The Muse's Undoing

“Get in bed,” he insists even better.

Fischer’s not cheap, so he must want me here, and I’m such a sucker for him—always wanting to be where he wants me to be if I can manage it. I turn and give his warm palm a quick peck. “Thank you.”

In his bathroom, I brush my teeth and rinse out my mouth, using items from the hygiene kit I always carry in my backpack. It’s an old habit from my early twenties when I woke up in lots of random places.

When I come out, I find Fischer kicked back in bed, glasses on, scrawling on a legal pad. In a t-shirt and thin sweats, I can see way too much of him. I try to look away, but before I can, I notice his own glance lingering a moment on me in nothing but my boxer briefs before he clears his throat and returns his attention to his papers.

I walk around the bed to get in on the other side. “What are you working on?”

“It’d bore you,” he says.

“Perfect.”

He indulges my lackluster curiosity. “It’s an article about a new piece of legislation that would allocate funding to support the creation of a permanent US presence in the Baltic peninsula, but it’s got a poison pill that would also cut funding to an education program that?—”

“Enough. I’m sorry I asked.” I lie down, facing away from him, pulling the covers up to my waist to leave him access to my bare back.

Papers shuffle, and his weight shifts behind me. He chuckles. “I count two new hickeys so far.”

“You’ll have to look lower to find the rest,” I tell him.

“Jesus…”

I smile as my eyes close, liking the rumbling sound of his low voice. But nothing’s better than the warm, firm pressure of his hand running down my spine. Hopefully, I’ll fall asleep before I start enjoying it too much.

“Tell me more about your article,” I say, determined not to get horny.

He does. Droning on purpose, probably, as his hand moves all over my back. “That feels nice,” I say, mostly to myself.

He keeps rubbing, keeps talking in his deep, smooth voice. I drift, focusing on how comfortable I am and not on the electric pulses of pleasure I get when he touches me. I’m never more comfortable than when I’m with him.

Being in his presence is effortless in a way nothing else in my life is ever effortless. He grounds me and quiets my thoughts. Even in a bed that’s not my own, with him in it, it feels like home.

“Gavin had many questions,” Fischer says to me when I straggle out of the bedroom. He’s back at the dining table near the French doors that lead to the terrace, surrounded with legal pads, two laptops, an iPad, and his phone. His hair is a disaster that’s almost comical, and his glasses do nothing to make him look serious enough for me not to laugh.

“Did he walk in on us?”

“I left the door open. It wasn’t like he barged in.”

I go back into the bathroom, grab a hair tie and return to him. Standing behind him, I comb my fingers through his chaotic waves and pull what I can into a top knot, tying it up. “You looked like you stuck your finger in a socket,” I mumble, my voice still rough with sleep.

“That’s tight,” he says.

“You’ll live. Anyway, I just picked up a last minute shift tonight, so it’s good I slept over,” I tell him as I cross the living space to the kitchen.

“Want me to order some food?”

“Sure,” I say. “If you’re hungry.”

“I could eat. Pizza ok?”

It’s always pizza with this guy. “Sure. So what did you tell Gavin?”

“That you’re a needy little baby who needs to be rocked to sleep.”

“That’s not entirely off base. Usually I prefer a different kind of rocking, though.”

He snorts.