Don't Get Caught

Chapter 3 - Ariel

An unfamiliar room came into focus as I was awoken by some rough fingers running up and down my back.

The fingernails of my conquest lightly grazed the sore skin on my bum where I'd been hit the night before, bringing me to full consciousness as the raw pain spread through me.

Oh yes, Danny. The brooding Skarsgård look-alike who had given me that elusive one-night-stand orgasm. Good choice, Ariel. I squeezed my eyes shut as he nipped the back of my neck and shoulders.

I moaned in response to his fingers venturing around the front of my body, brushing against my painful nipple. Danny was lying behind me, and, hearing I was awake, closed the gap between us, his chest pressed into my back, his hands now moving to my front.

Despite how much pain I was in, from my throbbing headache and dry mouth to my raw insides, I was already turned on. The pillow muffled another moan as he delicately danced his fingers against me, much gentler than the night before. I let him do it, enjoying the blissful feeling, allowing my mind to wander back to the excitement of just a few hours earlier.

"Oh god, Danny," I breathed as another intense orgasm hit me out of nowhere given how lightly he was touching me. My hips jerked back against his as the feeling swept over me. He held me against him as I rode it out.

His arms encased me for a brief moment, but before I had a chance to return the favour, he released me and got up out of bed. I watched as he pulled shorts and t-shirt on before leaving the room without a word, leaving something akin to a cold breeze in his wake.

I lay in his bed for a while slipping in and out of consciousness, torn between contentment and unease. The bedding was soft and smelled of his distinctive cologne, but the walls were blank, the surfaces void of things, the furnishings expensive but soulless. In my more lucid moments, the fear that accompanied hazy memories washed over me and a weirdness surrounding our hook-up took hold. We hadn't even kissed. Why? He'd physically stopped me the night before and then he'd disappeared now. Did he see that as more intimate than everything we'd done in the last few hours? I forced myself to sit up, the room spinning, my body screaming out in pain. There was a door that I assumed led to an en suite so I tentatively got up and headed across the room.

Sure enough, a rainfall shower awaited on the other side with hotel-style towels hanging on a heated rail. I turned the tap on and got in, letting the scalding hot water replace any other ache and pain my body was harbouring.

After a brief but wonderful shower, I headed downstairs, my bare feet sinking into the thick carpet on the landing that gave way to the cold wooden floor of the hallway. The smell of coffee filled my nostrils as I joined Danny in the kitchen. He was sat at the table reading a newspaper, wearing black-framed glasses I'd not seen him wear before. Yikes, he was hot. I swallowed nervously as I approached him, still wrapped in a towel given my clothes were in the conservatory.

"Coffee?" he asked, looking up from his paper.

"Please. Thanks," I managed as he rose from his chair.

While he made my drink, I ventured back into the conservatory and found the tiny strips of material that constituted my clothes. I hurriedly got back into them before joining Danny in the kitchen - my outfit even more ridiculous in the light of day. You'd think I'd be used to 'the morning after' but this one in particular ruffled me.

"Are you OK?" he asked, turning to face me.

I smiled and nodded. "Just a little... delicate."

He nodded too and looked away, turning back to the Nespresso machine.

We sat at his large oak kitchen table in silence for a while. I needed some reassurance that last night hadn't been a complete mistake, but he wasn't about to offer it. Something far more interesting than flirtatious small talk was going on inside the pages of The Times.