Pinch once. Twice. Nothing. Third time’s the charm?
“You good? What are you doing down there?” the man asks, even though it took him quite a long time to check on me after the fish flop I did.
Wait. Whoa. What am I saying?
Who is this man? And why is he in my bed? Is this evenmybed?
This has to be a dream. I just didn’t pinch myself hard enough.
“Ow!” I squeal after making my forearm turn red.
I shoot back, suddenly scared. My head bumps a built-in bookshelf that’s fully stocked and organized by spine color. This was also not here last night.Noneof this was here last night. I am in a completely different room, in a completely different place, and I have no idea how I landed here.
“Who are you?” I ask. My mind is a hailstorm of swirling gibberish.
The Adonis with the attractive case of bedhead quirks a brow. “Hit your head that hard, huh?” He asks it in a sexy way, not a concerned way, which makes me think those crystals caused apossession. Some wellness spirit inhabited my body, made me way more confident than I actually am, and helped me land a smokin’ hot piece to bang away my bad-day woes.
The crystals.
They’re obviously causing me to hallucinate.
I jump to my feet and reach for my pillow, but the Adonis dives in the way. “Coming back to bed?”
There’s a certain timbre to his voice that’s oddly familiar. I don’t have a spare second to think about where I’ve heard it before, though, because he’s reaching out a hand to touch me, which I very much do not want.
“Why so skittish? You certainly didn’t mind my hands all over you last night.” He’s smoke and velvet. Golden seduction under those thin, luxurious sheets.
Maybe the crystals caused me to black out.
Though that doesn’t explain what app I used to find this guy and how I blacked out so badly that I don’t even recall sleeping with him.
Seriously, he’s got the kind of body you’d remember. He’s got guy-on-an-underwear-package body. I’ve got good-for-what-it-is body, so the two don’t exactly match. Except…
I pivot slowly, remembering the mirror above the dresser, and when I see what’s reflected at me, I let out a scream so bone-chilling I might as well be in a haunted house.
I’m having a straight-up Jamie Lee CurtisFreaky Fridaymoment. I’m…I’m…old.
Okay. Notoldexactly, butolderthan I was when I went to sleep, that’s for damn sure.
My face has grown fuller, eyebrows arched and plucked sharper. My hair, previously oily and uncared for, is a voluminous dark-brown mane that could be slicked back and styled in so many ways. Even my skin, which was blotched with connect-the-dots acne fromworking around greasy foods, has evened out into a supple, moisturized visage a serial killer might want to skin and wear. A personal goal of mine, though I’d never admit that morbid secret.
As my eyes scan lower, my shirtless torso reveals itself. While it’s a far cry from the Adonis in the bed, I’m worked out and tightly toned in a manner that suggests I have a personal trainer, or at the very least a Peloton.
This surprise is…pleasant, to say the least, but still wildly confusing. I’m in a body I don’t know. Sure, my eyes are the same—hazel—and I didn’t mysteriously grow any new appendages that I know of.
Wait.Curiosity kills the cat as I pull the elastic waistband on my expensive underwear to see what I’m packing. I am both disappointed and reassured to find one part of me mostly unchanged.
“Is the microphone hot?” Adonis asks, apparently undisturbed by me screaming my head off seconds ago, smoke and velvet turned up so high it’s like I’m at a goddamn magic show. A sexy magic show. Where instead of rabbits, they pull vibrators out of the top hats. Note to self: Magic Mike butliteralmagic.
I turn back, flushed hot with the embarrassment of being caught checking myself out. “I’m sorry. What?”
“I asked if it was time for the open mic.” His smirk is artful, and it would be arousing if I weren’t so utterly confused and scared by what’s going on here. “I’m ready to take the stage.”
“In this case, the mic is my…” I point downward, and he nods, coming closer with a growl. I push out a hand, palm finding warm washboard abs that are too rock-solid to be a mirage. “Nope. Sorry. The mic is—uh—broken.”
“Broken?” Adonis’s eyebrows go up. “I didn’t think I worked you that hard last night.”
The idea of not remembering last night, not even a smidge,sends me flying to the other side of the room. The last person I remember touching me—so tenderly that it just might make me cry at the thought—is Drew.
