The first thing I became conscious of as I woke up was the warmth of tangled limbs and a light weight over my chest. Then last night memories came rushing. The taste of skin, the sound of gasps, the memory of her fingers digging into my shoulder.
My eyes opened. Mila. I still didn't know her last name. She slept peacefully, the shattered woman from the rooftop now an illusion. I stared at her fine-boned hand splayed over my heart. I smiled, a reluctant, private thing.
She wasn't my first adventure, but she was my first night stand, and I think she will be the last and probably the most memorable of my adventures. Yes, the most memorable one, it was not about great sex but about the sensation, the feeling.
Seeking approval was a foreign concept in my world. I neither gave nor asked for it. But last night... last night wasn't about approval. It was about devotion. A startling, quiet need to worship at the altar of her sadness, to replace every tear with a touch that said, "Here, you are seen".
My hand came to cradle the back of her head, I smiled again. I was becoming an idiot from a one-night stand. As I walked on that rooftop yesterday, my heart clenched at the sight of her crying.
I wanted to hug her and erase every single one of her hurts, her fears. I could still see her shoulders slumped in defeat, but yeah, that was just a normal human reaction to seeing someone hurt. I would have done the same for anyone. Really? a voice came nagging at the back of my head, and I answered, " Really.
As I gently removed her hand and rose up, the memory of her still clung to my skin, the touches, the kisses. I brushed her cheek with my thumb.
No, it was just a one-night stand, no strings attached. Love was an unpredictable, messy variable I had no interest in solving. Friendship? A laughable lie. Friends didn't learn each other's bodies like sacred texts. But why did that satisfaction feel so intense, it was everywhere. But well, the day was waiting for me, and I knew deep down that the heavy load of running the company would help me forever bury that strange feeling.
Under the shower spray, I told myself the water was washing it all away. My mind, stubbornly, replayed the faint red marks her nails had left on my back.
As I dress up thinking about my mom's insistence to get her a daughter-in-law, get her grandchildren, my gaze kept drifting back to the woman in my bed. Absolutely not, I scolded myself. I hoped I never would, if "right" felt this dangerously consuming.
I finished dressing and walked up to the table. I took out a small card and a pen and wrote thank you. I didn't hate the idea of staying and watching her wake up, but a part of me suspected those beautiful eyes would be laced with regrets or remorse. A sight I couldn't fathom, moving on was infinitely better.
The night was unforgettable, and as I left the room after caressing her long curls, I knew I'd given myself permission to be haunted by the memory of a stranger, though I will never admit that.
It was still early and the hotel was sparsely populated. I headed out.
The Sinclair Hotel rooftop had been my refuge for five years—a place to shed the skin of the CEO, of the pressured son. I'd invested in the hotel chain with my friend Lucian Sinclair for that very reason. My other investment was less sentimental: HTech, the sinking ship of my father's legacy, now captained by my half-brother, Liam Thorne. Saving it was a filial duty to a ghost, my mom insisted upon.
The buzzing of my phone cut through the haze of my thoughts. Lucian's name flashed on the screen, and I picked up and got into the car.
Busy day ahead.