staring back at them, and suddenly neither one of them feels so alone.

That’s what Tasha did to me that morning. It’s what she’d done to me the night before, and even though I wasn’t used to being part of a fuck and run scenario, I knew as I looked down on her that she’d been a good thing for me, and hopefully, I’d been a good thing for her, too.

“Whoever you end up with is the luckiest woman on Earth,” she whispered. “Do you even know that?”

Lowering my lips, I let them hover just a fraction over hers as I whispered, “You haven’t tasted my poached eggs. There’s still time for me to poison you yet.”

“Give it your best shot.”

I did just that, making love to her with an intimacy that probably should have felt weird considering how little we knew each other, but didn’t. When I said goodbye to her at the door of my apartment a few hours later, I watched her walk away with a smile on her face and a feeling of things being right in my heart.

Honesty. Turned out it wasn’t something all women ran away from after all.