Total pages in book: 176
Estimated words: 167940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 840(@200wpm)___ 672(@250wpm)___ 560(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 840(@200wpm)___ 672(@250wpm)___ 560(@300wpm)
Without complaint from me.
I don’t even complain in the morning when I lift my arm to shield my eyes from the early morning sun and find that, despite being a fitness instructor by day, I lack nocturnal activity muscle tone. Ow, that shizz hurts. Why the heck do my triceps hurt? I twist a little to find myself stifling a groan. My whole body aches—I feel like I’ve spent the night doing ab crunches interspaced by squats. It’s a pity someone couldn’t figure out how to make a fitness class out of sex because it has to be the ultimate aerobic workout with a little endurance training thrown in. Or at least it is with him. I try not to look at the him in question.
Try and fail.
He’s so lovely this morning, sleep rumpled and mussed. Sunkissed skin and messy hair.
He was a really excellent instructor.
The most gorgeous man I’ve ever . . . worked out with.
Who am I kidding?
Last night was the best sex of my life. And I really ought to leave before I decide I want to do it all over again.
Oops! Too late.
But I won’t give in.
I roll my lips inward as I attempt to roll to my side, desperate not to disturb the sleeping beauty lying on his stomach next to me. His other hand reaches out suddenly, fingers splaying across my ribs as though he knows what I’m about to do. I lift his hand gingerly and slide out from the bed. As stealthily as I’ve ever been, despite the muscle twinges and niggles, I slip back into my underwear and dress. My body aches to shower, I so need to pee, and I’m pretty sure I reek of sex, but righting any one of these risks waking him. I can’t take that chance.
It had seemed so simple last night. But in the cold light of day, everything is different. Real.
I slide my purse from the dresser, startling at the sight of myself in the mirror. It hardly looks like me; my hair looks like an abandoned bird’s nest, and my dress looks like a used floral hanky. I trace my fingers over a mark on my neck as something dark and delicious blooms deep inside. I close my eyes at a wash of sensory memory. I’d felt him everywhere, at my neck and between my legs, his entire presence enveloping.
The woman in the mirror is wantonly dark-eyed, her body begging for a repeat. I could creep back to bed. Kiss him awake. Make love by daylight . . .
Until my hand drifts from my neck, feathering over my collarbone.
I’ve gotten so thin.
God knows I’ve felt out of control, like a failure, like life was happening to me rather than I was part of it. Lately, I’d fallen into old habits of spending too long in the gym and not enough at the dinner table. Exerting control in the only way I could. It’s a dangerous ethos and a knife-edge I’ve balanced on before. But no more. No more punishment under the guise of being in control. No more living on supplements and salads as a point of power. It all has to stop.
I don’t have to be that person. I can be someone else. Didn’t I prove that last night?
I find I have no shame. Nothing to regret. And why should I? I spent the night being worshipped like a goddess. And like a goddess, I will leave this room.
Or like Beyonce.
A bottle of wine lies on the nightstand, drops of red staining the snowy pillow on the floor, bed linen clinging precariously to the bed. And then there’s him. Sculpted muscles lying under caramel skin. It would be so easy to peel back the corner of the sheet covering him and wrap my body around his to rouse him, kissing him back to consciousness. But that would lead us back to him meeting the real Fee. The Fee from before. Not the Fee I intend to be.
The door creaks as I open, but my sleeping beauty doesn’t budge. I slip from the room like a thief. I don’t remember the staircase being as noisy on the way up last night, and as I tiptoe through the empty reception, I almost collide bodily with an old lady bowed over a broom.
“Oh, pardon!”
Her response is a hmph sound as she very pointedly looks me up then down, her lips pulled tight like the strings of a purse and the wrinkles in her forehead increasing tenfold due to the weight of her frown.
A burn begins in my chest, the weight of her derision turning my skin beet red. Before I stop. Take a moment. And remember my promise to myself.
I made a decision. The choice is mine, and I won’t berate myself for living life as I see it. Think what you want, old lady. Call me loose. Immoral. A slut. I don’t care because I know the truth of it. Last night, I was valued. Last night, I was Beyonce—I mean, a goddess!