Vegas Baby

“Well,” I managed to eek out between gasps.

“Yes?”

“That was nice.”

He shifted onto his elbow and gave me a wry look. “Just nice? I think I’m hurt.”

“You’re right, it was better than nice,” I said, rolling to face him. “In fact, you’re kind of the best experience I’ve had since I arrived here a couple of weeks ago.”

“Wow, such flattery. Well I’m glad I could oblige.”

He leaned down to kiss me and I tilted my head up to him. It started off chaste, but quickly deepened into more.

I could feel my body revving right back up, but just when I felt that we were about to go somewhere with it, there was a sharp knock at the door.

“Who in the hell…?” James asked, looking over my shoulder. The knock sounded again, so he rolled out of bed. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Grabbing a silk robe that was hanging in the closet, courtesy of the hotel, no doubt, he headed out into the main room. I followed suit, although I was wrapped in a blanket and I tried to hide myself behind the bedroom door while still being able to see out.

James opened the door, shoulders squared like he was about to tell someone off, but then we both saw it was room service.

“Thank you so much for your patience!” They uniformed worker said, holding up a tray with a large, crystal champagne bottle and a beautiful bowl full of the prettiest strawberries I had ever seen. “Everything has been taken care of, so if you need anything else, just let us know!”

“Thanks, I will.” I heard James say. “By the way, I noticed you’re missing a mini-bar in here. I’d be nice if I didn’t have to call down every time I wanted a different drink.

“Ah, a common misconception, sir. The large, japan-inspired wardrobe against the back wall in the living room actually folds out into your own personal bar. I’d be happy to show you, if you need.”

James held up a hand. “Now that I know, I’m sure I can figure it out for myself. Thank you.”

“No problem sir, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Nope, thank you.”

“Of course, happy to make your night have a little bit of magic.”

James shut the door and turned back to me, the tray in hand. Raising an eyebrow, his grin grew once more. “Is it too late for a little bubbly.”

“Oh sir,” I said, dropping the blanket and advancing on him. “It’s never too late for that.”

Chapter Six

~James~

Ow.

Ow.

I couldn’t quite figure out what I was thinking, or what was going on, but the one thing I was absolutely certain of was that everything hurt. Even thinking seemed to be a trial, my thoughts sloshing like lazy and incomprehensible waves across the landscape of my mind.

If I wanted to figure anything out, I supposed I needed to open my eyes. Groaning, I tried to do so, but my lids felt like they weighed about a million pounds a piece and that they had been glued shut with some sort of super adhesive.

I groaned, but the sound made my brain reverberate in my skull like it had been banged against a gong. Right. So, sound wasn’t a good thing right now. Right.

Consciousness came to me in waves, but the more I woke up, the more pain I was in. Displeasures revealed themselves one after the other in a cruel march that seemed to love me suffer.

First was that my tongue was like pure cotton, puffy, dry, itchy and tasting terrible. Next was that there was a rumbling in my gut that was telling me that I needed to go to the bathroom quite urgently. And then after that was a sort of swollen, heatedness to my hands that made them hard to move.

I needed water.

It took a whole lot of willpower, but I managed to sit up. My head swam and I almost barfed, but I managed to calm down after a full minute of just sitting there with my eyes closed.

Once that roller coaster of an experience was over, I stumbled to the bathroom, each of my legs feeling like they had their own ball and chains, before finally making it to the sink.

I splashed water into my face, and that helped unseal my eyes while also cooling the intense fire burning just under my skin. One I could see again, I used one of the mini plastic cups to get some of that delicious liquid into my mouth.

God, that really did help me feel better. Sure, my head was still pounding, my stomach was still roiling, and my guts were complaining loudly. Fumbling around, I found there was complementary headache meds in the medicine cabinet, which I grabbed and downed eagerly.

I took a deep breath, the world starting to calm down and stop acting like a carnival was spinning around my head. The next thing on the list was to get the taste of hungover death out of my mouth.