Chapter 6 — Properly
Emily lay on her back staring at the water-stained ceiling.
Her bra was still on. Her shirt was somewhere on the cheap carpet. Her jeans were open, zipper down, the button undone from earlier. The air in the room felt cooler now that the heat of what they’d just done had started to fade.
She let out a long and deep breath and cursed at herself because it wasn’t even forty-eight hours yet.
She’d been out of county less than two days, and somehow she’d already gotten into a bar fight, blacked out, and ended up in a motel room with a stranger. The math of it felt stupid. She kept waiting for the part of her brain that usually screamed at her to get up and leave to do its job.
It was there. Just quiet and tired.
The bigger part of her didn’t want to move. Her legs still felt loose. Her face was still warm.
She told herself she should sit up, find her shirt, walk out. Instead, she stayed where she was and listened to the muffled sound of traffic outside.
After a while, the quiet started to feel longer than it should.
Maybe he wasn’t coming back. Maybe the “wait” had just been a soft way of ending it. People did that. She knew how exits worked.
Suddenly, Emily sat up.
“Shit.”
Maybe that was her cue to leave.
For all she knew, the guy had somewhere else to be. Maybe there was already a girlfriend waiting for him, wondering why he was taking so long. A man who looked like that probably didn’t spend his nights sitting around alone with nothing better to do.
Emily wasn’t stupid enough to assume he had no one in his life just because he hadn’t mentioned anyone.
She was already halfway off the bed when the door opened.
The stranger came in carrying two plastic bags, one in each hand. The fluorescent light from the hallway cut across his face for a second before the door shut again.
He held up one of the bags.
“Food.”
Emily looked at it, then at him. “I’m not really hungry.”
He smiled like he’d expected that and set the bag on the bedside table anyway. The other bag stayed in his hand.
Before she could stand all the way up, he crossed the small space, slid an arm under her thighs and another behind her back, and put her right back in the middle of the bed. The sudden lift made her grab his shoulder on instinct.
“Hey—”
He kissed her neck instead of answering, open-mouthed, right under her jaw. Emily’s protest died somewhere in her throat. She let her head tip back against the pillow and felt his mouth move lower, like they hadn’t just stopped twenty minutes ago.
While he was busy with her neck, she reached for the second plastic bag he’d dropped beside them and pulled it open.
Inside was a disposable razor and a box of condoms.
She held both up between them.
He lifted his head just enough to see what she was showing him. His mouth was still close to her skin when he spoke.
“The condoms are obvious,” he said. “The razor’s so you stop being shy about it. I want to see all of you when I fuck you properly.”
Emily stared at him.
The honesty was so flat and direct it almost knocked the air out of her.
“You want to fuck me properly?”
“Yeah, if you’re still up for it.”
She looked down at the razor in her hand, then back at his face. “And you bought a razor. For my—”
“Yes.”
A short, disbelieving breath left her. She started to sit up again, razor still in her fingers. “I can do it myself.”
He took it from her before she got further than that.
“I want to do it.”
Emily blinked. “What?”
“I said I want to do it.”
“That’s— no. That’s weird.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. It’s weird. People don’t just—” She gestured vaguely at the razor. “You don’t offer to shave a stranger’s, you know…”
His mouth twitched into a sexy smile. “We’re past the stranger part. You already came on my hand,” then he whispered into her ear, “I’ve already tasted you, remember?”
“That doesn’t mean you get to—”
“You were embarrassed,” he said. “I’m fixing it so you don’t have to be. Then I’m going to fuck you. That’s the order.”
Emily opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“Right now, yeah.”
She looked at the razor in his hand, then at the bathroom door a few feet away. The whole thing felt unreal and extremely real at the same time.
“I’m not sitting on a motel toilet while you—”
“I’ll put a towel down.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
She bit at the split in her lower lip and immediately regretted it when it stung.
“I don’t know. This feels like a lot.”
He watched her for a second. Then he leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth, careful not to touch the cut.
“You can say no.”
“I know.” Emily looked at him. “I’m not letting you shave me.”
“But why?”
“Because that is insane.”
His mouth twitched into a lazy smile. “It’s really not.”
“It is.”
“And how exactly are you planning to see what you’re doing?” He sat up and took off his socks and shoes.
Emily gasped. “Oh my god! I have managed to shave myself before.”
“I’m sure you have.”
She stared at him. “You’re very confident for someone wanting to take a razor near a part of me I’m extremely attached to.”
That got a quiet laugh out of him. “I’d be careful.”
“You’d be trying to look around your own body and bending over.”
Emily exhaled through her nose. “I could manage.”
“You could,” he said. “You could also miss half of it, nick yourself, and get annoyed.”
He kissed her once more before she could further argue. When she kissed back, he sat back enough to get his hands on her open jeans.
“Come on…”
Emily lifted her hips so he could pull them down. The denim dragged over her thighs and off her ankles. Her underwear went with them.
Before she could change her mind, he slid an arm under her knees and another around her back and lifted her off the bed in one motion.
“What are you doing?” Emily grabbed his shoulder hard. “Where are you taking me?”
“Bathroom,” he said, already walking.
