THE BILLIONAIRE'S FORGOTTEN NIGHT

ARIA's POV

"Kara is going to lose her mind when I tell her what happened in class today." I said while I adjusted the takeout bag against my hip and smiled to myself, searching through my handbag for my spare key.

Professor Daniels had cancelled his afternoon lecture. That gave me two unexpected free hours and I decided to surprise Kara with a takeout.

Earlier that morning, Kara had complained about a severe headache.

"You should go to the clinic," I had told her while getting dressed for class.

"I'll be fine, I just need enough rest." She waved me off.

So, I was surprised when I found the door locked. I wondered if Kara had later changed her mind and had decided to go to the clinic for proper medication.

Kara Bennett had been my roommate for four years and my best friend for just as long. She was the person I called whenever something good happened and the person who stayed up with me whenever life fell apart. To me, she was family.

I share everything with her except my boyfriend, Charles.

I stopped by her favorite snack shop on my way back to the apartment.

The woman behind the counter laughed when she saw my order.

"Your friend must really love these."

"She really do," I said smiling. "She'll probably cry if they ever stop making them."

I found my spare key at the bottom of my bag. Funny how I had wanted to drop it in the morning but had taken it on a second thought. I inserted the key and unlocked the door.

I pushed the door open while reminiscing on the gist I planned on telling Kara.

I dropped the takeout bag on the table in the sitting room and threw my handbag on the couch. Then, I walked toward the bedroom.

As I moved closer, I heard laughter, followed by soft moans. I freezed on the spot. Kara had not been in a romantic relationship for the past six months after she broke up with her ex-boyfriend.

"Then who was she with?" I questioned within myself.

"Did she fake her sickness, so just to bring a random guy home?" I asked myself again

In a minute, my hand was already on the bedroom door handle. I turned it downward and the door unlocked.

The horrible sight before me caught me off guard.

Kara, my best friend, my confidant. The girl who borrowed my clothes without asking. The girl who held my hand at my mother's funeral and told me she has my back. The girl who knew every wound I had ever carried and every dream I had for my future. The girl who I had loved unconditionally for the past four years.

The girl who knew exactly how deeply I loved Charles. That same girl was sitting on Charles lower body in a cowgirl position, riding on him and moaning with utmost pleasure right there in my bed. On the bedsheets I had hand-washed myself two days ago.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a second and prayed fervently in my heart that this was a dream, one I want to wake up from immediately.

When I opened my eyes, they already knew I was standing there. Kara scrambled to the other side of the bed, covering her breast with one hand, while Charles sat upright so fast he nearly fell.

My gaze shifted between both of them and eventually fixed on Charles. I wanted to speak, I wanted to shout, I wanted to ask questions but my voice failed me.

Eighteen months of building dreams around a man who had looked me in the eye and told me he couldn't wait for us to graduate. Charles had once told me, three months into our relationship, that I was the perfect woman for him and he search no more.

I steadied my breath and finally found my feet still intact, I turned and walked out of the room hurriedly without a word. Charles called after me twice, the second time louder than the first but I ignored him. I grabbed my handbag on the couch in the sitting room with trembling hands and walked out of the apartment.

I kept walking down the street with my bag on my shoulder while every carefully planned version of my future collapsed quietly behind me until I ended up in a bar few streets away.

A neon sign had caught my attention. I was so cold inside that I pushed the door open without thinking.

I found a stool just in front of the bartender, I sat down and ordered the first thing the bartender suggested.

The first drink burned as it slid down my throat, then the second, then third until I lost count of it.

"Another whiskey," I mid-scream at the bartender as I dropped the whiskey glass hard on the bar counter.

He looked at the empty glasses lined up in front of me before shifting his gaze back to my face.

"Miss, I think you've had enough."

I pushed my glass toward him.

"Then bring me the kind that makes people forget hurtful scenes."

For a second, he stared at me.

"You should call someone to take you home."

I laughed hysterically. The sound didn't even resemble laughter anymore.

"That's exactly the problem," I said. "I don't think I have anyone left to call."

The bartender hesitated before reaching for the bottle. Maybe he pitied me or maybe he simply wanted to stop me from getting drunk.

Either way, amber liquid filled my glass again, and he dropped the glass in front of me, looking at me with those pitiful eyes.

I wrapped my fingers around the glass and held it a little below my nose. I inhaled the sharp liquid scent and took another sip. The burn sliding down my throat felt better than the ache occupying the whole of my heart.

"Eighteen whole months and he couldn't even do it in someone else's bed." I muttered into my glass.

I stared at the whiskey in the glass as if waiting for it to answer me, but it didn't. It just dangled in the glass but at least it didn't lie to my face, or strip me bare. So tonight, it was really doing better than the two people I had trusted most in this world.

I pressed the glass to my bottom lip and let the whiskey sit on my tongue for a moment before swallowing.

"I should have seen it coming," I muttered.

But that was the thing about betrayal, it never announced itself or arrive with a warning. It just waited patiently and invisible, wearing the face of the person you trusted the most until the exact moment it decided to show you what it had always been underneath.

I reached for my glass again, took a sip and shut my eyes briefly. I don't want to think about it, but memories has sharp teeth.

"Are you okay over there?" The bartender's voice drove me out of my thoughts.

"Do I look okay to you?" I snapped back.

The bartender looked at me briefly and continued with whatever he was doing.

I stared at the amber liquid in my glass, and steadied my voice.

"Earlier today, I found out that my boyfriend and my best friend had been sleeping with themselves right under my nose." I said loudly. As if talking to someone about my situation will make me feel better.

The bartender's reaction seems frozen to my word and I caught that.

"Stupid me, isn't it?" I said again as I smiled without humor.

"That's pretty bad," he said.

"What is worst is me not knowing which hurt most." I picked up my glass again. "The boyfriend who cheated on me or the friend who smiled in my face while doing it." I screamed.

The woman two stools down cut me a sideways glance. I raised my glass in a small, unapologetic toast and she looked away.

I slid off the barstool to find the bathroom and the floor rose up to meet me at a completely unexpected angle. My hand shot off the counter and I staggered backward.

Two hands caught me before I reached the floor.

The hands pulled me upright so quickly it felt like the stumble had never happened. I grabbed at the forearms holding me purely on reflex, my fingers curling into fabric that was expensive enough that I noticed it even through the fog of whiskey and humiliation.

The scent hit me next, it was a warm scent beneath the cedar. I tilted my head up and sharp dark eyes looked down at me. He was not smiling but his handsome figure left me drooling while the room spun around me.

"I look like someone about to get laid tonight." I muttered under my breath.

ARIA's POV

"You look like someone about to be ruined." The stranger said flatly.

I blinked up at him. The room still tilted at its edges, my fingers were still curled around the fabric of his sleeve, and my dignity was barely somewhere on the floor between the barstool and where I was currently standing.

I straightened up and stared at him for a few seconds before snorting.

"You're late, If you wanted to warn me, you should've done that three hours ago."

His hands were still at my waist as if he hadn't quite decided whether I would collapse the second he let go.

I looked down at where his fingers were wrapped around my arm.

"You can let go now," I said, even though I didn't mean it. I actually wanted him to hold me a little longer for no exact reason.

I looked at him properly now. He was tall and put together in a way that cost money. He was wearing a tan shirt, no tie, top button undone like he had loosened it himself, an expensive watch on his wrist. The polished shoes that had no business touching the sticky floor of this bar.

He looked like the kind of man who walked into rooms and didn't need to announce himself. Like a man I wanted to get laid with tonight. I mean, why not?

"That's quite an opening statement," he said.

"You opened first," I reminded him.

He looked at me for a moment, then at the line of empty glasses still seated on the counter behind me, then back at my face. Whatever assessment he was running, he kept the results to himself.

"Sit down before you fall again."

"I wasn't falling," I snapped.

I noticed the almost-smile that curled up at the corner of his lips.

"Sit down," he said again, quieter this time, and there was something in the way he said it that made my knees turn jelly. My legs complied before my pride could object. Even my urinary system were in attendance because the urge to urinate I had earlier had disappeared.

I dropped back onto the stool and he took the one beside me.

The bartender looked at the stranger, then at me, then back at the stranger with an expression that said he had seen this precise sequence of events before and had opinions about how it ended.

"What can I get you?" He asked.

"Scotch," the stranger replied simply.

The bartender reached for the bottle while the stranger rested one forearm on the counter and looked straight ahead. For a stretch of time neither of us said anything. Just the deafening sound of music blowing out of the speakers in all corners of the bar.

I studied the stranger seated beside me without pretending I wasn't.

His shoulders were straight but not relaxed, like the posture of a man burdened with something. He picked up his scotch when the bartender set it down and held it without drinking, turning the glass once in his hand.

"You don't seem like someone here for the ambiance," I said.

He turned his head toward me. "What made you say that?"

"You're wearing a shirt that probably cost more than my monthly rent and you ordered the most expensive scotch on that shelf." I pointed toward the back bar. "Men like you don't end up in places like this unless they're running from something."

He was quiet for a moment.

"What do you mean by men like me?" He asked again.

"You look rich and affluent, used to better options." I picked up my own glass. "This bar is a choice you made specifically because nobody who knows you would think to look here. Right?" I smiled.

He looked at me with that look that screams I have been caught.

"You're more observant than you should be for someone who nearly introduced her face to the floor few minutes ago."

"I function better than I look," I said flatly.

He smiled this time.

"You're right," he said finally, and his voice dropped just enough that it belonged to him and the space between us and nobody else in the bar. "I'm not here for the ambiance."

I waited to hear more but he didn't elaborate, rather, he turned his scotch glass again in that slow, deliberate way, and I got the impression that volunteering information was not something he does easily or often.

"Family," he said eventually. "And expectations I had no interest in meeting tonight," he added.

"Tonight specifically, or in general?" I asked half-interested.

"Both." He took a sip of his scotch. "Tonight, there was a dinner at my home. The kind where everyone in the room has already decided the outcome and your presence is just a formality."

"And you left?" I asked again

"I didn't go."

I looked at him. "They're still sitting at that dinner right now?"

"Presumably." He said without any faint of guilt, which told me either he did this regularly or the dinner in question had earned the absence.

I turned my glass in my hands. "Must be nice," I said, "having something worth running from. For me, I just have an empty apartment and a roommate I can't look at."

He turned toward me slightly but didn't push for details, which I appreciated more than I expected to. He just nodded once, like he understood and looked back at the bar.

We sat like that for a while. Just two strangers sharing companionship after hiding their secrets in a bottle of liquor.

It was almost midnight now. The bar had gradually grown scanty as more people leaves. The bartender was arranging toward the close of work at the far end of the counter, stacking glasses and wiping surfaces.

At some point, the stranger still sitting beside me, whose name I still didn't know and hadn't thought to ask, flagged the bartender down.

"Do you have rooms available," he asked. The bar actually has a small hotel above the bar, the kind that served the same clientele of people who needed somewhere to be that wasn't home.

"A minute please," the bartender said, pulling out a worn ledger from beneath the counter and flipped it open. He ran his finger down the page, then stopped. His expression shifted into a mild apologetic look of someone about to deliver an inconvenience. "Actually..." he looked up "we're down to the last suite. We had a late booking come in an hour ago and cleaned us out."

I stared at the bottom of my glass. Going home meant walking into that apartment with the possibility of Charles still being there, or worse, Kara, sitting in the room with that half guilt look on her face, already composing the version of events that made her the most sympathetic character in her own story.

I could not do it... not tonight. I set my glass down.

"I'll take it," I said.

Both the bartender and the stranger looked at me at once.

"We both need it," I said, and then I turned to the stranger beside me with the recklessness of a woman who had already lost everything worth being careful about tonight. "You're escaping something. I'm escaping something." I held his gaze. "One suite, two people who have nowhere better to be." I tilted my head slightly. "Unless you have a problem sharing."

The bar had gone quiet enough that the jazz felt louder. He looked at me for a brief moment, something illegible moved behind those dark eyes of his, then he set his scotch glass down on the counter with a gentle click.

"I don't have a problem," he said.

ARIA's POV

The suite was nothing like the bar beneath it. While the bar beneath was all amber shadows and deliberate dimness, the room the bartender led us to was clean and looked quite expensive, cream walls, dark wood furniture, a king-sized bed dressed in white linen that looked untouched and indifferent to whatever the night was about to make of it. A single floor lamp cast a warm circle of light near the window.

"Do have a good night rest." The bartender said as he handed over the key card and disappeared back down the corridor without saying another word.

The moment the door clicked shut behind us, I slumped on the bed while the handsome stranger dropped his phone on the desk in the far corner of the room and went into the bathroom.

I stood up and managed to slip off my shoes and set them beside the small luggage rack near the wall. Sounds of water filled the room shortly after, which told me he went in to have his bath.

Suddenly, a dirty thought crawled devilishly into my mind. I wanted to open the door and have a look at his cock. Will it be small, medium or huge size. Crazy fantasies crawled into my head.

I don't know why I felt this way, because this was not me. Maybe it was due to the excessive alcohol intake I had. I have low tolerance for alcohol, and the quantity I took tonight was far beyond what my body could hold. But the thoughts refused to leave anyway.

I was so horny, I just wanted to get laid. Maybe that will reduce the tension in my body and ease the ache in my heart, whatever it may be.

Few minutes later, the stranger walked out of the bathroom, he has a nice body build, like someone that trained his body specifically to look perfect. I just want to touch those muscles. He has a white towel tied to his lower body. I could see his cock rise faintly behind the towel.

"Are you asleep?" He called out but I pretended to have slept.

Then I felt it as he walked over to the side of the bed I was, he wanted to pick the television remote by the bedside. As he leaned forward to pick the remote, his towel got undone and fell down right there, maybe it wasn't tied properly. I opened my eyes immediately and saw this huge cock staring at me. It was semi-hard but the size was glaring.

He hurriedly picked up the towel, embarrassed, but my mouth already landed on the tip of his cock in a twinkle. The warmth of it sent juice down my pussy.

He wanted to resist but my tongue was already working around the tip of his cock in circular motion.

Are my fantasies really coming true? My mind asked as my tongue did the work down there.

"What-what are you doing?" He stammered.

I didn't answer, I just kept doing a good job on his huge cock. At a point, I wasn't comfortable on the bed, so I dropped to my knees and keep sucking on him.

He held my head firmly with both hands and moan softly as I deep throat on him. After a couple of minutes of sucking him. He pulled me up and his lips crashed on mine. His warm lips with the faint taste of alcohol was more than great.

"You want to get fucked, huh! Now strip off your dress, let me take you through how it's been done." He commanded.

I obeyed like an infant responding to the sound of a plate of food dropped on the table. In less than five seconds, I was stark naked in front of this dangerously handsome stranger.

"Now, spread that juicy kitty for me."

I laid on the bed face up as I spread my legs out wide, putting my pussy in full view.

He touched the lip of my pussy with his forefinger, taking some of the juice on it.

"You're really juicy, huh!" He licked the juice off his finger and dropped to his knees. His both hands were on my thighs as he pulled me slightly forward. His mouth landed on my pussy, he licked it slowly at first, his tongue making my whole body quiver as he got faster a bit, and more, until he was eating my pussy like a lion devouring its prey.

I held his head firmly in fantasy as his tongue waggled deeper into my pussy entrance. I had never felt this feeling in the eighteen months I had been with Charles.

Charles was not a pussy eater, maybe not to me. He always preached about how it's not hygienic and proper. But here I was, with a man I believed to be of higher status, eating my pussy like his life depended on it.

Suddenly, I felt his mouth sucking on my clits. My whole body vibrated to the rhythm of his tongue as though electric energy had just spiked through my entire body. The pressure was accumulating like an unending roller-coaster, the not-wanting-to-end feeling waiting for the moment to let out all the pleasure in full. My eyes widened as I felt contractions around my inner muscles.

"I'm cumming," I said in hush tone beneath the pleasure as I ejaculated, for the first time in my sex life.