Free Kiss Me Gone by Christa Wick Page B

addition to the half-used cosmetics, there were several toothbrushes in unopened packages.
    My stomach made another queasy somersault as I wondered if the women had left these behind as well, or if Dare brought women home without notice so often that he kept spare hygiene items. Grimacing, I peeked in the cupboard below the sink to see what other feminine amenities my gracious host might have stocked up on.
    To my surprise, the cupboard's items were all unisex, like toilet paper, or solely for a man's body, including two boxes of condoms. My knees turned a little weak and I sat on the floor, the thick towel shielding my bottom from the bare tile. I pulled the boxes out. Both were marked magnum, suggesting Dare was a big man all around. Feeling more than a little perverted, I read the rest of the labeling. Both boxes were variety packs -- some ribbed, some latex, some sheepskin, some with warming gels for lubrication. The second box was only half full, the rest of the interior space holding a separate tube of jelly.
    Clearly, he was serious about his pleasure. I'm sure his women were, too.
    Resting my forehead against my knees, I wrapped my arms around my legs and took several slow breaths. Dare had a home, a job, put his life on the line for others, but I wasn't sure I could respect the man he had grown into. Not that I wasn't grateful for his bringing me into his home and for saving my life. I was. Yet a part of me mourned for the boy who had kissed me on our last night together, who had shown all the promise of a young man on the verge of becoming a real man, not someone like his father who had betrayed his wife and his dead friend's memory by fucking my mother.
    "You don't know who he really is," I whispered before pushing up from the floor. "These are objects, not facts."
    I put the condoms away and opened one of the packages containing a toothbrush. A little paste, a little water, and then I was brushing my teeth in the bedroom while I sorted through the clothes on the bed for something to sleep in.
    "Beggars can't be choosers," I sighed as I plucked up a light blue t-shirt that had the outline of a woman with long hair and sunglasses and the word BOSS written across the front, the letters made up of circles so that it looked like the lights on a vanity mirror. Suddenly I was badly missing my very plain, very nondescript white tees and faded blue jeans.
    "No panties? What the fuck?" Realizing I had just blurted the words, I snapped my mouth shut and sent up a little prayer that Dare hadn't heard me. But, seriously, how could the women have left all those items behind without also leaving a single pair of panties? Did all his "dates" go commando or something?
    At least the BOSS lady had been on the tall side or liked long tees, I mused after I pulled the material over my head and saw how the bottom hem fell well below the top bend of my thighs. If for some unfathomable reason I had to run from the room or the house in the middle of the night, I wouldn't be flashing my lady bits at anyone.
    Still wired from the night's events and my hair only half dry, I finished brushing my teeth then folded the remaining clothes into a small pile on top of Dare's dresser. I sorted them according to what would more or less fit me, a smaller "maybe" pile as to size and style, and then a large "hell to the no" pile that would have had me walking around with my tits hanging out or questionable text declaring I thought I was HAWT, craved mustache rides or worse.
    I Shih-Tzu not!
    Groaning, I planted my ass on the bed, propped my elbows on my knees and cupped my chin with my hands. Glancing back at the dresser, I rolled my eyes.
    Those were the kind of women Dare courted?
    I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. Three years had passed since I last saw him. I had spent the first half of those years walking on egg shells around my mother and her new husband and the second half fighting to keep some semblance of a roof over my head, the wind