Debt

We silently walked back into the lobby of Mandy's as I inwardly cursed myself for not packing a vibrator. Or having one to begin with. What self-respecting, single, sexually experienced woman of my age didn't have a freaking vibrator? That was just completely...

"Prue," Byron's voice reached me, making me jolt to a stop, looking around for him. I found him behind me, standing at the valet with a raised brow.

"Sorry. My mind was wandering," I said, a little embarrassed, as the valet helped me into my seat.

"Thinking about how I might plan on shutting that mouth of yours?" he asked as soon as we were alone in the car, turned almost fully in his seat to watch me.

"Don't flatter yourself," I said, reaching for my belt and pointedly clicking it on and focusing my attention out the windshield.

"Careful, babe. I'm not above proving it to you right here with the door guys looking on."

And, somehow, I didn't doubt that. Not even a tiny bit.

I was just too wrung out to fight anymore. My father was on his way to rehab. I was a prisoner until he finished. I had just laid out twenty-seven years of pain and anger and bitterness onto the only person who gave a shit about me. I didn't have it in me to go another round with my boss... or whatever the hell he was.

"Can we just go home, Byron?" I asked, looking over at him, not caring that my eyes were pleading.

His head jerked back slightly, his eyes getting a little deeper, the lids almost heavier. And, in his reaction, I realized that was the first time I used his name. He paused for a long moment, looking over my features like he was seeing them for the first time and I was too tired to even care about my tear-stained cheeks and red nose and puffy eyes. What the hell did it even matter?

"Yeah, babe," he said finally with a small nod before turning back to the windshield, hitting the push-start and reaching for his belt.

I leaned against the passenger window, watching the sights move past us, feeling oddly detached from it all. My eyes felt heavy, lulled by the quiet purr of the stupidly expensive car and maybe just a little comforted by the smooth ride. The quiet snap of Byron's door was what startled me awake fifteen minutes later, my swollen eyes trying to adjust to being awake. Then my door was being pulled open and Byron was beside me, reaching across me to unfasten my seatbelt, his hand not retreating, but moving down and slipping under my knees. Before I could object, his other arm went behind my back and I was moving. He took his feet as my side met his chest. And, well, sometimes a woman just had to make a choice to do what felt good, even if she knew it wasn't right. And it wasn't right to lean my head into the crook of his neck, to breathe him in, to close my eyes and let myself pretend just for a moment. But it was what felt good, deep down to my bones, so I wasn't going to fight it.

I didn't open my eyes as we went inside, as I was carried carefully up the stairs, held gently as if I weighed nothing more than a feather pillow. I didn't even open them when I felt Byron's and, therefore my, body lower down onto a bed. His hand left my knees and slid down my legs, snagging my shoes and pushing them off. Then his body shifted to the side and I felt myself lowering to the mattress. And that was when I realized something.

It wasn't my mattress.

I knew how my comforter felt, my sheets, the softness.

The comforter was too slippery. The sheets were too soft. The mattress just slightly firmer.

My eyes snapped open and confirmed my suspicion. I wasn't in my room or my bed; I was in Byron's room and bed.

"Relax, I'm not gonna fuck you," he said, his voice soft enough to take the edge out of that statement. He was standing off the side of the bed, shrugging out of his jacket then working the buttons to his shirt.

"I..."

"Need to sleep," he broke in, discarding his shirt on the floor and reaching for the belt at his waist, making my eyes dart away almost guiltily for having watched for as long as I had.

"I have a bed."

He didn't dispute that as he moved across the room and back into my line of vision. His pants slid down his legs, giving me a glorious, stunning view of his mostly-naked body from the side as he reached inside his closet. His boxer briefs did nothing to hide his firm ass, strong thighs, and the bulge of his cock. Half-hard, he had said earlier, and there the proof was half a room across from me. He pulled a pair of dark blue sleep pants out and slipped them on, covering up his lower half. But that didn't mean there still wasn't plenty to see. Byron's body was a testament to male perfection: long torso with cut muscles of his abs and obliques that led into the sharp cut V of his Adonis belt that disappeared into the low slung waistband of his pants. His chest was wide and strong, his shoulders and arms coiled. Every inch of him was proof that the man cared about his body the way he cared about his house, about his business, about everything. Meaning with an intense attention to detail and a fair bit of pride.