Quin hadn’t slept all night. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off of Taylor’s sleeping form. Everything about him was beautiful from the way his hair perfectly framed his face, to the toned expanse of torso exposed from the low position of the blanket, to the gentle sound of his breathing.
She didn’t know what had made her kiss him. She hadn’t drank enough wine to be drunk, but she supposed that it had just loosened her inhibitions enough to make her give in to the desires he’d been eliciting since their first meeting. Yes, she had been wanting him and yes, she really had wanted to kiss him when she had. But why had she given in? She had told herself that she would not give in to him like that, but she had.
The sex had been utterly fantastic. In all the years since she’d lost her virginity her junior year of high school to her then boyfriend, she had never been with such an incredible lover. While that should have been reason enough for her to feel better about the experience, it wasn’t. In fact, it made her even more annoyed with herself. It was as though she had abandoned all of her principles for a good lay. No, two good lays. And a round of oral sex so phenomenal it made her contemplate reversing her direction and scaling the brick wall to his bedroom window so she could climb back into his bed and beg for a repeat.
But she couldn’t do that, nor could she have stayed and waited for him to wake up. She had played his game and he had finally beaten her. He had been impatient and frustrating and had gone to lengths greater than any man had ever gone to in order to sleep with her, but she couldn’t let him have that final triumph of knowing that she had waited all night just to look into his piercing blue eyes once more after he had rubbed the sleep from them and kissed her good morning.
And while she wanted to tell herself that she had left merely to uphold the framework for her “relationship” with this man that she had forced herself to craft, she knew deep in her heart and mind that it wasn’t the only reason. Part of her was terrified. Terrified that when he woke up, the lust goggles would be gone now that his conquest of sleeping with her was complete and all he would be able to see was a woman old enough to be his mother with a body that was not as perky and supple as the girls he was used to seeing naked, who had also been pathetic enough to stick around until morning. He wouldn’t like it when girls did that, would he? She was sure he wouldn’t. He undoubtedly would roll his eyes at that kind of thing, wondering what those girls expected. The last thing she wanted him to think was that she wanted anything more out of the encounter than what had transpired in a sweaty and miraculous way the night before.
So, she had dressed around four in the morning and had snuck from his apartment and had started her journey home. She took to the subway to Manhattan and decided to get off and walk the rest of the way. After a quick stop at Starbucks for the coffee and breakfast Taylor had joked with her about just a few hours earlier, she started her very long walk home.
Her key turned in the lock around six and she pushed open the door as she finished off the last sip of her coffee. Sylvie immediately started yipping and Quin cringed as she heard her little nails scraping against the hardwood floors as she bolted down the hallway.
“Do you have to run, you little spaz?” Quin asked, setting her coffee on the table beside the door before scooping up the little white ball of energy into her arms, “You probably need to go out, don’t you?”
“I just took her a half hour ago,” Magda said from the living room doorway, scaring Quin half to death and almost causing her to drop Sylvie to the floor.
“Jesus Christ, Magda! What are you doing here?” Quin asked, setting Sylvie safely down before heading in her best friend’s direction. Magda just leaned against the door frame and smiled knowingly.
“I had a feeling you might not be coming back here to let out the puppy, so I decided to come over. That way, I was here if Sylvie needed me and if you came home pissed off, I’d be here if you needed me. Apparently, I was right on the first account,” Magda said, the excitement in her voice growing obviously with each syllable she spoke, “Did you sleep with him or what?!” Quin sighed heavily and started down the hallway for her bedroom, feeling the weight of her extreme exhaustion coming down harder on her all the time.
“Yes, I did,” Quin replied hesitantly, the words barely passing her lips before Magda started shrieking incomprehensibly like a fifteen-year-old over-caffeinated cheerleader, which she had been at one point, Quin thought snarkily.
“Oh my god, how was it?” Magda demanded.
“It was… okay,” Quin lied and Magda saw right through it, scoffing and following Quin into the bathroom.
“Bullshit. You give me every detail immediately.”
“Magda, I’m tired. Can’t this wait?” Quin asked, realizing that she thankfully sounded as exhausted as she felt. Magda got the hint.
“Fine, sleep. I’m sure I’d be tired if I spent all night humping a twenty-four year old, too,” Magda grinned.
“Twenty-three,” Quin corrected, pulling her dress over her head and placing it carefully back on its hanger.
“Even better,” Magda finished with a smile, “I’ll be waiting for a play-by-play when you wake up.” Quin didn’t doubt that for a second. Magda disappeared, probably down to the living room to watch Quin’s cable and play with the dog, and Quin went to bury herself beneath her covers. She found herself inexplicably longing for a body to lie next to, for the heat of another person to be there beside hers. It had been a very long time since she wanted that and she didn’t its reoccurrence one bit.