Nope. Not going there. That was tequila and temporary insanity and a mistake we agreed to forget.
“Are you trying to give me a fucking heart attack?” I demand through raspy breaths. My heart is doing this weird galloping thing that I’m attributing entirely to adrenaline. It has nothing to do with how his gray T-shirt stretches across his chest. The same chest I…
Stop it, Piper. This isnotthe time.
“You nearly took my damn eye out.”
His annoyingly piercing–and entirely unharmed–eyes do a slow perusal of my current state, and I swear the temperature in the room jumps ten degrees. Just like it did in that bar in Denver when my friend’s bachelorette party collided with his celebration for signing with the Denver Grizzlies franchise. When we’d had too many shots and ended up pressed against each other on the dance floor.
And then in the elevator.
And then inhis hotel room
And then…
Focus, Piper.
“I thought you were here to kill me.”
“Only in my dreams,” he mumbles. And there’s that smirk, the one that makes smart women do stupid things. The one that mademedo stupid things when hours of trading insults somehow turned into foreplay. “Why did you throw a shoe at me?”
“Um, I thought you were a whack job coming to kill me. Maybe you should knock next time? Or, I don’t know, text? Call? Send a carrier pigeon? Literally anything other than breaking and entering?”
“Ian gave me a key.” He rubs his forehead where my shoe made contact. “Nice arm, by the way.”
“High school volleyball. Not that you’d remember anything about me that doesn’t involve shit talk.”
The look he levels at me shoots sparks up my spine. “I remember plenty that doesn’t involve talking,” His voice drops a fraction, and, oh God, he’s thinking about it too. The first weekend of April. Denver. The hotel room. The way we agreed the next morning that it was a terrible lapse in judgment. That we hated each other, and it would never happen again. And that no one, especially not Ian and Sadie, would ever know.
“Forget whatever you’re remembering.” I resist the urge to place a protective hand on my stomach, which is stupid because I’m not showing yet. And I have no idea what the hell I’m going to do about my baby’s father being a man who can’t stand me, and who told me to my face he doesn’t want kids.
“Put some fucking clothes on,” he says through gritted teeth, as if I’m the one being unreasonable.
I glance down at my faded T-shirt with “Night Shift Nurse: We Can’t Fix Stupid, But We Can Sedate It” printed across the front. It hits at mid-thigh, well below the danger zone, and I’m wearing my comfiest cotton bikini briefs, not even a thong.
I cross my arms, which—oops—makes the shirt ride up higher. “It’s not like you haven’t seen it before,” I tell him, and then immediately want to die because that’s not going to help either of us forget that night.
His eyes go wide, and I suck in a breath that has nothing to do with the adrenaline comedown and everything to do with the way he’s looking at me. Like he’s remembering exactly what’s under this shirt.
“I’m referencing legs in general, you asshat. You’ve seen plenty of female body parts.” On plenty of women who aren’t his brother’s sister-in-law, or carrying his secret baby. Women he actually likes.
“I’m not here to murder you, Hart,” he says, his cadence painfully slow. “And I’m trying to be respectful.” He pauses, his jaw working like he’s physically forcing himself to keep his eyes on my face. His gaze drops for just a second before snapping back up. “Put on a bra, while you’re at it,” he commands. Like he has a right to demand anything where I’m concerned.
I clutch the Kindle closer to my chest. The device might not protect me from bullets, but it’s definitely shielding me from Felix’s opinion of my braless state. “How about I go back to bed and you turn around and go back to whatever whore hole you crawled out of?”
The murderer accusation clearly bothered him, but the man-whore comment makes his lips twitch. Interesting. Either way, I’ve gotten under his skin, which pleases me to no end. He’s been under mine since April. Literally and figuratively.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He glances over his shoulder as if he’s just remembered something, and then takes a step away from me. “I’ve got someone in the car, and?—”
“Fuck off, Felix.” Why should I care if he brought a woman up here? It’s not like we’re...anything. We had one stupid, tequila-fueled, admittedly mind-blowing night that meant nothing. Even if the result means everything to me. I need to tell him, obviously. But that’s a conversation I’m not prepared to have at the moment.
What I am prepared to do is kill my sister for not warning me he was coming. She knows I came here to escape drama, not to have it delivered to my door in the form of a six-foot-four football player with commitment issues and the ability to make me forget my own name with just a kiss. Not that we’re kissing ever again. That was a one-time thing. Felix Barlowe is a gorgeous, athletic, surprisingly tender mistake who’s brought another woman to the cabin where I’m trying to figure out my life.
I sigh and give him my best glare because the truth is he has as much right to be here as I do. His brother did marry my sister, after all. We’re family. Sort of. In the most technical, non-blood-related, we-accidentally-made-a-baby-together way.
“At least do me the courtesy of keeping her quiet.” I aim for casual indifference and land somewhere around bitter resignation. Because I’m not at all looking forward to hearing him with another woman while my hormones are doing whatever the hell they’re doing—which feels a lot like wanting to fangirl all over him.
“Wear earplugs,” he says, that smirk widening into a full-blown grin as he disappears out the front door. But not before I catch him muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “who needs sedation” and shaking his head.
