The Arrangement

Chapter Six

Every muscle in my body aches, the delicious kind of stretch that means every part of you has been worked so well that the world stays blurred around you. The pillows and blankets that scatter around me smell like Hugo; my cheek pressed against the warm skin of his chest reminds me of the way every inch of him pressed into me.

Not just in the bathroom of that frat house, but in his car on the way home where his fingers slid between my legs and teased me in light, overstimulating circles that made my fingers dig into the leather seats. Then we made it to his bedroom, Imogen and Cam were curled up asleep on the sofa when we made our way inside and so the bubble that grew around us didn't burst.

Even after our conversation there isn't a definitive answer to what's transpiring between us, causal exploration was the market, but it doesn't feel that way in my chest when I think about sleeping with someone else. It's like we searched and learned everything about one another, while keeping the doors to romance closed tightly, that now that intimacy has broken through them my chest doesn't know what to do.

Neither does my brain, because cocooned in warmth I don't know what the next step is. I don't do sleepovers, at least not ones that happen on purpose and don't lead me to waking in the early hours at the unfamiliarity of someone else's bed. Hugo doesn't feel like that though, he's familiar and comforting in the same way he has always been when it has come to falling asleep together.

In saying that it was never after we were wrapped up in each other's arms naked, after fucking the life out of each other for fun. Hugo doesn't stir as my fingers run delicately over the soft expanse of his bronze chest, the soft ring of his snoring catches occasionally in his throat, the sound making me smile.

Dark lashes sit against the slight rosy hue that flushes through his dark cheeks; his fingers having curled into the back of the large jumper I found in the middle of the night. As warm and inviting as Hugo's body is, the chill of early November isn't as easily muted with the warmth of our bodies. I'm pressed into his chest, leg hooked over his thigh and cold toes nuzzled underneath the muscle of his calves.

I can feel the tug of my messy hair as I shuffle against him, how Hugo stays perfectly still while I manage to roll around like I have ants in my pants. Bundling my hair into a messy nest on the top of my face, somehow looped around my ears and stuck in my eyelashes.

Although, the hair stuck in solidified mascara most likely happened during the time he had my face pressed into the mattress and tears leaking from my eyes. Unsure whether that makes it a small win, or a small failure.

Something else that's new in this strange awkwardness of this change in our relationship is that I have never second-guessed leaving a man in the morning. Well, normally if I accidentally fall asleep it's closer to four-am than eight but regardless, disappearing from Hugo's bed makes me feel uncertain.

I think that if he was the one to leave me without a word this morning I would be taken aback, but this need to blurt out what transitioned between us is like suffocating pressure on the centre of my chest. Despite the peace I feel laying here with him I can't deny that my brain has been racing a mile a minute since I peeled my eyes open.

The torturously good ache in my bones, the satisfaction that will always give-way to a need for something more hums through my veins like a delicious antidote to my worries. Though it reaches the end of its tether by the time it circles around what the protocol for Hugo and I is, in the end I slide out of his bed.

I don't do so with any greater stealth than I would my own, as if him waking up from my movements would be a sign from the universe that I should alert someone to where I'm going. I don't fake surprise when he doesn't even stir, if he can sleep through my thrashing then my rolling from his grip wasn't going to change much.