Blah. Blah. Blah.
Without realizing it, he slammed both fists down on the stainless-steel counter—a perfect surface for someone like Melinda, impervious, ice cold, antiseptic.
The pain that shot up his arms and into his neck shocked him, sending him reeling, fury coiling in his gut like poison before tripping over something and landing on his ass, biting his tongue in the process. Blood filled his mouth. He lurched to his feet and barely made it to the sink before emptying his stomach of the last seven or maybe ten beers he’d imbibed. The red-tinged goo lingered in the drain a while before he helped it along with a blast of water from the faucet.
“Oh fuck,” he blurted into the empty room, liking how it sounded. “Fucking fuck!” He rinsed his mouth out and decided to leave the bottles in the bin in plain sight. Screw her and her cleanliness.
Stumbling to the bedroom, he bounced off the walls, trying to repress the memory of her cold gaze and set jaw when she’d told him to take back the ring and booted him out the day of Antony’s wedding. He’d gone without her, determined not to spoil his brother’s moment. Antony had been through so much, he deserved what happiness fate or karma or the Almighty might toss in his path. After a few glasses of champagne, dances with his mother, his sister, the bride, a few random others, Kieran had gone home, head clear and determined to make up with Melinda.
After a good night’s sleep he’d showered, dressed, and driven to her condo. She’d let him in, looking completely out of character in a ratty bathrobe, her face makeup-less and red from crying.
“What do you want,” she’d asked, but the realization that she’d been upset enough to shed tears gave him hope, so much hope that instead of answering he’d tossed her down on the bed. They’d stayed there all day, emerging for food at midnight. But she’d insisted on pushing the wedding out to the fall. Her practice had gotten busier, she claimed. She’d be out of town a lot. He needed to find a new job, which he’d promised to do and done exactly nothing about, enjoying the spring semester too much and counting on the switch to permanent status in June. Which of course, had not been the case.
She’d gone cold physically then, using the excuses of tiredness and girl problems. For a woman fierce and downright nasty when it came to sex, she could pull the prude act like a nun—a quirk and something he’d gotten used to, as long as he got laid. Which he most definitely had not for months, well, until last night of course.
He shoved that memory out of his head, unwilling to go anywhere near it lest he call his ex-girlfriend and beg her to come and rescue him from himself. His legs hit the edge of the bed in the dark and he fell face forward, letting the alcohol fuzz him into a stupor, and then to sleep.
His dreams were tangled but featured Cara, mostly which even in his beer-induced sleep haze he avoided, unwilling to revisit that horror. At one point after she’d dream-slammed the door on him for the millionth time, a sound he still hated, he sat, rubbing his face, and needing to take a leak. After hanging onto the wall next to the toilet so he wouldn’t fall into the thing, he flushed and reassembled his shorts, hoping he could get back to sleep sans the redheaded presence of his first girlfriend. A grown man in his thirties should be over such an ancient breakup by now, he reminded himself as he dropped onto the pillow, not bothering with covers.
Something that sounded like a giggle floated through his mind, confusing him at first and making him think he must still be dreaming. When a pillow over his head didn’t drown it out, he went on full alert. The giggle had morphed into a low murmuring and a wet noise then a shuffling and a loud bang and a squeal. He scrambled off the bed, dropping down on the floor behind it, heart in his throat.
Someone else was in the condo. He peered around the bed but didn’t see anyone. The noises stopped but then they resumed, instantly familiar as he sat propped against the bed frame.
“Come on, baby, you know you can do better than that,” Melinda said, and not to him. “Oh yes,” she hissed. “Right there.”
Some dude groaned and a rhythmic banging hit his eardrums. They had to be doing it against the wall in the living room. Kieran had done the same with her a few times. She liked it fast, rough and dirty. There was no making love to Melinda, even in make-up mode.
Amazed at his analytical frame of mind at the moment, he sat, listening to her usual patter: “Harder! I can’t even feel you! Fuck me like you mean it!” and actually experienced a thrill of relief that he wasn’t on the receiving end of her bossy sex talk.
But on the heels of the relief, a tidal wave of rage blinded, deafened, and choked him, nearly bending him double. Against his better judgment he squared his shoulders and marched into the hallway, head spinning. Part of him wanted to believe the whole thing nothing more than a dream in vivid porno-vision. He blinked, cleared his throat, did everything short of waltzing over to the dude still in his dress shirt with his suit trousers around his ankles thrusting into Melinda’s body.