Room at the Inn

“If I really were drunk, carrying me like this would be a bad idea,” she observed.

“If I carry you frontways, you’ll try to seduce me.”

“I’m going to do that anyway as soon as you get into the bed.”

“I’ll be stoic and unseduceable.”

“I’ll go down on you.”

“That’ll probably get the job done. But I’ll regret it in the morning.”

He set her on the bed. “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “I’ve had sex with you six thousand times in the past few weeks. There’s no reason to think I wouldn’t consent if I hadn’t had those four glasses of eggnog.”

“You had four?”

“They were tasty.”

She pulled her shirt over her head and walked to the bathroom in her bra, hips swaying, hand trailing over the front of his jeans as she passed him by.

A six-inch diagonal stripe of pink began east of her belly button and crossed her side to end at her back, right beneath her ribs.

Carson’s eyes stung.

The scar still gave him trouble.

He shook his head to clear it and stripped to his underwear while she brushed her teeth. She stopped halfway through to ask around his toothbrush, “Duh I gub gud hub?”

“What?”

She spit and rinsed out her mouth. He climbed under the covers. Julie kept the house warm, but the attic needed better insulation, and when the temperature dropped below ten, you could see your breath in her bedroom. She compensated with an electric mattress pad that she turned on long before bedtime. Her thick, lofty down comforter trapped the heat.

Carson wanted to marry the damn bed.

Julie came out of the bathroom. “Do I give good head?”

“You give fantastic head.”

She beamed and took off her pants, bracing herself with one hand against the doorjamb to keep from falling over. He couldn’t help but smile. What a picture she made, in her mismatched underwear and giant wool socks. Goose bumps covered her stomach, but she wasn’t feeling the cold. She was happy.

She made him happy.

What if she did love him?

Julie ducked her head underneath the covers down by his feet and crawled up his body. Her breath hit him in hot bursts at midthigh, stomach, chest. When her face poked out fast, he wasn’t expecting it, and she knocked her forehead into his nose.

“Motherfuck!”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He hunched over, covering his nose with his hand.

“Are you bleeding?”

“I’m okay, really. Just surprised me.”

Julie laughed. “It’s possible that I am a little drunk.”

“Just possible.”