Ana Oliveira

**Current Days...**


I forced my eyes open, but they seemed rebellious, resistant to the command. It felt like a herd had stampeded over my head. The pressure in my temples was unbearable, a throbbing pain, while nausea surged up my throat.
Slowly, I managed to lift my heavy body and sit up. Wow! My breathing was slow and every muscle ached, tense. That tequila must have been spiked... Or I had a “total loss” and forgot everything after a few shots.
When I noticed where I was, it felt like I was falling off a cliff, in a slow descent. Damn it! I turned my head, scanning the room with eager eyes, a pulsating curiosity. It looked like a loft entirely in shades of black, with no room divisions by walls. It was obvious; that dark-toned house could only be his residence.
How did I end up here?
Slowly, I got out from under the comforter and crawled out of the bed, which was a bit too low. With the slightest noise from outside, like a car accelerating on the pavement, someone shouting in the distance, or birds chirping, my forehead throbbed, and a piercing pain took over my head.
With a dry throat, I walked across the dark ceramic floor, looking at my body and seeing that I was wearing a white shirt that was extremely oversized on me. I brushed my legs and realized I was not wearing panties. Damn it! He wouldn’t do anything with me without my consent... It wasn’t his style. But how did I end up at Josiah’s house? Why did I wake up semi-naked?
If I was at my neighbor’s house, Julia was still with Marta. What a drag! I couldn’t remember anything. The last memory dancing in my head was of taking shots of tequila, talking about life, and laughing with Luana at Belmonder.
I walked into the living room, feeling suddenly small under those high walls. I stared at a huge black wooden door, tempted to switch to “I don’t care” mode and walk through it towards the street, heading home. I quickly abandoned the idea, worried about attracting even more negative comments from the neighborhood.
I sighed, holding my waist and looking to the right. A huge kitchen appeared before my eyes. On the left side of the room, glass windows, so tall they could easily be larger than my entire body, were hidden behind translucent white curtains. A wall of black custom cabinets lay behind a black marble island, with soft golden streaks. There were four dark stools beneath the island, and as I was about to walk to one of them, the sliding door on the right side of the kitchen slid open.

My heart danced in a disordered waltz as I watched Josiah, semi-naked, wrapped in a fluffy black towel around his waist, emerging from a bathroom shrouded in clouds of steam. He shook his black hair, droplets of water flying around his head. When his eyes landed on my face, his lips parted, displaying a wide, triumphant smile. I was shocked to notice the small piercings all over his lower lip, which was swollen and reddened. They looked like bite marks.
Damn it!
Could it have been me?
No! That couldn’t be...
“Did you wake up, Sweetie?” Josiah taunted, calmly walking to the other side of the island, exuding confidence in his personal fortress.
“What am I doing in your den?” I asked, perching myself on a stool and lazily resting my face on one of my hands.
Josiah ignored me, and it was predictable that the man wouldn’t satisfy my curiosity right away. Oh, how well I knew him... He was probably relishing how desperate I was for information. I watched his movements closely as he went to a coffee maker and started preparing the brown liquid.
“I want water!” I demanded.
I waited for him to refuse or simply ignore my request, but the guy walked over to a massive stainless steel refrigerator and got a pitcher of water. It was so obvious that even the damn bottle would be black...
I quickly grabbed the glass and drank the transparent liquid eagerly, desperate to hydrate my dry throat, only breathing once I had finished. I didn’t even care about the amount of water that dribbled down my chin onto my neck. It wasn’t until a stream of it dripped onto my shoulder, soaking the fabric and sticking it to my skin, causing a burning sensation, that I noticed the injury.
My pulse quickened as I closely examined the large bruise on my left shoulder. It had numerous bite marks, completely red and painful. My chest heaved as I stared at him in shock.
“You bit me!” I accused, whispering.
Josiah frowned, a pathetic smirk of mockery decorating his face as he rested his forearms on the marble countertop, staring into my eyes. The muscles in his arms and shoulders tensed, and I tried not to notice how his body had grown, becoming defined...
“Do you want a gold star for connecting the dots?” he mocked, a surge of anger coursing through my body. “I just returned the favor!”
When he pointed to his lips, my eyes widened in fear. I did attack him...
“Was that a kiss, or did I just bite you... deliberately?”
“No answers today, Sweetie!” he said, grabbing a dark mug from one of the cabinets behind him and filling it with coffee. “Drink this crap and get out of my house!”
I sweetened the coffee with a few drops of the sweetener I found on the counter where Josiah was leaning, using my left hand, the hand I had to relearn to live with, while hiding the right one under the counter, which was the deformed one. His gaze on me had all the contours of a single word: hatred.
“Enjoy playing games, huh?” I asked, surprising him. “I’ll grab my phone and call Luana. I’ll find out everything that happened in no time.”
I sipped the hot, dark liquid, eager to feel energized enough to get out of that heavy presence. Josiah looked like the damn Hades, in a dark, dangerous limbo. Thankfully, his friends, Harry, Isa, and Bill... the three heads of Cerberus, weren’t there, or I would literally feel like I was in “hell.”
At least the headache was fading.
“Oh, you can call, but she’ll only be able to tell you what happened at the bar,” he warned, walking slowly towards me, coming right beside me. My heart raced, and I tried not to show the trembling in my hands as I held the mug and stared ahead, scared of that giant looming over the side of my body. “But she wasn’t here during the night. She won’t know if I fucked your throat all night or if I just had you crawling around my house like a little bitch...”
I choked on the coffee. I genuinely choked, losing my breath and worrying about the coughing fit. Josiah gave me some not-so-subtle pats on the back as I gradually regained my ability to breathe.
My face felt like it was on fire, leaving the coffee on the kitchen island. Ignoring the asshole’s laughter, I ran to the bathroom.