Awareness is a bucket of ice-cold reality. Maggie sits on the bed in a room I don’t recognize, wrapped in a sheet. She’s obviously very naked if I go by the pile of green material in a heap on the floor just inside the door.
A fire-exit diagram hangs on the back of the door. “We’re in a hotel room.”
Jesus Christ, why won’t my brain come back online?
Maggie flops back on the bed with a groan. “Oh god.”
Somewhere in the recesses of my subconscious, I hear a different version of those words from her lips, and I double my efforts to hide my erection. The glorious expanse of naked skin above the top edge of the sheet isn’t helping matters.
She covers her face with one arm, cursing under her breath. The linens on the bed are a tangled mess, as is her hair. I’m butt naked, as is she.
And my body is responding on some subconscious level.
Jesus. Oh, holy shit.
“Did we hook up last night?”
She lifts her arm enough to open one eye and glare daggers at me. “Gee. What makes you think that?”
The stream of disbelief emanating from that one eyeball is cut off when she covers her face again. I take advantageand hustle to find my boxers, not that they’ll help contain my situation. Maybe I need to go for the pants too.
Both garments are wedged under the comforter that’s strewn on the floor. I snag them and beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom. Once business is taken care of, I splash water on my face and take a good, long look at the idiot in the mirror.
Okay. Okay. This is no big deal. I had sex with Maggie. I’ve had a ton of sex with a ton of different women.
But none of them were her.
“Fucking hell.”
Am I upset that it happened? Or that I don’t remember it?
Definitely because it happened.
I wrench the door open, ready to barge out and beg her forgiveness, and am momentarily stunned by the sight of her trying to don her dress. Her back is to me, and the hem of the gown is all wadded on one side, like she threw it on and didn’t bother to pull it down. She’s reaching to try to do up the zipper, making the cutest feral noises in her struggle. Apprehension that I’ve just fucked up the best non-relationship I’ve ever had grinds me to a halt. Morning-after awkwardness is why I never spend the night with a woman.
But this is my Mags. And I don’t know where we stand. Do I help her? Do I get on my knees and apologize?
Standing in the doorway and watching while she struggles is an asshole move—that much I do know. She’s nearly in a full-body convulsion trying to reach the zipper, so I cross the room and settle my hands at her waist. “Let me help.”
She stills at my touch, and I fight the urge to help her take the dress back off. “Is this okay? My hands on you?”
A single nod is her answer, but she still won’t give meher eyes. I don’t know why having her consent now feels important since we’ve already crossed a line, but it does.
Letting my fingers slide down her hips, I untuck the dress. The swish of the material sends my dick right back to a semi-erect state, but the dress now hangs like it’s supposed to, even if it’s got some wrinkles it didn’t have last night. The porcelain skin of her back stands out in striking contrast to the dark green material, and I have the sudden urge to sweep her hair to the side and taste the line of her neck.
Instead, I pull the edges of her dress together to zip her up.
“Gotta say, I’ve never helped a woman dress before.” Even that gets no response from her, but the way her chest rises and falls tells me she isn’t unaffected by my nearness. Or maybe she’s really pissed off and doing a good job of not eviscerating me.
There’s something oddly erotic about the act of helping her get dressed. It’s intimate. Intense. Personal.
I wish like hell I could remember the last few hours.
The zipper is halfway up when I realize the issue. It looks torn, like the teeth are missing.Holy fuck. Did I rip her dress off last night?
“Um, I don’t think this is going to work.”
That gets a response, and she whips her head to the side, haunted eyes meeting mine. “What?”
