My memories swipe at the fog in my brain, revealing bits and pieces of the evening. Tequila. Dinner. Dancing. More drinks. Sweat gathering at my hairline. Feet aching. More drinks. Laughing until tears ran down my cheeks. Paloma and I in the bathroom, pressing a cool wet washcloth to our necks. Waffles dripping with cinnamon syrup. Klein carrying Paisley on his back. After that, a haze blankets the night. The memories are jagged, angular, forming an incomplete picture. Dom appears over and over. Smiling. Happy. Laughing. Staring at me with this look in his eyes, baffled at first, and then later, a look similar tothe one from our disastrous date. Back when I thought he liked me.
I rarely drink as much as I did last night, but I was anxious. Nervous. I saw Dom, and he was so handsome, and he looked hurt when he saw me. It was confusing, and I was already a mix of emotions, so it all melded together and turned into outrage. The burn of tequila seemed like the best solution.
Not so much now, especially with?—
The bed dips. But I haven't moved.
No. No no no.
There's a soft shuffle of sheets. Horror mixes with the rolling nausea in my midsection. Who is beside me in this bed?
Please let it be Paisley. Please let it be Paloma.
Taking a deep breath, I crack open one eye.
The bed is empty. My other eye opens. The room spins when I push up to my elbows.
There's the quiet snick of a door closing across the space. The bathroom. Slowly, to keep from expediting an almost certain need to vomit, my gaze explores the room. It looks exactly like the room I checked into yesterday, but I know it's not mine. There isn't a black dress draped over a chair, the runner-up in my choice for what to wear last night. No propped open suitcase on the floor. My comfortable sneakers I wore on the plane aren't lying haphazardly after being kicked off.
In fact, from here I can't see anything personal in this room. Not a stray shoe or sock.
Was this a room rented solely for—NO.
I can't go there right now.
Panic overtakes me again. I am not in my room. This is the room of whoever is in that bathroom.
A toilet flushes. Water runs.
I need to get out of here before whoever that is comes out. If I never see their face, I'll never have to know it happened. Sound logic if there ever was any.
I attempt to sit up, but the dizziness sends me back to my elbows.
The bathroom door opens.
With all the reluctance I've ever felt in my life multiplied by ten, I force my gaze that direction. A man stands in the doorway. Bare chest. Shoulders that stretch on and on, carved and expansive like he was built to carry the weight of things. Things like furniture, or boxes filled with books, or a wanton woman to his sex lair.
Dom.
Silently, I send a mighty and heartfeltthank youto the heavens. It could be so much worse.
But also,this isn't good. In fact, this is monumentally bad.
Dom is beautiful, and not in a brooding-for-no-apparent-reason cologne ad way. Not at all. Dom has a brand of attractiveness that begs to be obsessed about later, the kind that has staying power in a woman's thoughts.
He leans a ridiculously muscular shoulder on the doorframe, skin faintly illuminated in the morning light. His hair, normally neat, fluffs up in caramel tufts, suggesting he ran a hand through it.
I look away. Or I try to, anyway. My gaze drags itself back to the cut of his abdomen, the way his shorts hang just a little too low on those hips. Dear me. Send help.
Nope. No. Absolutely not.
I am not about to be charmed by this man.
But my stomach flips anyway.
Just once. Maybe twice.
"Good morning," he says, voice like a rake over hot gravel. "You look?—"
