Her Daring Protector
Worry was the best alarm clock. It threw open her eyelids at 3 a.m. and Dana was wide awake. She sat up, slowly, leaned against her headboard, wedging her pillows behind her back. She regarded the man snoring next to her. It didn't make sense to feel so involved with him after knowing him for just days.
Dana only had ever been with two other men in her life, and those she thought she knew pretty well. She often contemplated whether that made her healthy or unhealthy; ultra-functional or dysfunctional. Here she was in the middle of it with this gorgeous, dashing man made up apparently of super-hero stuff with a lover's style movies were made of and she was tangled up on herself trying to think it all out. What did it mean? What did he mean? And did she really mean anything to him?
Dana's ex-boyfriend used to tell her guys would fuck anything that moved, which really was not good for her to hear because the ex had no interest in her. Zero. Which all but convinced Dana that she didn't even rate as tail, as her ex called it. If she was indeed just ‘tail' to Rory, he had a damn sure nice way of obtaining it. He was by far the most impressive playmate she had ever had. He was just fun. And he was fantasy-level erotic. She had no idea that she could be so intensely aroused just by contact, or a look, or a word. If nothing else came of their meeting, Dana was grateful to have experienced that.
She laughed at herself. She had just been robbed of $20,000 probably at the hands of her ex, and Dana was lying awake wondering if the gorgeous man she scored with liked her. Okay that was goofy. She looked at the clock. She had just killed all of ten minutes. She realized she was really dehydrated. That's what spontaneous extensive coital aerobics and multiple life-rushing orgasms will do to a girl. Plus she needed more sleep. The robberies and the big guy had more than thrown her off schedule and she couldn't afford to lay awake all night just to sleep away the day.
This called for hot milk with cinnamon.
Dana peeled back the covers, went into the bathroom, used the bathroom, brushed her teeth, just because and just in case, and went into the kitchen. She set out a sauce pan which she filled with milk, on the stove instead of using the microwave because it would be loud and probably wake Rory, and hunted for the cinnamon. It was supposed to be next to the coffee but then she had re-arranged her spices (which she hadn't used since) in alphabetical order in the little highest most cabinet in which she couldn't think of anything else to put. She had put them there just to see if it worked and realized immediately that it didn't but then she was too lazy to find another spot for them. She cursed. Did she really want hot milk with cinnamon that badly that she would have to climb the cabinets to reach the little cupboard to get the cinnamon? But she already started the milk, so yes, she would go through with it.
Dana was really flexible. Her girlfriend pointed out that that was because she had never had kids but then the girlfriend said everything was because she didn't have kids. From where she stood on the kitchen floor, Dana raised her leg and put one foot flat on the counter. She grabbed on the edge of the cabinet above her and with leverage was going to raise herself to stand on the counters. She did it all the time. Not at three in the morning but a bunch of times. That's how the cinnamon got where it was in the first place.
Dana heaved. The first take didn't take and she was back with one foot on the floor and one still on the counter. She gripped the cupboard handle and sprung up. This action predicated an intense cramp in the arch of the foot she had on the counter, a cramp that was painfully drawing up her toes. Dana tried to both press out the cramp and fish for the counter with her other foot so she could support herself on it because most of weight suspended by holding on to the cabinet door handle. The