Shift OR Drift

Amberly

There is no light. No sun. Just darkness surrounding the room. A warm body lays next to me as my eyes begin to flutter open stirring me awake. My body feels the shock of electricity from the man who clutches his grip around my waist and holds my body to his. His muscular arms hold me in place and inhibit my ability to get up. My body is only sucked in closer to the large body which holds me as each attempt to get up becomes less and less successful. He has to let go at some point. We cannot just lay around in bed all day. It may be Saturday but, my many endeavors to finish music through this silent, dry phone, confused, hot, flustered, left alone in my room in a towel alone week have been nothing short of exhausting. Mentally and emotionally draining and yet here I am wrapped up in a blanket next to the very man who left me on my bed dazed and confused. There never was any text or phone calls from a random number like I had been expecting, there was nothing. I waited and there was nothing.

Even then it took me all the way up to sitting on the chair alone while he was on the couch to truly see how many bruises cover his sharp jawline. It had become painfully clear, last night was not the first fight this man had been in this week. The first fight must have had an opponent who fought back. The purple bruises decorate his face as if they were slowly healing. Like they are older. Clearly, the ball-less man from the party had no interest in fighting back. Part of me cannot resist the wonder of who gave him the current bruises which plaster his face. I raise my hand to his face, in a slow manner, lightly grazing my fingertips over the bruises, and to my surprise, I receive a wince in response to the touch.

"They hurt Princess," his low undeniably sexy, I just woke up, his voice vibrates through me all the way to my core and echoes around the room, "they aren't exactly old," his voice is low and tips my brain and core off-kilter as heat rises between my thighs.

"Who did it?" I whisper hoping for some sort of answer. He remains quiet in response to my question, clearly not willing to tell me anything. Annoyance flicks through me. I look at my nearly dead phone with several texts from Lexy and Miranda which I do not exactly want to answer or even read at the moment. The time glows off of my phone, "I need to get up. It's 5:13 in the evening." This is new. Sleeping in a stranger's bed overnight and sleeping in this late. No matter how late I had been out, the usual time for me to wake up is noon.

"You could just stay here another night," he pulls away from me hugging his pillow under his head. He looks away from me continuing what he was saying, "AJ has some date night planned with Lexy and her family. We can just make dinner here," he offers me and groans as I get up from the bed, stealing the chance I am afraid I will not get again if I do not take it now and get up. For a second, I consider his offer.

"I need a shower and a change of clothes. This bikini and your shirt won't do for much longer," my appearance in the mirror tells me all there is to know about how well my hair handled being buried in someone's chest all night. The thought crosses my mind, will he even willingly take me home?

"You can shower here," he tilts his head to look at me, "and maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to show up at a party in nothing but that skimpy bikini," anger flares through me as the electricity that coursed through my body from his touch now evades my skin.

"First off it was a pool party, you were overdressed. Second of all, you brought me here. I wanted to go home. You brought me here. You gave me no choice. You punched the guy. All the events leading up to right now are because of you. So no, Killian. You should have thought about it before you brought me here. You..." before any other words could escape my mouth, he shoots out of the bed and pins me against the wall placing his hands on either side of my head holding me in place while he towers over me.

"If it is clothes you want, just ask. We can go shopping or I can take you home to change into something less skimpy than how you dress at the races," he looks at me his eyes form and all too familiar darkness, "but if you think for one second, this," he removes one hand from the wall signaling between the two of us then places his hand on the back by my head, "is one-sided, remind yourself who asked who to sleep in the same bed," he shoves off the wall and moves to his dresser, pulling out a set of shorts and t-shirt with two words written across the front in larger letters, "fuck off."