Twenty-One Night Stand ✓

22 / a new leaf

The sun hadn't been in the sky for long when Maddie first woke, blurry-eyed and fuzzy-headed. The hint of an oncoming headache teased her brain and her muscles ached as though she had run a marathon during the night, her skin goose pimpled from the cold. At some point she had thrown off the duvet, lying nude on top of the covers and beside her, Nick lay tangled in the sheets with nowhere near enough material to hide his naked form.

There was no question about what had happened last night, every moment crystal clear in her mind's eye. Except one. She remembered undressing Nick; she remembered him touching her and moving in her, but her mind blanked when she tried to recall him wearing a condom. A moment of fear gripped her chest, adrenaline pumping through her veins. She grabbed a towel from Nick's dresser, and wrapped it around herself as she fought her body's reluctance to drag herself to the bathroom.

She must have pulled a muscle. There was no other explanation for the searing pain in her thigh as she walked, wincing each time it twinged until she made it to the bright white of the bathroom and dropped the towel, head in her hands as she tried not to focus on the light that threatened to make her headache worse. It would go away with a dose of ibuprofen, but she didn't have any with her. The bathroom cupboard seemed like a good bet but belonging to two vague guys, it held nothing more than three cans of deodorant on one shelf and a half empty bottle of cologne on the other.

With a groan, Maddie washed her hands under the cold water for longer than necessary, revelling in the cool liquid on her skin and resting her forehead against the mirror. The light hurt her eyes, screaming for a cool pillow in the dark and a cold compress for her head. She ducked down and sipped from the tap until her thirst was quenched, and the bin beneath the sink caught her eye. A used condom was coiled at the bottom, a sight she hadn't thought would give her such relief, but her chest relaxed and she covered it with a wad of loo paper. Grabbing the towel and stumbling out of the bathroom, she crashed straight into a soft, hairy pot belly.

"Morning," Dennis said, stepping to the side. He wore nothing more than a pair of saggy boxers that he adjusted with a tug, passing Maddie and shutting himself in the bathroom. Red-cheeked and gripping the towel tighter around herself, she slinked back into Nick's bedroom and returned to the bed, curled up in the duvet.

In his sleep, Nick grunted and rolled over, his face now just inches from hers. She studied him, his flawless skin and dark eyebrows, the eyelashes she envied. His smooth chest morphed into solid abs, a trail of hair leading from his bellybutton to his crotch. Her eyes wandered over his entire body, the same body that had ravished her last night and left her wanting more, and a dull hunger replaced her headache. Slowly, so as not to wake him, she rolled onto her front and pulled a pillow under her head, her arm crooked around it, and prayed for sleep to overwhelm her.

*

The next time Maddie opened her eyes her headache was gone, and so was the duvet. Exhaustion plagued her body and her legs still ached, but the side effects of what she had drunk last night seemed to have been conquered by sleep. For now, anyway. She had been known to experience the occasional delayed hangover, the effects not setting into motion until hours after she had woken up. It wasn't cold anymore and she couldn't bring herself to care that the morning sun streaming through the window highlighted every inch of her naked body.

Nick lay with his back to her, his breathing different now. He wasn't asleep anymore but he heard his breath hitch a couple of times, and then she noticed the slow movements of his arm. Clarity followed a moment's confusion, a warm fizz filling her stomach and spreading out. Watching him masturbate, completely unaware that her eyes were fixed on him, stirred something within her. As quietly as she could, one hand moved down her stomach to the part of her body that had been overwhelmed with attention recently, and she toyed with her pubic hair before slipping a couple of fingers down. Already wet, as though she had woken ready, her fingers glided over her skin and she held her breath.