Page 15 of Deeper

I moaned my apology into his mouth, but he wasn’t satisfied just yet.

Slow and intimate weren’t the words for what we were doing. I had never been wet like this before. I had never been dominated like this before. I had never been fucked like this before.

A sheet of sweat covered our bodies and we were slick with the nectar from the peaches. The smell of us, the taste of us, was prominent.

Zander picked up my hips as he continued to pound into me. It was better this way, deeper.He was relentless with his strokes. I was going to come again.

He’d asked me if I liked him now, and the last thing I could remember was screaming out, “Fuck yes!”

3

BACK TO LIFE

Mistakes are like leftovers, they’re never as good as when they are new, fresh, hot—in the moment.

In the morning, I woke up in a bed that was not my own. In a place that was not my apartment. I didn’t drink much, so there was no amnesia blissfully clouding my memory of Sunday evening. There was no confusion or deniability about my coming to Zander Khalil’s hotel room and later having sex with him.

Like a balled fist, it hit me hard in the gut when it came to what I’d done.

I rolled over and that’s when it became all too real.

Asleep,naked, beside me was Zander. My waking up hadn’t disturbed his peaceful slumber. Looking at his gently closed eyes, I envied his thick lashes. Lashes girls often had to pay for. He was on his back, his arm resting on his stomach, and his hand with the elegant elephant tattoo was rising and falling with his breathing. And how the fuck did he look like this while sleeping? All lovely and precious.

I was a pretty woman, but an ugly sleeper, this I knew. Thank God I woke up first.

Also, my being up first provided a perfect escape route.

I crawled out of bed, thinking nothing of those peach-stained sheets.

Peaches. Who would’ve thought? I would never look at them the same way again. Before, I never was for the idea of mixing food and sex. The idea always made me feel sticky—I was currently a mess. Showering was a must before departing.

In the master bathroom I found my phone fully charged with a snarky text message from Victoria.

Home now! Make sure you order room service and make HIM pay

The Residence Hotel was easily a five-star establishment. I bet their food was worth throwing on a fluffy white complimentary robe and eating in bed. Of pretending I was on vacation on some tropical island.

But the guilt was already starting to eat away at me. I could bullshit myself and say Zander didn’t belong to Tori, that she had no real claim to him, but sleeping with her longtime crush was still pretty fucked up no matter how I tried to paint the picture.

I didn’t text Victoria back; instead I treated myself to a shower. As I washed my body, I was flooded with scenes of the previous evening. Of Zander taking me to new heights I had yet to go on. It was hard to feel shame when the crime was so good. No, a true punishment would’ve been my not having an orgasm—multipleorgasms at that. I shouldn’t have gotten to enjoy every moment of it. The guilt was still enough, though, to hold me down in place so that I wasn’t floating on cloud nine like I had been in Zander’s bed.

My body sang for him, verse after verse of moaning, a chorus of heavy sighs, a melody of need, and an encore of pleasure.

An old R&B song came to mind at the thought of it all, and soon I spent the rest of my time in the shower, and even washing my face and brushing my teeth with the gratuitous toothbrush, humming along to it.

I wrapped myself in a towel and grabbed my phone and walked out of the bathroom, almost smack-dab into Zander.

He was only wearing a black pair of drawstring sweats. His just-woke-up look was just as pretty as his sleeping look. Did he ever look awful? After our activity and my not going to bed with a scarf on or bonnet, I knew my leave-out and my bundles were a mess. Life wasn’t fair. Zander’s bedhead was nothing compared to mine.

Because staring was rude, and I was terrible at sayinghello, I prepared to go and get dressed.

“Nice tattoos,” I quipped as I walked on by for the bedroom.

“Nice skin,” he said, making me turn and catch him watching me. Even his just-woke-up voice was appealing.

“Skin?”

“Youdon’t have any tattoos,” he pointed out as his dark eyes met my gaze, unashamed. “Your body is an empty canvas, and I enjoyed painting you.”

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