Frantic, I kicked the covers off—it took several tries—and didn’t exhale in relief until I saw that I was still wearing myunderwear.
The bathroom door opened and Justus stepped out wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs stretched across a defined V of muscle below a set of abs that would have made any enforcer proud. He snapped his toothbrush into a plastic case, then tossed it into his open backpack. “Goodmorning.”
Justus didn’t look hung over. In fact, he looked…great.
He pulled me close and kissed the corner of my mouth, and my hands went automatically to his bare, hard chest, as if they’d been there before. As if they remembered something my mind didnot.
“You okay?” He frowned down at me. “I’m so sorry about last night. I had no idea the drinks would hit you thatfast.”
“So much for shifters having trouble getting drunk, huh?” I was afraid that anything else I said would reveal how little I actually remembered of the night before. Which was pretty much nothing but the half-empty bottle of vodka siting on the coffee table and…walking down the strip, holding hands with Justus. And not necessarily in thatorder.
“Yeah. So, it turns out that if you weigh a hundred pounds and you drinkquickly—”
“One-ten,” I corrected him, running my hands through the crow’s nest that had grown on my headovernight.
“—and you’ve never had a drink before, except one little mini-bottle on the plane, you can actually get drunk pretty easily.” He brushed hair over my shoulder and stared down into my eyes, as if he were assessing me for a concussion. “You sure you’reokay?”
“Headache,” I managed, as I glanced over the room, hoping to trigger more memories of whatever we’ddone.
“Oh. Yeah, just asec.”
Shoes, sticking out from under the couch. Open, presumably empty soda cans standing on the bathroom counter, visible through the doorway. Pants, hanging over the back of a chair. All of it evidence of a night I couldn’tremember.
“Here.” Justus pressed two tablets of Tylenol into my right hand. I set them on my tongue, then took the bottle of water he offered and swallowed them. “You should drink all of that. Then severalmore.”
I drained the bottle of water while he stepped into his jeans, mostly for the chance to think back over last night without being expected to speak. I remembered the plane and the taxi ride to Caesar’s Palace, and I remembered eating noodles alone at a restaurant in the casino. But the rest was ablur.
“Justus?” My hand shook as I set the empty bottle on the coffee table. “What happened lastnight?”
He looked up, alarm flickering behind his beautiful gray eyes as he buttoned his pants. “You don’tremember?”
“Noteverything.”
He waved one arm at the empty cups and the vodka bottle. “We werecelebrating.”
And suddenly Ididremember.
He was sure the tribunal was hopelessly stacked against him, so he was going to run. And I was going to go with him. After he won some money playing… “Poker!”
Relief washed over his face. “You doremember.”
“I remember that you were playing, and I was eating. So…” I glanced around at the evidence of our celebration. “You won? Crap, what time is it?” I patted my butt for my phone, but both my jeans and my phone were noticeably absent. “What time is our flight? Are we going to makeit?”
“Kaci…” Justus took my hand and led me around the coffee table to the couch. “Sit down. Drink some more water. See if you can remember anything else.” He looked reallyworried.
“What? Did we already miss theflight?”
“No.” He cracked open another bottle and handed it to me.” Kaci, we weren’t celebrating…poker. I lost most of my money. You don’t rememberthat?”
“No.”
“I was up two hundred thousand dollars. Then I looked up and saw some guy hitting on you in therestaurant.”
I frowned at him. “You lost your money because some guy hit onme?”
“No.” He chuckled. “You shoved him, and he fell over a table, and security escorted him out. It was awesome. But then I realized I didn’t want to be playing poker while you were eating alone. So I doubled down, like an idiot. That would have been enough to get us out of here and hold us over for quite awhile.”
“But then youlost.”
