Page 11 of Midnight Kisses (Spicy Fat Cinderella Retelling)

After raising the topic impulsively, I forced myself to think carefully about how to proceed. The directions this conversation could go in had my stomach in knots.

If things between Miles and Sadie were platonic, I didn’t want him to brush off a long time friendship or diminish her role in his life just to appease me—it wasn’t respecting women if you only respected the ones you wanted to fuck. I would think less of him for that.

But on the other hand, if he disregarded how I felt to prioritise another woman that would hurt.

And if there was something between Miles and Sadie—either a history or a will-they-won’t-they vibe—I didn’t want to be in his bed, feeling like a consolation prize.

Most of all, I didn't want him to act like I was having a weirdly disproportionate response, and it was all in my head.

The most sensible thing to do would have been to stay quiet. Be demure.

But it was too late now.

“Perry?” he prompted.

I sighed. “I felt weird about how Sadie was staring at me when we were dancing. It’s clear the two of you are close, and the degree of scrutiny I got from her felt hostile and made me feel uncomfortable.”

He opened his mouth. Then he closed it, and stayed silent for nearly as long as I had.

“Okay. Hear me out,” he said eventually.

“Sadie is the biggest pain in my ass that could possibly exist. I hate her, and I love her—like a sister. The thought of our relationship being anything but that makes me feel physically ill. There’s nothing like that between us.

Mum had hoped, once upon a time, but both Sadie and I were clear that the idea was violently repulsive. Violently .”

“Violently. Gotcha.”

“But Sadie is important to me. I’d never tell her this, but she’s my best friend. Can you be okay with that?”

“Why does it matter if I am? This is just a one night thing.”

Even in the dark, Miles visibly blanched.

“…Isn’t it?” I whispered.

“I don’t know, is it?”

Neither of us answered. We were silent for a two minute eternity, in which hell froze, the sky wept, and I screamed internally.

He recovered first. “I guess…it matters because being observed by Sadie and her friend bothered you, and even though I’m a rascal with a single feeling to my name, I’m compelled in my role as your recent sex partner to do whatever is reasonable within my power to assuage any uncomfortable feelings that you may or may not have. ”

This man liked to say he was unfeeling, but he wasn’t.

Not at all. His emotional awareness was quite lovely. Helen had shown similar ability, although it was overshadowed by her meddling. I wondered what his father was like. I pictured a silver fox with Miles’ grey eyes, a wicked wit and a big booming laugh.

“You and Sadie are friends, right?”

“Basically siblings,” he answered quickly.

“Right. So she could have just been glaring because she was looking out for you. You know, like ‘ hurt my brother and I’ll break your legs .’ Something like that.”

“That’s exactly what it would have been. Sadie is quite violently inclined, I’m sorry to say, and also ruthlessly mean to me. But she’ll go to war if anyone else says something bad about me. Even when it’s correct. Actually, especially then.”

“That makes sense.”

I didn’t tell him about the additional layer on my mind, because that would be invisible unless you’d experienced it, but it was embedded in the scar tissue of every emotional wound I’d ever sustained.

Every time a romantic couple with a fat woman and a conventionally attractive man went viral on the internet, people would pile on her.

Comments would be like, why are you with her and she’s pitching and so on, always with the undertone that a fat woman had stolen something that was the natural birthright of thin, white, pretty girls.

Which is why having two thin women glare daggers at me while I danced with a man who was, to their mind, a peak specimen, made my skin prickle in the worst ways.

But Miles wouldn’t get that, and maybe Sadie didn’t either.

People perpetuated all kinds of crap without even being conscious of it, and I didn’t always have the energy to explain it.

Besides, now wasn’t the right time to get bogged down in that.

I’d just had mind blowing sex with a mind blowing man who’d made good on his promise to worship me, and hopefully would on his other promises to kiss the sore parts better too.

I wiggled closer to him. “Miles?”

“Yeah?”

“Put your sleep mask on if you want to. Don’t hold off on my account. I don’t think they’re just for women, or anything silly like that.”

“Don’t worry about me, blondie. I was waiting to see if you’d sleep. Or if you wanted to…” he trailed off. It wasn’t like he was too embarrassed to say a dirty word. He wanted me to fill it in, he wanted my affirmation.

My heart skipped a beat. “To or ,” I said.

“Yes.”

I patted his chest. “I would like to sleep, but only for an hour or so. Then we can or .”

Miles pulled his mask out of a drawer by his bed and slipped it on. It was massive, covering his eyes and half his forehead. I rolled onto my other side and when his strong arms tugged me into his embrace, I nestled my ass into his lap.

“This is nice.”

I wiggled. “It’s perfect.”

“Keep wiggling like that and neither of us will get any sleep.”

“I want an hour. Then you can show me the sequel.”

“Sequel? Blondie, I’ll show you an epic.”

In the end, we both fell asleep. For the whole night .

I woke first. I had no idea what the time was as his curtains took light blocking to a whole new level, but judging from the vibrant birdsong outside, it was morning.

Miles and I were twisted in each other's arms like pretzels that had been baked together. His mouth was open and he was snoring, dead to the world. I wasn’t going to wake him—I didn’t know much about insomnia, but I knew not to take something off someone if they’d just been telling you how hard won it was.

But when I tried to sneakily wiggle out of his arms with plans of finding my clothes and calling a car—he woke.

“Come back here,” he grumbled, sleepily.

His embrace was too nice to resist.

We cuddled some more, and when his morning erection made itself known, he made good on his promise to personally soothe my aches and pains from last night. And it was true he never lied, because I did come again. And again.

There would be plenty of time later to worry about what this was between us.

For now? Orgasms.