Author's Note: Taking a shot every time the word 'sex' is mentioned may result in alcohol poisoning. I am not responsible for any hospitalizations. This chapter is fairly short but the chapters will be picking up soon! We're still in the 'canon' stage but we won't be much longer. :) Thanks for bearing with me while I do a little context writing!

Chapter Three

David's vision was still blurry, he rubbed his eyes to rid them of the lingering remnants of sleep. He looked down to find Erica sprawled out, her hand resting limply on his chest. Discreetly, he gently caressed her forearm and stopped at her wrist – checking her pulse for abnormalities. He counted silently searching for anything suspicious in each beat. Satisfied when he came to the conclusion that Erica was fine, he interlaced his hand with her own. He knew that she wouldn't allow him to do this much longer and he wanted to soak up every moment with her that he could. He stared at her left hand for a moment, remembering that there was once a beautiful diamond ring placed on her finger. There should be a wedding band accompanying it by now. His heart ached a little at the thought. They should be lying together in bed because they were celebrating their marriage, not because of drug induced sex.

He subconsciously ran his fingers through her hair as he used to do. It relaxed her tremendously and usually lulled her to sleep within seconds. She stirred only slightly at the sensation but went back to sleep once again.

David stared at the ceiling, his thoughts bouncing back and forth in his brain. He never intentionally drugged her – he would never do that to her. He loved her entirely too much to use her as a test specimen and he certainly wouldn't have drugged her to forcefully have sex with him. Still, he felt as though he took advantage of her despite her insistence. He told himself that if she had stopped him at any point during the night, he would've obliged – they both knew that. It was a promise that he'd made to her when he introduced her to other types of sex. David wasn't interested in having any physical contact with dubious consent with anyone. He wanted explicit consent and Erica gave him that, multiple times throughout the night. He wondered how she'd feel about it this morning. Would she question him? Would she remember anything? Why did it have to happen like this? This was not the reunion that he wanted but he wasn't capable of resisting her either. He should have stopped them. He should've given her water and talked her through what she was feeling – even if it meant that the entire hotel would've heard her screaming at him to make love to her.

He felt strangely uncomfortable, wondering if Erica would've had sex with him without the influence of Libidizone had the circumstances aligned. He shook his head reminding himself that Libidizone was nothing more than an enhancement drug: it stripped people of their inhibitions and allowed them to do what – or who – they were too scared to. He'd taken a much smaller dose than was intended for Tad, but he remembered every detail of practically harassing, Dixie. Maybe forgetting would be best. He looked down at her once more, placing a soft kiss on the top of her head. He wanted to slow down time and make this moment last forever. If she only knew how difficult it would be for him to let her walk out of his hotel door one final time. Something within him told him that this would be the last time she would be in his bed – in his arms. Instead, he would have to pursue someone else, a lousy attempt at a replacement, Dixie. Someone that would cause the same fight and chase reaction that Erica had. Someone that would never be able to touch the parts of him that Erica could. Someone who was such a stark contrast to Erica that he could handle being in the same room with her without thinking about Erica. Someone who looked different, smelled different, acted differently. It was the only way he could move on, he convinced himself.

David was torn from his thoughts when Erica coughed lightly and turned her head so that her chin was resting on his chest.

"Are you feeling okay?" He blurted out before she even opened her eyes.

"My head is spinning..." She hoarsely admitted. "I feel awful."

Her face twisted into confusion and she swung her legs over to get out of the bed. She desperately needed to get away from him, afraid of what she would do next. He opened his mouth, wanting to ask her what 'awful' meant but she cut him off.

"I can't believe I did this -" She wrapped his pale blue button up shirt around her. "Why, why do I keep coming back to you? I know that you're the worst thing for me but there's some force that seems to pull me to you, David.

She was grasping at the little self-control she had left and knew that she had to remove herself from his hotel room – from HIM. She was beginning to lose all of her self control and she hated it. The times that she felt out of control ended up being the most frightening experiences of her life, yet she didn't feel frightened this time. She knew she was safe with David.

"Erica, you can't deny that there is a connection between us. You're an incredible force yourself."

She held her hand up. "No, David, no. I feel like I've been drugged."

David's stomach dropped and his anxiety rose. Did she remember what happened last night before the sex? Was she blaming herself? He followed her around the room as she paced, kicking the unopened foil packet under the bed in the process.

"You... you think that we made love because you were drugged?" He interrogated.

She dropped the button down and picked up her dress off of the floor. Stepping into it gracefully.

"I don't know, David, no. I just... I don't feel like myself."

"You certainly felt like yourself to me."

She shook her head and continued zippering her dress before reaching for her coat, her body feeling that familiar fire again. She could reach out and touch him at any moment, push him down against the mattress for the fourth time in 24 hours. She needed to leave. Soon.

"This part has always been good for us, Erica."

She glanced over at his chest, which was conveniently showing through the top of his robe.

"It has to be more than sex that draws us together, David. You know that I don't do casual sex, there has to be more." The panic in her voice scared him for a moment. She fumbled with the tie on her coat. She needed to leave. She was too close to touching him.

"I have a daughter, a company, an entire career and things that... MATTER to me. What is happening?"

David attempted to take her into his arms to comfort her, but she pushed him away so he opted to hold on to her arms, convincing her to sit down. He promised not to touch her.

"No, I will touch you."

"Erica, look, I'm sorry honey. I never meant for ANY of this to happen." He apologized, it was his way of admitting that he had something to do with the overwhelming attraction that she'd felt for him the previous night.

"You're a magnet to me. I need to leave now." She turned and headed out the door, leaving David to process what happened.

Soon after Erica left, Vanessa appeared.

-oOo-

She always felt her best thinking was done in the car, which was probably why on the drive home she couldn't stop her racing thoughts. Why was she so attracted to, David? She'd always been able to control herself around him before. It was like something came over her and she had an out-of-body experience. It felt so wrong, but so right. He felt familiar and warm. He felt like home to her. She didn't understand why her feelings for him were so strong but she knew that she'd always had them – even if they'd been buried deep down inside of her waiting to burst out at any moment. He'd been so patient and kind to her last night. He let her control the pace and decide what she was comfortable with, knowing that a reintroduction to sex with him had not been in her itinerary when she showed up at the Inn.

She sighed. She couldn't ignore that last night happened and she knew that David wouldn't be able to either. Bianca should be her priority, and David would understand that surely. That would be her 'out' of any further commitments. She began to wonder why she needed an out. Why was the thought of a relationship with David so frightening to her? When they broke up, she'd convinced herself that it was due to conflicting schedules. It was a mutual decision and there were no hard feelings. It was so different to any of her former relationships which ended in cheating, backstabbing, and the loss of custody of her child. She expected a more dramatic ending and the fact that there was no dramatic ending scared her. She'd made a habit out of it, really. In her mind, David doing something horrible to her would be easier to deal with than a mutual decision to call off their engagement. Myrtle, Jackson, Opal, and even Brooke had told her how awful David was for her. He was a dangerous man who absolutely was not marriage material. They all turned up their noses and judged her aloud when she announced her engagement to, David. She wondered if the constant pressure from everyone around her helped push them to a break up. Why, in her post-breakup analysis, couldn't she find a thing he did wrong to her?

She pulled into her driveway and took the keys out of the ignition. She sat there for a moment before plucking up the courage to meet, Bianca inside. She laughed to herself, thinking that Bianca had become the parent in this scenario. She prepared to be scolded about spending the night somewhere else without calling.

In a rare occurrence, Erica closed the door behind her slowly, not wanting to draw attention to her appearance.

Unfortunately for her, she walked directly into a conversation with Leo and Laura.

Floods of her previous night's rendezvous came to her. Suddenly, she cringed at the memory of telling Leo to go away and how she loudly complimented David's bedroom skills. She prayed that he didn't remember but the awkward look on his face told her that he most certainly did remember.

"Leo," Erica smiled trying to gather herself. "Can I speak with you for a moment?" She asked, pulling him aside.

"Um... I'd prefer if you kept what you heard between us. It would traumatize Bianca if she... knew what you heard."

"Of course," Leo promised, putting his hand up.

Bianca appeared from the kitchen.

"We were all outside of David's room. I heard it all."

"...What you heard was... A joke, Bianca!" She told her, mustering up her most convincing voice.

Bianca laughed at her mother's pathetic lie. "Mom, it's fine. You're a single woman who is entitled to live her own life. It's a free country."

Erica blinked. "What do you think she meant by that?" She asked, Leo and Laura.

Laura shrugged.

"Exactly what she said. Troops died for your right to have extremely loud sex with my brother."

Erica shook her head at Leo's bluntness. "Ugh, I need a bath... to drown myself in."

"Have fun!" Leo said, pulling Laura off of the couch to go with him to catch up with Bianca.

"Why do sweet, innocent children have to become teenagers?" Erica asked herself as she climbed up the stairs.