Jane McKinney’s Warehouse

Long Beach, California

 

“You’ve lived here nearly a year?”

Jane got that response a lot. The place was a warehouse, and it really looked like a warehouse. On one side. There were boxes lined up all along one wall, carefully labeled and neatly stacked. Those belonged to the owner of the place. The other side was the studio side, where the built-in cabinets and long counters, the double sinks and vent fans lived. There were bottles of turpentine there, jars of oil medium, and tubes and tubes of paint in all different shades—with her acrylics and her charcoals and her brushes neatly tucked away inside drawers and trays, too. She was well-stocked thanks to a picture she’d sold a little less than a month ago. Too bad she didn’t have time to actually work on any of her own art.

“I have.”

He was moving around the massive space, taking in everything about it. It really was a cool place. There was a wall that cut the warehouse space in half between the studio and the living space. The wall moved, allowing it to be partially opened, or pushed all the way back against the far wall to open the space up. Jane preferred it closed, preferring to separate work space from living space. It was closed now, giving O access only to the work area where he now stood.

“You did this?”

He walked up to an easel that still held a partially completed oil. It was something of an experiment, a sort of abstract thing that appeared at first glance to be a simple landscape, but hidden in the lines and the curves was another picture, the image of a woman’s weeping eyes. She watched him staring at the piece, waiting to see if he would spot the eyes. She nearly laughed aloud when he did.

“Wow!” he cried, jerking back slightly before leaning in to take another look. “Is that a set of eyes there?”

“It’s not finished yet. It’ll be far more dramatic when it is.”

“That’s…incredible.”

He looked over at her, something new in his eyes. It was almost respect, she thought, a sense of awe that could almost be admiration.

One mark for her column.

Jane shed her shoes, kicking them off as she leaned on the back of her office chair where it sat tucked into the leg space of a built-in desk on the far side of the studio space. She settled into the chair and booted up the computer, lifting her camera carefully from its bag as she waited. She’d dropped everything on the desk when she came in earlier, not even stopping to take the time to clean the lenses as she normally would have. She’d been exhausted earlier, but O seemed to have injected her with some new energy with just his presence.

She felt him come up behind her, felt the weight of his eyes on her as she cleaned the camera.

“You have to keep them in good condition,” she said without looking at him. “If you let them get too dirty or don’t keep the batteries properly charged, your camera might not be ready whenever that perfect shot suddenly drops right in front of you.”

“Do you have more than one camera?”

She shook her head. “I did, for a while. But the other body I used got broken a few weeks ago.”

“How?”

She glanced at him. “I got a little too close to Ariana Grande at a nightclub downtown. One of her security guys jerked it out of my hands and stomped on it.” She gestured to the smashed body sitting on a shelf above the desk. “Cost me two thousand dollars.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t hit you, or something.”

“That would have been preferable. That’s the one thing my parents still pay for: medical insurance.”

“You’d rather have a broken nose over a broken camera body?”

“Yeah. You would, too, if it meant the difference between a five thousand dollar payday and a two thousand dollar paperweight.”

That dark wave of something unmistakable rushed through his eyes again. He didn’t like her answer, but she wasn’t sure what he’d expected. He did know what it was paparazzi did, right?

Maybe this guy wasn’t as prepared for this occupation as he thought he was.

“You have to be willing to put yourself into almost any situation when you do this,” she explained, blowing softly on the lens of her camera before sliding the cover back in place. “Celebrities don’t always want to have their pictures taken. They have this idea that their private lives should be private, even though they make a living putting themselves out there in front of the public. Catching a pic of an actress crying over her broken heart, or a musician doing a line of coke, is something the public wants to see, and as long as the public asks for it, it’s our job to get it for them.”

“You don’t think they have a right to privacy?”

Jane heard the edge to his voice and recognized it. She’d struggled with the same thing when she first fell into this job. “I think there is a thin like between what the public has a right to take from celebrities, and what celebrities have the right to keep private. And I think some paparazzi cross that line too easily much too often. Like that model in New York two years ago. That was a preventable accident that never should have happened. But I also think that celebrities set themselves up for some of this stuff and deserve what they get.”

“How can a model deserve to have her car run off the road because someone wants a pic of her without makeup on?”

“I told you, I don’t agree with what happened there. But I think a rapper who denies cheating on his wife in his music deserves to be outed by a picture of himself with his lover. Or an actor who campaigns for animal rights and then kicks a dog on a public street deserves to have that picture published.”

“Then the line you won’t cross is causing car accidents?”

“The line I won’t cross is the one in which the celebrity did nothing to deserve that unflattering picture. Like Ariana Grande. That night they broke my camera, I had the opportunity to get a picture of her with the back of her dress stuck in her pantyhose, but I didn’t take it. It was that moment of hesitation that gave her security enough time to grab my camera before I could get any other pics of her. But I don’t regret not doing it. The picture would have sold, and it would have paid for me to put a down payment on a new car, but she didn’t do anything to deserve that embarrassment. Not from me, anyway.”

“You’re a paparazzo with a moral code, then.”

There was such bitterness in his voice as he said it that she found herself once again wondering what the hell he was doing exploring this employment possibility. He seemed to be one of those who thought paparazzi were the scum of the earth.

She slipped her camera back into its case, the lens separated from the camera body. Digging out the memory cards tucked inside a small pocket in the case, she turned back to the computer.

“I’ll show you how to prepare a print to be sent to a publisher, if you want.”

He was quiet for a long moment. It was an awkward moment, one in which she found herself wondering whom she’d invited into her home. But then he pulled up a chair and slid in beside her, his thigh brushing hers as he moved close enough to see the computer screen.

For the next few minutes, she ran through the process, explaining everything she did to make sure the digital content of her work couldn’t be stolen before it was bought and paid for. It wasn’t a complicated thing, and anyone with any basic tech knowledge could probably do it, but he seemed deeply enraptured by the whole thing.

“Are those photographs you’ve taken in the past?” he asked, tapping a fingernail on one of the files on her desktop.

“Yes.” She opened the file and quickly moved through them, showing him a few rejects and a couple she’d sold. “I keep copies of everything on my computer, time-stamped, so I can show proof of ownership should anyone try to steal something.”

“Do you have anything recent?”

She gestured to a memory card on the desk. “That has some pictures I took last night. I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet.”

“Why not? I thought this stuff was all very time-sensitive.”

“I have a new lens, and I’m not sure they were in focus. No point wasting time on something I can’t sell.”

“Shouldn’t you check, though?”

“I will. Tomorrow.”

Jane exited out of her files and pushed back from the desk. “What else do you want to know?”

O shrugged his broad shoulders, those amazing eyes moving slowly over her face. “How did you get into this? Really?”

Jane sat back and crossed one leg over the other, finding herself wondering what he would think of the truth. How would he feel if she told him that she was the daughter of a personal injury lawyer and his neurosurgeon wife who thought she could do so much better than art? What would he think if she told him she’d tricked her father into thinking she was studying economics with an eye on law school when she’d not taken a single economics class her entire time at college? What would he think if she told him about the huge, blowout fight she had had with her parents the Christmas break of her senior year when she learned they’d been contacted by the school and been informed of her awards in the scholastic art fair?

On the one hand, she felt like a child when she remembered that argument. A child who was rebelling against parents who’d been overindulgent and lacking in discipline her entire life. She was that child, a spoiled brat who had always gotten her way and thought she would again.

On the other hand, she felt like a survivor, a girl who’d never been taught to survive on her own, but managed to not only survive, but also flourish the moment her parents cut her free. She was proud of everything she’d accomplished this past year, year and a half. She felt as though her parents were probably sitting by the phone every day, waiting for her to call and beg to be let back home. But she wasn’t going to do that. Ever.

She was proud of that.

“I moved to Los Angeles because a guy in my art club at college told me this was the place I needed to be in order to make a name for myself. I’d had a few art shows in college, was building a reputation, but I wanted something bigger. So I came here and quickly realized I was never going to make it on a waitress’s salary.” Jane shrugged. “I had to find something I could do part time but make full time money with, you know?”

“You just picked up a camera? Or what?”

“I was at a restaurant downtown, applying for a hostess’s job, when I saw a group of paparazzi trying to get a picture of Ryan Reynolds. I watched them and thought that I could have done better. Isn’t that how it normally starts for someone? The thought that you can do better?”

“Maybe.”

“I chased one of the ladies down afterward and asked her how she got into it. That was Piper.”

“She welcomed you into the fold just like that?”

“No. I had to follow her around for a couple of days. But I think I finally wore her down.”

“And here you are.”

“Here I am.” Jane turned to look at O. “And here you are.”

She pushed her chair back and turned a little, pulling her legs up onto the chair, holding her knees against her chest. He was watching her, those incredible eyes slipping over the length of her. He scooted his chair a little closer to her, lifting his hands like he wanted to touch her, but then dropping them back into his lap again.

“I appreciate you taking the time to teach me a few things.”

“I don’t think this is really your cup of tea.”

His eyebrows rose. “Is that right?”

“You don’t seem too into all this. In fact”—she hesitated slightly—“you seem sort of disgusted by what we do.”

His eyes dropped to his hands for a long moment. She half expected him to tell her some long, heartbreaking story. Instead, he cleared his throat and ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair as his eyes came back up to her face.

“I should get out of your hair, so you can get back to…whatever.” He gestured around himself, vaguely indicating her artwork and her computer. “I appreciate the tutelage, though.”

A shiver of disappointment raced through Jane. She wasn’t sure what she was more disappointed about: that he didn’t tell her some sort of story or that he was leaving. Maybe a little bit of both. This man was something of an enigma, a mystery she couldn’t quite figure out.

She unfolded her legs and stood, slipping between him and the desk as she reached to shut the system down. He stood, too, standing close behind her as she worked. She felt, for a second, like he was waiting for her to move so that he could do something, but she couldn’t imagine what it was he wanted to do. It was her desk, her stuff. And they weren’t even that interesting, her things. All just mundane. Why would he be interested?

She glanced back at him, and he smiled somewhat awkwardly. Every alarm bell that had ever rung inside her head began to blare. He was up to something.

The only thing she had of value was the computer itself. And her camera.

Did he want the camera? Was this all some sort of ruse to get to her camera? But he had a lens that was worth more than her entire kit put together. Surely he could afford to go buy his own stuff.

Just to be safe, she picked up the memory cards sitting on the edge of the desk and the camera bag, slipping the cards in a side pocket before shoving the whole thing into a locked cabinet beside the desk.

“I’ll walk you out.”

He stayed close behind her as she crossed the room, slipping around the edge of the moveable wall to the sliding doors that were one of only two exits out of the building. This had once been a storage unit for a large corporation that had stores throughout the Los Angeles area, one of many that held their surplus products. The front of the building had once been a roll-up garage door where deliveries were made. There was another roll-up, a smaller one, at the back of the building. Her friend had had them both removed when he renovated the place, leaving only the sliding doors on the side and the smaller, man-sized door at the back that now led to a small herb garden where there had once been nothing more than a concrete slab.

The floors had all been stained concrete, just like the walls, but there was now bamboo throughout the building. The walls were still concrete, but they were covered in lovely tapestries in the living area to soften their harsh, industrial feel. And the moveable wall had a complementary wood finish that echoed the floors and added a touch of symmetry to the whole place.

O moved away from Jane as they rounded the edge of the moveable wall so that he could take a peek at the living space. The kitchen—an L-shaped room—sat front and center, with the living room sort of tucked behind another freestanding wall. Stairs at the back of the room led up into a loft space that held the master suite, complete with the huge walk-in closet and bathroom.

Jane’s clothes from earlier in the day were still draped over the rails of the stairs, abandoned and forgotten in her rush to take a shower. She blushed slightly at the sight of her bra hanging almost erotically at the top.

“It seems cozy, surprisingly,” O said.

“Surprisingly? Why?”

“It’s a warehouse. A workspace. It seems like it should feel industrial.”

“I always kind of thought of it as a bipolar sort of thing. Industrial in the workspace, homey on this side.”

“It’s well-designed. You said it was owned by a friend?”

“A guy I went to art school with.”

O nodded. “He must have good money.”

“His father is an actor.”

Shock filled O’s expression for a long moment. “Does he know what you do for a living?”

“Yes. We have a quiet understanding.”

“No kidding? What kind of understanding?”

“I leave his wife and small children alone, and he tips me off when something interesting is going on with him or his friends.”

“Must be nice.”

Jane rolled her shoulders. “You find your sources where you can.” She went to the door and tugged it open, stepping out onto the narrow porch that looked down on the driveway and the small patch of greenery that ran along the side of the building. She leaned against the edge of the open door, watching him continue to check out the kitchen and stairs, staring at them like there was more to see than her abandoned clothes and the remnants of her hurried breakfast from that morning.

When he finally turned to her, his eyes seemed slightly disinterested, like he was bored and ready to escape. But then those same eyes lifted to her face and seemed to warm a little, a slight smile coming to his full lips as he moved close to her.

“Thanks again for inviting me to your home. I appreciate the consideration.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at the ground for a moment, studying a broken piece of concrete right in front of her toe. “I only did what I was grateful that someone did for me.”

“I get that you didn’t have to help me. If there was ever anything I could do for you…”

Her thoughts immediately raced in a direction she knew they shouldn’t go. Here was this super hot guy basically telling her he’d do anything for her. Anything. That could be a very complicated thing.

He was so close that she could almost feel the heat coming off his body. He was still dressed in those really neat jeans and clean t-shirt, casual clothes that hugged his body in all the right ways but still managed to look somewhat unnatural on him, like he wasn’t used to wearing anything less than an Italian suit. Yet, she was pretty sure he could make anything sexy, even a burlap sack.

And this was the guy offering to do anything for her.

Those broad shoulders and thick arms, those long fingers that looked like they were made to play a piano—or a woman’s body. His skin was like melted brown sugar, dark enough to suggest a Mediterranean background, but light enough for these constellation-like clusters of freckles to show on the backs of his hands and along his cheeks. And those lips, thick enough to fit perfectly against hers, but thin enough that she could imagine nibbling at one for a minute or hours.

He wanted to do anything for her? She could think of a few things.

“You don’t owe me anything,” she said softly.

“I owe you more than you know.”

He stepped into her again, so close now that his shirt was brushing against her arms. He hooked a strand of her hair behind her ear, smiling when she looked up at him, a shiver of surprise rushing through her. The way he was looking at her, she could almost imagine he was having the same sort of thoughts she was.

Was that even possible?

“Would it bother you very much if I asked to kiss you?”

Her heart shuddered in her chest. She couldn’t believe he’d just asked that. Would it bother her? It would probably be the biggest thrill she’d ever had!

“No, not at all,” she stuttered.

He smiled again, that smile that made the slight dimple in his left cheek appear. He lifted his hand and pressed a finger to the corner of her jaw, watching with intense interest as it slowly moved to trace the line that ran from just under her ear to the center of her chin. And then he completed the line by moving up and pressing his finger to the center of her lower lip.

She didn’t know what to do. She wanted desperately to taste his skin—any piece of his skin—while at the same time, she didn’t want him to know how desperate she really was. Would it frighten him off to know how hard her heart was pounding? Would he run for cover if he knew that her knees were quickly growing weak, and her hands were already itching to strip her clothes off like they were on fire?

What was she thinking, allowing herself to believe a man who looked like him, with the charm he had, would want her? He’d asked for a kiss, not the whole kit and caboodle. He was just being nice, like the hot friend of an older brother showering a little attention on the homely little sister.

But she didn’t have an older brother, and she’d never had a guy quite this hot come on to her before. She was walking a new path in completely alien territory.

He was watching her, staring into her eyes like he was waiting for some sort of reaction. She almost looked away, almost moved sideways to break that intense eye contact. But then he was coming in, his lips softening slightly, his eyes sliding closed. This was the moment, and she—

Completely screwed it up!

She moved—she wasn’t sure what she thought she was doing, giving him more room, maybe—and he moved, and they slammed against each other, forehead slamming against forehead. She saw stars for a moment—not exactly the kind of stars she thought she’d be seeing when he first kissed her—and he jerked back, pressing his hand to his forehead as he cursed softly under his breath.

“I’m sorry!” she cried, completely mortified. Her eyes filled with tears, and all she could think was that he wouldn’t even want to look at her now. She was awkward and stupid, not the kind of girl he must have thought she was. She had to get out of there, had to disappear before she saw that understanding in his eyes.

She moved around him, marching into the warehouse, determined to go upstairs and hide under the comforter on her bed for the rest of her life. She didn’t expect him to grab her around the waist, didn’t expect him to spin her around and press her against the wall just inside, the cold concrete a shock against her thin clothing. His hand touched her forehead, laughter vibrating through him as he studied her face.

“You okay?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“I’m sorry. That was…I’m so awkward sometimes!”

“It wasn’t your fault!”

“Sure it was.” He moved his hand, inspecting her forehead for damage. “It looks like you’re going to live, though.”

“Are you okay?”

He nodded, his smile turning into something else, something sweet and innocent, as his eyes darkened slightly with something like appreciation. Like he was a man who didn’t get a whole lot of compassion from those around him.

She brushed her fingers over his forehead, touching the slightly reddened spot off to one side of the center of his broad forehead.

“You might get a bruise.”

“A badge of honor.”

Their eyes met, and it was like something had shifted inside of her, inside both of them. She wasn’t sure who was the first to move that time, but they managed to find each other without another disaster. His lips brushed against hers, warm and soft, a second before he moved hard against her, pressing her more tightly against the wall as his jaw asked for entrance, and then his tongue, soft and strong, slipped inside of her like a bouquet of flowers meant to ease the awkwardness of a first date.

He knew what he was doing, his touch determined, but gentle. Kissing him was like everything she’d ever dreamed a kiss would be when she was a preteen, but ten times better. It was full of sensation: taste, feel, smell. And he knew how to touch her, knew where to touch her. He seemed to know where all the little erotic spots were hidden inside of her, spots she hadn’t even known about. And it was all just a kiss. What could he do with the rest of her body with the rest of his?

She almost wanted to cry because it felt so good.

And, the thing was, he wasn’t touching her in any other way. His hands were pressed to the wall above her head, his body held just close enough so that she could feel the heat of him, but he wasn’t actually touching her. Just his mouth, just what it took for him to kiss her thoroughly, just what it took for him to awaken every damn inch of her body.

She couldn’t resist touching him, though. She ran her hand over the side of his face, feeling the muscles move and twitch, sliding her fingers into his hair to keep him locked in place, a part of her already worried about what would happen when he decided to pull away. She was never going to be the same, she knew that much.

Her other hand had a mind of its own, skating over the front of his shirt for a moment before it found its way down to that place where the hem of his shirt met the front of his jeans. She could feel the heat of him under the thick denim, could almost imagine the power that was hidden behind that zipper. She wanted to know what was there, wanted to feel the masculinity that she’d been thinking about almost since the moment she first met him. But the urgency to feel a bit of skin won out, and she slipped her fingers under his shirt, letting them dance along his flat belly, feeling the quiver of his six pack as he reacted to her touch.

Was she really doing that to him? Was she really making him gasp against her mouth the way he’d just done? Was she really making those muscles jump, like her touch had the power to send shivers of pleasure through him?

She pressed her palm against him and slid her hand upward, finding one tight, erect nipple before the other, loving the mountains and valleys of his body, the lumps of muscle that contracted under her touch, the curves of bone, the suppleness of his skin. He gasped again when she flicked one nipple with her fingernail, a fact that made her heart race just a little faster.

“You know what I’d like?” he suddenly asked, a little breathless.

“What’s that?”

“A tour of this place.”

He gently pulled her hand out from under his shirt, but held onto it as he shifted to close the door. She watched as he tugged it along the rail that would slide it back into place, but had to help when he couldn’t quite figure out what direction to slide the locking mechanism.

“This is the kitchen,” she announced, turning to gesture toward the obvious use of that room. “The living room,” she said, not bothering to gesture or pause. “The bedroom’s up here.” She led the way to the stairs, and he was right behind her, his hand moving over her ass as she moved a step or two ahead of him.

What the hell was she doing? Why was she taking this complete stranger into her bedroom? But one glance over her shoulder, and she knew she couldn’t walk away from this opportunity. When was she ever going to get another?

The top of the stairs opened directly into the bedroom. There were no walls up here with the exception of a glass cinderblock wall between the bed and the bathroom. It was just a large, beautiful space with a huge king size bed and tasteful furniture. And, right now, that bed looked incredibly welcoming with its heavy down comforter.

“Nice,” he said so close to her ear that she could feel his breath moving the small hairs on her neck. And then he was nibbling at her ear, his teeth putting just the teeniest amount of pressure on her earlobe, enough to send shivers up and down her spine.

She leaned back into him, reaching around their bodies to touch his hips, his upper thighs. He sighed as her hands rubbed against him, tugging him closer to her as she allowed herself a little innocent exploration. His arms slipped around her, his hands immediately seeking out the low edge of her long t-shirt. He pressed a hand to her lower abdomen, so close that she could almost feel the promise of more touches, as his other hand moved up over her ribs and under the practical sports bra she had exchanged for her other, harsher underwire.

“This is insane,” she whispered softly.

“This is perfect.”

Then he was kissing her, swallowing anything else she might have had to say. She tipped her head back against his shoulder, offering him all she could give him. Her hands were still exploring, sliding up the front of his thighs, moving over the thick bones of his hips. She raised them up to the height of the small of her own back, slipping them under his shirt again. She could feel the top of his jeans with her fingertips. She so wanted what was inside there, wanted to touch him, wanted to hear him gasp again. But then his hand slid under the bottom edge of her bra, and that gasp fell from her own lips as he found her overly sensitive nipple.

And then he was the one sliding his hand inside her pants.

Jane rose to her tiptoes as his fingers sought that one place that so desperately wanted his touch and then bent her knees, moaning as her movements helped him find it. He chuckled softly against her neck as she settled back against him, a heavy sigh slipping from between her lips.

“Is that the spot?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she wrapped one arm around his head, drawing his lips to hers again. Her other hand slid down the length of his arm, giving him a little more guidance as pleasure rushed through her, making her legs so weak that she fell back against him, giving herself completely up to him.

He broke the kiss, his mouth moving to her throat. He nibbled and kissed every bit of skin there as he continued to touch her, his other hand doing things to her nipple that made it ache with a need that only increased with each second that passed. She felt so weak all of a sudden that all she could do was lean there against him, allow him to do these things that were taking her on a pleasure ride like nothing she’d ever been on before. She was so lost in her own body, in the things happening to her, that she was unable to touch him even with the lightest of strokes. But that didn’t seem to bother him. She could feel his breathing growing rough against her throat as her moans came with more and more frequency.

He was getting off on her pleasure.

Had she ever had that effect on a man before?

She couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything, it felt like. She was a puddle of nerve endings, reduced to nothing more than the pleasure he was creating inside of her. She couldn’t even protest when he pulled his hands away, the heat of his body moving from hers for a brief moment.

But it was only for a moment.

She heard the familiar rip of a condom package, and her whole body seemed to jump with a sort of joy. She wanted to turn, wanted to look at him, but he was pushing her forward, bending her over the rail that was the only thing that kept them from walking off the edge of the loft platform.

“Ready?” he asked softly against her ear.

“Please!”

He chuckled softly as he kicked her ankles apart, pressing one knee between her thighs. And then he was touching her, and anything else he might have said was drowned by the sound of her moans. She felt the thickness of him as he pressed against her, her eyes sliding closed as she grabbed the top of the rail and held on for what she knew was going to be an intense ride. His hands were warm on her now bare hips, her pants tugged down against her upper thighs by his capable movements, like a child about to receive a punishment. But if this was her punishment for some crime, someone needed to tell her what it was so that she could do it over and over again!

Her body was tight, untouched for far longer than she cared to admit. But he was gentle, filling her with patience, his movements slow and careful. It seemed unfairly prolonged, but when he was inside of her, she could feel just how dangerous it might have been if he hadn’t shown compassion. She was grateful, for a moment, but then he began to move, his hands resting on her hips, and her mind was blown once again.

How was it possible a person could feel so much pleasure all from one source?

He was a quiet lover, his breathing the only thing to indicate any sort of excitement. And he was breathing incredibly hard, leaning forward so that his lips were near her ear. He kissed her shoulder once or twice, but they were both too lost in the pleasures burning through them to engage in any sort of connection beyond this ultimate intimacy.

She felt it coming even before he thought to reach for that button again, the tingle in the small of her back, the warning that she was about to crash into the waves. She bit her bottom lip, a scream building in her throat that was almost frightening in its intensity. But there was nothing she could do to stop it from giving voice to itself.

Her knees went out, and her body began to fall as the most incredible orgasm rushed through her. He held her as best he could, but he was just as overwhelmed as she, his own ending bursting from his body as their limbs tangled, and they fell into a heap on the floor.

The cold, bare floor.

“Fuck,” she mumbled as she tried to extricate herself from the tangle of her yoga pants.

“Exactly.”

There was something incredibly funny about the way he said it. She began to laugh, still breathless, still tingling in places that had never tingled before. Their eyes met, and he began to laugh too, untangling himself from her limbs before pulling her against his chest. They laughed themselves into exhaustion, little hiccups slipping from between her lips long after the humorous spasm had passed.

Her sleepless night the day before and the day’s activities finally caught up with her as they cuddled there. She was vaguely aware of him lifting her up and carrying her to the bed, but that was the last thing she remembered.

She should have stayed awake. She should have walked him out that door when she’d meant to, or at least seen him out whenever the fun was finished. She should have done a lot of things differently that night. But things are never as clear as they are in hindsight, are they?