Chain Reaction 3.1.87: Blame It On the Wine

NSFW content, cringe-worthy lines, issue of consent

Then some Dwight stuff

 

Isabella

     Adrien hands me a glass, and I fidget. "What is it?"

     "I... don't normally drink wine. It tends to mess with my head. I'm afraid you've discovered my weakness, Adrien." A sudden flash of Braydon saying that to me comes to mind. Why can't Braydon be the one who wants to date me?

     I can't read his expression. "Really. You don't say. Then by all means, bottom's up!" He grins, and I giggle when he playfully clinks our glasses together. Then he winks at me and puts my glass to my lips.

     Fine.

     He takes my now-empty glass and goes back to refill it. Handing it to me, he says, "Oh to be this glass so that I could touch those lips."

     "Flirt," I accuse him.

     He pretends to be outraged. "Hey! I happen to like that line."

     I sip the wine in the glass. "So what's your weakness, Adrien?"

     "I'll... tell you later. It's personal." He smiles enigmatically.

     "Well, aren't they all supposed to be?"

     "If you finish that glass, I promise I'll tell you before the night's over."

     I sigh and roll my eyes while he grins. Then I finish the glass. "There. Happy?"

     "I'm getting there." He grins. Then he takes my glass from me... and the bastard refills it!

     "Oh no you don't." I say as I walk over to the bar. I grab it to steady myself.

     He watches. "Damn. You weren't kidding, were you?" He puts the two fresh glasses down on the coffee table behind me. "C'mon." He grabs my hands and leads me to the sofa.

     "I don't know what it is about wine. I can handle strong drinks, but there's something about wine."

     He reaches over and starts toying with the end of my stocking. "Fascinating."

     "What, my stocking?" I giggle. I'm kidding, of course.

     "No. That's just plumbing hot. I mean if you're like this with two, what will happen after three?"

     "Oh no. Let's not go there." I giggle again.

     "Of course, you say that, and now I really want to." He gifts me with a wide grin, looking like a little boy who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and doesn't care that he got caught.

     "You're so bad."

     "Yes, I am."

     As if to prove it, his hand leaves my stocking to run up my leg. "I'm dying to kiss you, Isabella."

     At least someone is. "Well, nothing's stopping you."

     He's a good kisser, but somehow that doesn't surprise me. He's a lot more gentle than Braydon though.

     "I want to get to know you, Isabella. There's something special about you that I can't quite put my finger on."

     "Could I have some water, please?"

     He smiles. "Sure." Then he reaches for a nearby glass and hands it to me. Only after I drink about half of it do I realize he just handed me more wine. He laughs at my expression.

     "You jerk! That's not water."

     "Well, it has water in it." He grins. "You're right. I'm sorry. I couldn't resist."

     "This isn't fair."

     "No, this is fabulous. I've never seen anything like it. Wow."

     "You meanie-head."

     He laughs. "You're hilarious." He leans over and kisses my neck. "I've got to remember this."

     "Adrien... plumbob. I need something."

     "That makes two of us."

     He moans and pushes me back against the couch.

     "You want to know my weakness, Isabella?"

     "Hm."

     "Beautiful women."

     "I'm addicted to you. I'll never get enough."

     "The taste of you." He slowly licks up my neck. "You're like my wine." He grinds his hips on me. "Please let me have a drink from the world's best vintage."

      "Hm?" He is literally all over me, and he's good at what he does.

      "I want to eat you. Let me." He moans. "I need it. I want to get drunk on it. Just say okay."

      "Oh kay."

      "Oh, baby." He leaves my neck and both lowers himself and pushes me up. Then I gasp.

     I immediately try to move my hips away, but he has me pinned. I moan his name and reach down to get him to let up. But then I don't want him to. No, I don't want him to stop. It's too good.

     I lose track of time. How long has he been doing this to me? I can't focus.

     He starts moaning into me, and I cry out. "Oh! Please!" Then he rides me as I come.

...

...

...

     Where am I? I open my eyes and find myself in a strange bed. Someone has their hand on my hip, and my head is pounding. F--k, what happened? I take a deep breath. I really need a glass of water.

     The hand moves. Sh*t, did I sleep with someone? Why can't I remember? I slowly roll over to find Adrien smiling at me.

     "Good morning, sunshine."

     Plum. "Adrien?"

     He runs his finger down my face. "Yes?"

     "Where am I?"

     "In my bedroom." He leans down and claims my lips then climbs on top of me, moaning.

     Memories of last night assail me while he moves to kissing my neck. I remember being on his couch with his head up my dress. "Adrien! No, stop it."

     He actually looks hurt. "Huh? Why? You didn't seem to mind it last night."

     Oh plum what happened that I don't remember? "Well, I feel like crap. Get off me. I want some water."

     He melodramatically rolls off me with a loud sigh, and I get up to try and find the bathroom. Did I woohoo him last night? Oh sh*t. I don't remember! 

     I look at my reflection. What happened to you, Isabella?

     Wine. Plum it all. 

     I stumble out of the bathroom to a now-concerned Adrien.

     "Everything okay?"

     "Maybe. What happened last night?" I think I'm going to be sick.

     He grins. "Last night I discovered that you plus wine equals a hell of a lot of fun."

     Ugh. "I remember the couch."

     "Well that's good." Still he grins.

     "What happened after that?"

     "We slept together."

     I stand here, slack-jawed, waiting for him to elaborate. "I don't remember that part." Maybe I am going to be sick.

     "I would think not since you were asleep." His grin has morphed into more of a smirk.

     Did he f--k me while I was passed out?! My stomach turns. "Did we woohoo or not?" I guess I'm going to have to ask the question in a more direct way.

     "Not." He closes in and wraps his arms around me. "But we can fix that right now."

     My hand covers my mouth, and I dash back into the bathroom to be sick. When I exit the bathroom, I tell him I have to go, and I hire a S'Uber to take me home.

     My lawyer's tongue was... I swallow, praying I not be sick in this nice person's car.

     Thing is, Adrien could've done whatever the plum he wanted. He kept pouring that damn wine. Even if we didn't actually woohoo, I still went farther than I should've.

     Adrien isn't the one I want! What the plum was I thinking?!

     What will happen when/if Braydon finds out?

 

 

Dwight

      I got my own place! It's small, but it works.

      It's in the back of a grouping of townhouses. I think it once belonged to a sort of maintenance man, but they're renting it out now.

     The amenities are pretty decent. There's a pool and some greenspace. I decide to get a yoga mat and try it out in the mornings before work. Sometimes, I pull it out in the evening.

     "Well, hello there," I hear behind me.

     Holy sh*t! He's gorgeous. OMM. I almost fall over. "Hi," I reply simply and have to work at not ogling him.

 

      He makes a little gasp. "Wait a minute... I know you. Well, not officially. Your name is Dwight, right?" He smiles.

     "Huh?" I stand up properly and walk over to him. He takes off his sunglasses and smiles at me.

     Oh crap. I think I recognize him now. It's the guy Marco brought home so that I could be hurt. "Yeah, that's right."

     "Weren't you living with Marco?"

     "I moved out."

     He reads my expression perfectly, his smile fading. "Wait a minute. You two weren't... Oh, plum." He puts his hand over his face. I can't tell whether or not he's sincere, and that bothers me.

     "Plum, Dwight. I had no idea."

     "Of course you didn't!" Wow. Guess I had stuff boiling under the surface. A picture forms in my mind, based upon this guy's actions right now. "Looks like he told you he had a roommate, but he said nothing about how a relationship was starting, did he?"

      "No, he didn't. Marco doesn't really do relationships." He sighs.

      That makes me pause. How would he know? Unless... "You knew him from before?"

     "Well, yeah. I go to him when I need someone to put my head on straight."

     I hide my face in my hands. Great. So Marco was casually screwing this guy whenever the guy needed his head 'put on straight,' whatever that means. He doesn't do relationships, huh? How many others are there?

     "What were you doing with him, anyway?" he asks.

     I sigh and remove my hands. Yeah. I'm an idiot.

 

       "He saved my life. My old roommate tried to kill me." I slump.

      "Wow." He stands there and thinks for a moment. "You've had a string of bad luck, huh?"

      "Hah. Yeah. You don't know the half of it." So what if he's not sincere? I'm too down to care right now.

      "Well, Dwight, it's getting cold out here. Care to head inside? My place is right in front of yours." He gestures to it. "You can tell me all about it, and we can talk about what a dick Marco is."

     A Marco bashing party? Sounds like something I need. "Okay."

      "Wow. Your place is great." Everything has the appearance of being placed haphazardly, but if you look closer, you can see a kind of flow in it. I notice he doesn't have a television.

     He smiles, and I can tell immediately that he loves compliments. "Thanks. I had it decorated by someone I used to know. I'm hardly ever home, so sometimes I feel like it doesn't have that 'lived in' look, you know?"

     "Why are you hardly ever home?"

     He sighs. "Working. Friends. Parties. Stuff."

     Oh. So I'll bet Marco wasn't the only one he's seeing, either. All of a sudden, a picture forms in my mind, a network of casual woohoo. It makes me feel like a teenager, looking in but not experiencing any of it. Not that I want that, but I'm out of my depth. And I'm starting to feel like maybe I should just stay single forever.
 

      "Sorry, but I never got your name," I tell him.

      He smiles that gorgeous smile of his. "It's Pedro."

      Now that I'm in his house, I start getting a little uncomfortable. He's staring at me, kind of like a dog would a juicy steak. "Well, it's um, nice to officially meet you, Pedro, but I've had a long day."

      "You're leaving? But we were going to have our Marco bashing party." His face falls.

      "Well, I..." I have no idea what to say now.

      I think he might understand. "I'm not a villain, Dwight. I truly had no idea Marco might have a relationship going. Besides, he sent me home after you disappeared. And well, we're neighbors now. I really don't want you to hate me. Have a drink, maybe?" His eyebrows go up in an adorable expression.

     My shoulders drop. "Yeah, okay." I'm gifted with that smile of his again.

      He makes a toast. "To new friends."

      To break up the tension caused once the toast ends, I do what I do best and ask him about his life. He's a model. Of course he is.

      "You don't recognize me?" he asks pitifully.

      "Uh, sorry. I don't shop in those stores or read magazines or pretty much anything in which I might've seen you."

       "That's okay, I guess. It'll be nice to have someone get to know me as me." He takes a drink. "And not as someone who waltzes in and gets tricked into flirting with someone's boyfriend."

       "He's not my boyfriend. Wasn't my boyfriend. That's the thing: he would never define it, and now I think I understand why."

     "You're too good for him, anyway." He smiles and watches me as he drinks some more of his wine.

     "You know, Pedro? I'm tired of talking about him."

     He expels a puff of air. "Oh, thank the maker. What would you like to talk about? Oh! I know. There's a party tomorrow night at my favorite photographer's house. You should come." He grins.

     "What the plum would I do at a party like that?" I haven't been to a 'party' since college, and I doubt the party he's talking about would be anything like the kind-of-lame-now-that-I-think-about-them parties my friends and I had.

     His mouth drops. "Lots of things! For one, you could meet some new people. Some nicer people. There's usually a DJ at his parties and a bartender. It's fun to just get out and dance."

     "Uuuhhhh... I don't dance." For good reason. I trip all over myself any time I try.

    "Have you ever tried?"

      I chuckle. "Yeah. I resemble something like someone crossed a duck with a giraffe."

     "That actually sounds like something I need to see." 

     "Trust me. You're not missing much."

     His head tilts to the side. "Do you frequently cut yourself down, Dwight? Because you don't deserve it."

     "That's... Um, that's..." That sounds like something I'd say to my patients. Maybe I should take my own advice.

      He watches me flounder around for something to say, the smile never leaving his face. "Plum, you are so adorable."

      I think the wine is starting to go to my head.

     I still have no idea what to say.

     "So how about that party tomorrow?" He looks like he's having fun with me, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

     "I'd just embarrass you or myself or both." Why does he keep asking?

     "Nonsense." He pulls out a remote from that mysterious place where everything goes and turns on a small antique stereo. "Finish your glass for courage. I'm going to teach you how to dance."

     "Uh, what?"

     He laughs. "C'mon, Dwight."

      And this is how I start making friends with the guy Marco used to hurt me. Sometimes, life throws weird stuff at you, and you just have to go with it. That, or I really am more laid back thanks to the glass of wine.