Page 92 of The Moon Also Rises
I don’t miss the sharp inhale that follows Rami’s next words, words he says without looking at me but instead staring down at the plate I’m holding. “I liked you calling me Daddy. I liked it a lot. It made me feel powerful, strong, important.”
“Did it?” I ask, suddenly aware I’ve never thought about it from this angle before.
“Yes.” Rami’s eyes are on mine now and we stay connected like that as silence falls. And it’s the worst possible thing that could happen, because it allows me space to feel something I was really dreading feeling. I still want him. I still desire him. Last night did not scratch the itch. In fact, it only made things… itchier.
Clueless if Rami feels the same, I drop eye contact and reach for my coffee again.
“Can you lift the blind?” I ask, realising he must have closed it last night, after…
“Sure,” he says, hopping off the bed and flicking the switch.
“A bazillion-pound penthouse apartment but no remote for the blind, you’re roughing it,” I say in my snarkiest voice.
“Oh, I have a remote, but it’s in the drawer next to you,” he says coming back to sit on the bed.
“Then why didn’t you just ask me to get it?”
Rami shrugs. “Because I like doing things for you,” he says and he’s lucky the view outside grabs my attention so I am distracted from pulling him up on saying silly, soppy, untrue things like that.
“Wow,” I say. “I’d never get bored of this view.”
“Me neither,” Rami agrees but when I glance at him a second later, I don’t see him looking out of the window. I see him looking at me.
*****
“I should go,” I say when I finish the food and coffee. “I need a shower and you’ve got a train to catch.”
“You can shower here,” Rami says. “And I still have an hour before I need to leave.”
“You don’t mind?” I ask. I am already imagining how incredible his bathroom is. I’m too nosey for my own good sometimes.
“Not at all,” he says getting off the bed. “Do you want to use my ensuite or the guest bathroom? I should also have a shower.”
My jaw drops. “You have two bathrooms?”
“Possibly,” he says tellingly, coming to collect my plate and mug.
“Hmm. I bet they both have bathtubs too.”
Rami’s mouth pulls up on one side.
“They do? Jesus, Rami. Are you a secret millionaire or something!”
“Possibly,” he says again but it sounds less leading.
“I’ll take the guest bathroom. Should I go first or wait for you to finish?”
“We can shower at the same time… In separate showers, I mean,” he adds carefully.
My mouth falls open. “It won’t affect the temperature or water pressure? What kind of utopia is this?!”
“I’ll get you a towel,” Rami says and leaves the room.
After making sure I know where my underwear is before I get out of the bed, I grab them and pull them on in record time. However, I’m not quick enough to find my jeans or shirt, so I’m standing in just my underwear when Rami returns to the room carrying a folded towel. A folded towel that looks annoyingly fluffy. For fuck’s sake, I bet it smells good too.
“Can’t find my clothes,” I say as if to explain my partial nudity. Every square inch of my skin rises with goosebumps as Rami’s eyes rake down me from head to toe.
“I should have hidden them,” he says before nodding at a pile at the end of the bed. “Bathroom is just down the hall.”
