I wake up early. Nick’s still asleep, his mouth slightly open, his jawline dark with stubble. I stare at him for a while until it starts to feel creepy and I pull myself up to sitting and lean back against the pillows. Nick huffs and rolls over but doesn’t wake up. Once I’m upright, I realise that moving was a bad idea. The effects of a jug of margaritas hit me and I think for a second I’m going to be sick, but it subsides, leaving me with a raging thirst and banging head.
I drink some of the water on the bedside table – Nick’s water – and look out at the view. The sun is rising and the buildings are golden, the sky is pale blue and scattered with pink candy-floss clouds. And I’m suddenly desperate for a wee. I slide carefully out of bed, stopping to fish my phone out of the pocket of my jeans. Bending down makes me feel even rougher than sitting up did and I have to take a second for everything in my head to slide back into place before I can take the final two steps to the loo.
In the bathroom, I turn on my phone. There’s a message from my dad and one from Adam:
Good night. I love you.
I delete it and turn the phone off.
‘Good morning,’ Nick says. His voice sounds rough. Sexy.
I jump. I’ve been sitting staring out of the window, watching the sun move across Manhattan and thinking. I look down at Nick. He grins.
‘Morning,’ I say. ‘I feel like shit.’
He laughs. ‘Do you? I feel great. I feel like the King of the World!’ He sits up, says something that sounds like ‘Oof’ and flops back down again.
‘Told you,’ I say.
‘What are you doing?’ He props himself up on one elbow to look at me.
‘Thinking.’
‘Oh God.’
‘Shut up.’ I smile.
‘Thinking about last night?’ he says. He reaches over and grazes his knuckles along my hipbone. ‘About how incredibly sexy you are?’
‘Funnily enough, no.’
‘About how incredibly sexy I am?’
He lets his fingers drift across my stomach and I clench my thighs.
‘I thought you were hungover,’ I say.
‘I am. And I know exactly what’ll make me feel better.’
‘Coffee and a bacon butty?’
‘Nope. Or not yet anyway.’
He slides down under the covers and after a couple of seconds I feel his lips on the side of my thigh. I press back against the pillows, clenching the sheet in my hands. He runs his tongue along my skin and I move my legs to let him roll between them. He kisses up the inside of my thigh and then his mouth is on me and I hear myself make a sound I’m not sure I’ve ever made before.
‘What were you saying?’ Nick whispers, his mouth against my shoulder, his fingers drawing circles on my stomach. ‘Coffee and a bacon butty?’
‘Mmmmmm,’ I murmur. ‘But I don’t think I can get up.’
I feel melty. Boneless. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. Not with Nick and certainly not with Adam. It was like an out-of-body experience. Except I’ve never been more in my body. I want to do it again. I want to do it forever. I want to stay in New York, in this room, with Nick, naked. Forever. Dangerous.
‘That’s what room service is for,’ Nick says. He rolls away from me and I turn to look at his wide shoulders, at the muscles moving in his back as he reaches for the room service menu. I run my fingers down his spine and three words burst into my head. Fuck.
I swing my legs out of bed and almost stagger to the bathroom. The sex has definitely helped with my hangover, but I’m still unsteady and fuzzy-headed.
‘I’m going to have a shower,’ I tell Nick.
He looks up from the menu and makes a growling sound.
‘Alone. Bloody hell, you’re not ready to go again, are you?’
‘How dare you!’ he says. Then he looks down at his lap. ‘No.’
I laugh. ‘You order the food. I’ll clear my head.’
He salutes. ‘What do you fancy?’
‘Oh I don’t know. Bacon, eggs. You know, hangover stuff.’ I step into the bathroom and close the door. Then I open it again. ‘Coffee!’
I turn the water as high and hot as I can stand and it makes me feel better almost immediately. ‘I love you’. The three words in my head. They seemed so natural that I almost said them out loud. God, that would have been a disaster. This weekend is a freebie. What happens in New York stays in New York. This weekend is about sex. About closure, even. Not love.
The first time I told Nick I loved him was after sex. I already thought I was in love with him before anything happened between us. Once we slept together, I was one hundred per cent convinced. The sex was amazing, of course, but it wasn’t just that. It was how tender he was. The way he touched me. The way he looked at me. I had to bite my lips not to say it over and over again. Even I knew that wouldn’t have been a good idea. And then – we’d been officially together, as far as I was concerned, for a couple of weeks – we’d been out with Chloe and James, no Rebecca that night, and we’d had a brilliant night. We’d all got on so well and laughed so much with in-jokes and flirting and teasing. We’d promised the other two there’d be no PDAs so Nick had held my hand under the table, playing with my fingers, rubbing my palm with his thumb, and then when I went to the loo he followed me, waited outside, pressed me against the wall to kiss me and told me he’d been dying to do that all night. We got back to his flat laughing and happy and I was so turned on I barely made it to his room. I said it as he slid inside me. ‘I love you,’ I said as he traced his tongue down my stomach, his hands cupping my arse to lift me up to his mouth. ‘I love you,’ I said against his neck, into his hair while our hips rocked together and I felt him pulsing inside me. ‘Cass,’ he said. ‘Cass.’ That was all.