Neither sex nor the previous night's drinking binge were the proximate causes for her to pick up perfect strangers from perfectly innocuous bars. It was never about preferences - short, fat, tall, bald or downright ugly suited her just fine. All she needed was a body to lie with, to let those few breaths of pleasure replace the memories that tormented her every waking moment.
Getting up softly from the bed, she turned and looked at the rumpled sheets and the man snoring under them. Her eyes trailed his bronze arm down to the fingers that held a fistful of sheets. They had been clever fingers searching all her nooks and crannies, finding spots that had made her give in to moments so sweet that she could have wept with relief. He had made her forget the demons that had darkened her soul's doorstep.
Now in the harsh glare of the morning sun, she knew this was not another flash in the gathering dark, leaving her cold. Although he was different from all the rest, she could not let him close. It would be too dangerous. Wearing her clothes softly, she let her eyes trail over his dark beauty one last time.
He carried his African heritage with a bold imprint. Curly dark hair fell carelessly over a high forehead, thick lashes swept down his high cheekbones covering eyes that she knew to be mischievous amber. His lips hid sharp, sparkling white teeth. He smiled as he slept, dreaming perhaps of the night before.
He had made her laugh and feel some inkling of her former self in that dingy little bar, surrounded by mortal hearts and evanescent emotions. She had laughed, so close to tears, so close to letting the hollow gaping wound surface and sweep her away in a wave of inexpressible rage. She had then looked into his eyes with quiet desperation and asked him to take her home.
