The cab ride home was dreamy and I settled into my waiting bed with a smile. I slept until noon when Danny woke me up with his latest heartbreak. He forgot all about it in the wake of realizing I had gotten laid and we celebrated with mimosas and a BBC 5 marathon.
He left to have tea with his grand dame of a mother and I settled into writing. I forgot to eat again and when the buzzer came I was once more surprised. I pressed the intercom and told Helen to come up. Without waiting for an answer I buzzed her in and left the door open, to return to my laptop.
I popped some M&M's in my mouth, hard to find in Merry Old England, and typed out a scene where my heroine was dismembering a body. The door swung open.
"Hey Helen, you're early. You can tell I'm not ready to go, give me five minutes all right? I'm in the middle of this kick ass scene you'll love."
A throat cleared and sounded awfully masculine for Helen. I turned and my jaw dropped. There he stood, Ioan Gruffudd. His hair was free and curly, his face stubbly. He wore jeans and a grey fisherman's sweater. Jesus, no one had a right to look so good. Handsome wasn't right, but devastating fit perfectly.
I was painfully aware of my ponytail, makeup free face, red t-shirt and blue jeans. "Um, hi."
"Hello," he drawled.
"What are you doing here?"
"You left so quickly, didn't even bother to say goodbye."
Yeah, cowardly of me, hunh? "Sorry, I guess I thought that was standard operating procedure."
He stepped in and kicked the door closed behind him with his foot. Ioan looked mad, somewhere short of a killing mad, but you'd never notice the difference unless you'd truly feared death and looked it in the eye.
"Standard operating procedure? Jesus woman, what do you think of me?"
He advanced and I stood, backing away towards the beaded curtain separating the cozy living room from the running board kitchen.
"I don't know what I think."
He smoothed his curls back though it was a wasted effort; they had a mind of their own. "I'll tell you what you think of me. You think I'm a cheap lay."
Oh God, did he think that? "I think nothing of the kind!"
"How do I know any different? I wake up this morning to find you've slunk out on me like a common thief."
Common, common, this was going well. I wanted him to leave so I could breathe. As long as he was in the room my chest was tight, and I think my gallbladder was going to burst.
"Th-thief?" Oh, God, I was sputtering. Did I mention he looked good? Strange fetishist that I was, I'd always been a sucker for fisherman's sweaters. And his shoulders looked so damn broad in them that my knees nearly buckled at the observation. Good thing I was against the door jamb, but he just kept coming. And coming. Coming towards me.
"Yes, a thief. I don't take these things lightly and I didn't think you did either, but I guess I was wrong. Or maybe I just wasn't worth it."
"Oh, Ioan, No, don't do that."
"What? Do what?" His voice was husky as he neared. He was only an inch taller than I but he had shoes and I was barefoot and I felt all of an inch tall. He towered over me.
"Don't make me out to be a monster. A coward yes, a weasel maybe, but not a monster."
"Oh? Prove it." His eyebrow arched in challenge at me.
"Prove it how?" I pushed away from him and marched into the center of the room behind the couch, before the desk. No corners there. "I'm sorry, okay? Look, we were strangers, we pretty much still are. I met you, we talked, we had sex, we talked some more, and I chickened out."
"Why would you?"
"I didn't want to face this," I made an accompanying hand gesture of a loose open faced palm flapping between our directions. "I didn't want an uncomfortable conversation, okay?"
He stared back, warily. I was scaring him! Good, right? Um, not so sure.
"What did you want then?"
God, he still thought I'd been out for a cheap lay. "Look, I know you think I used you. But you approached me, okay? So maybe I used you, but you used me too."
