Page 77 of Flirting with Forever

But wait, she was already seeing the morning light. It was brightening by the second.

How cute was it that he hadn’t let them sleep together last night? Mary had wanted to. She was certain that if they had, she wouldn’t have a single regret this morning. But still, it just added to his sweetness. The man trulyconsideredher. Even when the raging boner she’d been pressed up against had to have been weighing down the pro column, he’d still talked both of them into waiting for sobriety.

And now sobriety was here.

She stretched a little and yawned. Yikes, sobriety was here, but so was her morning breath. Maybe she could sneak out of bed and brush real quick without waking him up. But when she stretched one leg out, the hand on her hand clamped down, ran up her arm and found a home around her waist. He’d been loosely spooning her, but now he was tight against her. He grumbled, low in his throat, but Mary wasn’t sure if he was awake or not. Well, one part of him certainly was awake, and it was as hard as it had been last night. He pressed hot and insistent into her ass and thigh.

But seriously, she was going to have to do something about this breath. She slid out from under his arm and tiptoed to the bathroom. First things first, she peed, and then she moved to the sink.

Mary almost screamed.

Natural light filtered in through the window, lighting her harshly from the side. It had been a long time since she’d fallen asleep with her makeup on and, good Jesus, it was a grim state of affairs on her face right now. She looked cracked and smudged and wrecked. And not in a good way.

She scrambled for makeup-removing pads and moisturizer, rubbing at her skin almost frantically. Now, with the makeup removed and her face lotioned up, she looked red and shiny. Her pink dress, which had seemed so pretty the night before, was wrinkled. The chic style of it made a mockery of her makeup-less face, pink as the inside of a strawberry.

God.

Mary tore her eyes from her reflection and quickly brushed her teeth, hoping that when she looked up, her color would have gone down a little. But alas, she still looked pink and puffy and...old.

Mary brought a shaking hand to her mouth. Her hair was frizzy and lank, her skin lined and swollen from too little sleep and too much beer. There was none of her usual sparkle. The harsh morning light was only getting harsher.

She looked down at herself, pulling the neckline of her dress away from her in order to peek down at her body. Her chest had those lines it sometimes got when she slept on her side and her breasts pulled, all night, to one side. Her underwear was hot pink and ridiculous. She was wearing sorority-girl underwear. Why had she thought this was cute on her? This was clearly for college students.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. There was nothing for her to change into in here. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. John was either asleep or just waking up in her bed. He thought he’d be waking up to the Mary of last night, polished and put-together and confident.

Instead he’d be waking up to this Mary. She felt as if her mother had somehow made a deal with the devil and had Mary waking up to the fate she’d always envisioned for her daughter. She looked in the mirror and didn’t see Tiff’s Mary. She didn’t see Cora’s MFT. No. She saw Naomi’s busted-ass daughter, old and silly and ridiculous.

“Oh,God.” Regardless, she had to go out there. She couldn’t hide in here all morning. It was only 5:00 a.m. Maybe she could scuttle him out the door before the light got too bright and he saw what he was really dealing with.

She took a deep breath, feeling lower than she had in years, and padded back into her bedroom. He was on his back and rubbing at his face when she came in. He cracked one eye when he heard her, a sleepy smile blooming over his face.

“Hi,” he said softly, reaching for her.

She let him take her hand, because how in the hell was she supposed to keep from reaching out to him when he reached out to her? It was like a law of the universe. He tugged her forward, and she sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from him.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, casting about for anything to say that wasn’tCould you please leave so that you don’t find out I’m secretly a hag and run screaming from my apartment?

“Mmm,” he answered. Apparently he was too cute and dozy in the morning to string sentences together. He curled against her, and she melted when his hand traced down her spine. Maybe that was why she didn’t have it in her to protest when he gently tugged her down and folded her into him, his mouth landing on her exposed shoulder, his hand spanning her tummy as he kissed his way to her neck.

Did he have to be so cuddly and sexy in the morning? He was making this a hundred times harder than it had to be. Why couldn’t he have been awkward and aloof, anxious to get the hell out of her house the way some men were? It would have been so much easier if they could just have a good old-fashioned awkward morning after.

But he showed no signs of awkwardness as he grumbled something unintelligible into her collarbone and traced a hand down to her knee.

“John,” she whispered, her eyes closed tight.

“Mary,” he whispered back, and she could hear the happiness in his voice.

When she didn’t answer, he paused in his ministrations and sat up, balancing his head on one hand.

She winced. She really didn’t want him to get an eyeful of what she looked like right now. Things were safer when he’d had his face buried in her neck.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Um—” She cut herself off because she had no idea what to say. He was looking at her the way he always did. With his brows in a V, his complicated eyes layered with concern and caring. Why wasn’t he recoiling from her? “I just feel a little off. Now that we’re, ah, sober.”

He went perfectly still. Mary got the strange feeling like she’d just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head, but she wasn’t exactly sure why.

He was silent for a long moment, and then he cleared his throat. “Things are looking different to you in the morning, huh?”

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