CHAPTER ONE
The Fallout
There was something warm and solid behind me. A hand on my waist. Legs tangled with mine. Something soft brushing the nape of my neck, right on my spine. It happened again, making me shiver. It was a kiss. I was being kissed.
My eyes snapped open, because this was real, not a wet dream, and there was something long and heavy resting against the cleft of my ass —
I whirled around so fast I got vertigo and elbowed the intruder right in the face.
Taylor covered his nose with a hand. “What thefuck, Archie?”
I winced. His voice was too loud, too early. It took me a moment to place us. We were in my bedroom, yellow morning light slipping in between the cracks of my curtains. There were red crescent moon indents on Taylor’s arms.
“What — what are you — ” I couldn’t make words come out properly as I scrambled into a sitting position, pulling the covers with me, leaving Taylor utterly naked, his morning wood rapidly wilting.
I stared. “What the fuck?”
Then I looked down at myself. My naked self. There were various pink marks around my nipples.
“What the fuck?” I repeated, a whisper this time.
Taylor sat up, tipping his face back, fingers pinching his nose.
“Tissue,” he said.
“Huh?”
He wasn’t looking at me. “Tissue,” he snapped.
I turned to my bedside table, where I had a tissue box, and my gaze fell on the collar. Last night’s memories flooded over me like a tidal wave. Kneeling on the floor. Lying on the bed. Taylor’s fingers inside me. Him, fucking me, my legs spread. There’d been nowhere to hide. We’d looked at each other as he thrust into me.
My stomach clenched, and I couldn’t tell whether it was from nausea or the memory of Taylor King giving me the best orgasm I’d had in my entire life. I didn’t know it was possible to feel like that. It hadn’t even just been physical — although the feeling of him inside me had been incredible, the fullness, the relentless pressure over and over…
No, it had been more than that. Maybe it was the way he looked at me.
It had been…spiritual, almost.
And now I was talking nonsense.
I picked up the tissue box and shoved it in Taylor’s direction, not quite ready to look at him in the eye.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered, grabbing a handful of tissues. “First thing in the morning, and —”
“What are you doing in my bed anyway?” I asked, trying to distract both of us from the fact that elbowing him in the face had been a teensy tiny bit over the top.
“Sleeping. Obviously.” His voice was rough and deep.
“You were awake.”
“Hm?”
“You were awake,” I repeated, looking up to meet his eyes. The rest of my sentence died as I took in the glossy red everywhere. “What the hell? Is that blood?”
“Obviously,” he drawled.
