For a few peaceful moments, only their labored breathing pierced the silence of the dark room. Until he shifted enough to roll off of Elise and turn her toward him, planting his mouth over hers.
“That was amazing, babe,” he eventually said. “I’m so glad you finally came to your senses. To think we’ve missed out on this for all these years.”
All these years? Not like she and Tad/Tod/Ted ever had a “thing” they’d have been missing out on. Sure she kind of led him on to piss off Will back in high school. But there was no history between the two of them, so what the hell did that even mean? Oh well. It was late and she was adequately satiated and ready to pass out cold after that lovely little prehangover orgasm. She’d have plenty of time to figure that all out in the morning.
“Shhhh,” she said, pressing her finger to his lips. “Sleep.”
Remarkably he complied and she curled up in his arms, her back to his chest, and quickly drifted off to sleep.
BLACKOUT SHADES. THAT’S what this room needed. Something to keep the invasive rays of the morning sun from piercing her eyeballs’ meager defenses. What good were eyelids if they didn’t block out brilliant daylight? Good God, it made her eyes ache, which made her brain ache, which made her whole being ache. Since when did a little sunlight assault your entire existence like this?
And then it came back to her in tiny vignettes: her drinking enough liquor alone for the entire grouping of bridesmaids. Jesus, Elise’s head felt like she had a stone carver trying to work his way out of her cerebellum, hammering away with a rhythmic thumping that Elise swore she could hear. She tried to open her mouth, but it felt glued shut.
Christ, wasn’t it the bride, not the maid of honor, who was supposed to be so hungover after the bachelorette party that she needed a team of sled dogs to haul her out of bed? She felt movement behind her and glanced down to see two hands pressed possessively to her breasts, and she arched a brow. Ummm... What the actual fuck? She hadn’t brought a date with her to Bristol this weekend. She hadn’t even been with a man this way in longer than she could remember—easily a year. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. Her eyes grew wide when she then felt the unmistakable press of a hard-on against her bare bottom. This was impossible. How could she be naked, very possibly still slightly drunk, with tundra-like levels of dehydration, when all she’d done was attend her best friend’s bachelorette party?
In her morning-after fog, she tried to recall the sequence of events from the night before. She remembered drinking a few margaritas. Then maybe a few cosmos. She’d lost count of the tequila shots she’d ingested. Then came a few more cosmos. Maybe a beer or two. And she was talking to that guy—what was his name? Tod? Tad? Ted? He was sorta cute, though he always wore a cowboy hat, which felt to her to be a bit pretentious. Unless you spent your days rustling cattle, it always seemed to Elise like cowboy hats were all about the costume, which usually made her roll her eyes. There’s no way she’d have left with him last night. In fact, the only reason she’d have bothered chatting with him much at all was for the same reason she’d done so after she and Will broke up back in high school: to make Will jealous.
Will.
Will?
Will!
Oh, fuck. No way. Not Will.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Will. Curse Jennifer and Jamie for deliberately omitting the fact that Will was the best man. How had she not known that? How had she not gone over that with Jennifer? Had she just assumed it would’ve been Jamie’s college roommate doing the honors? And last night. That guy Tod/Tad/Ted—he kept squeezing her ass, didn’t he? Which annoyed the hell out of her, but she was so drunk she didn’t even want to deal with it. Normally she’d have racked a guy in the balls for doing that to her. Wow, she was losing her game. So then what had happened?
She went down her mental checklist: Drinks—lots of drinks. She remembered at some point her head was spinning—never a good sign. Then that Tod/Tad/Ted dude was groping her. Oh God. Then Will. He came over and got all testosterone-y with the guy, didn’t he? And then he insisted that she leave with him. Where did they go? Her pulse started to speed up. He carried her—carried her!—to his room. Had he then stripped her clothes off? How else would she have gotten naked? With Will Montgomery, of all the damn men in the world. How was she going to extricate herself from this prickly dilemma? And what even happened?
Oh God. This was awful. Worse than awful, this was terrible. Make that downright mortifying. Had he taken advantage of her? Impossible—that was so not Will’s MO. Had she? Yikes—that wasn’t hers either! What had she done? She squinted her eyes shut against the incessant pounding—where the hell was her Advil? Where the hell was she? Was she even in her own hotel room? Without moving a muscle, she scanned what she could see through slit eyes, but it looked like a hotel room—probably quite like the one she’d checked into yesterday, though for the life of her she couldn’t recall any details. She saw something on the floor that looked like a black carry-on suitcase, which definitely wasn’t hers—she’d opted for the easy-to-find-on-the-luggage carousel polka-dotted one.
So that meant she was in his room. Which made sense since he’d dragged her here. So then what happened? From the bar to the room was basically a blur. She had a vague sensation of being plunked down on the bed like a butcher would drop a big side of beef on the block for carving. There had to have been no seduction, no stripping of clothes, no nothing. She was not in any condition for that—of that she was sure. So, then what? And that’s when it started to come to her: at some point in the middle of the night, her bladder was protesting wildly. She got up to pee, staggered to the bathroom. She was so hot—so hot!—so she tugged off her clothes before returning to bed. But what happened then?
She felt like some forensics analyst reconstructing the scene of the crime. The heat of embarrassment overtook her as she added things up: she’d been the instigator. She was the one who thought it was a good idea to have a drunken one-night stand with some random dude, even though she mistakenly thought it was with an entirely different guy. Someone she’d never have hooked up with sober. She was the one who inched down his body and took his cock in her mouth. Oh, sweet mother in heaven. Elise “Will Montgomery is Dead to Me” Jackson had given that very same Will Montgomery a blow job? Not like she’d never done that before—frankly, with him she’d become quite expert at it back in the day since it was easy enough to do in the back of his pickup.
But now with the clarity that came with dawn’s light revealing itself to her, she sure as hell couldn’t face him. But how could she slip out and pretend nothing had ever happened? She closed her eyes—against the alcohol-induced throbbing in her brain; against the large, warm hands that were covetously blanketing her breasts at this very moment; against the tide of recall that was beginning to slosh ashore in her memories of last night; and against the realization that she probably drunk-fucked the man who broke her heart—the same man she’d promised herself never to have physical contact with again. In her wildest dreams that might have included a handshake, but certainly not penis-to-vagina contact.
Penis-to-vagina contact... Oh dear God. Had she done that? With him? Skin-to-freaking-skin? Was she mad? In what universe would she have gone without protection? She made a mental note to never ever do a shot of tequila for the rest of her life. And maybe cut back on the cosmos and margaritas by a good 90 percent.
The naked man who was at this moment pressed up to her shifted in his sleep enough to give Elise a chance to slip out of his clutches. Hoping he wouldn’t notice, she did a near-dog roll from the bed to the floor, then crawled on all fours around the bed, trying to scrounge up her various articles of clothing so she could dress and run pronto. She was able to put her hands on her white denim skirt, so she lay on the icky hotel carpet flat on her back as she jimmied it up her hips. She stuck her hand in her pocket, relieved to find her phone still in its place. Next came her little satiny black tank top. She silently patted around on the floor for her bra but wasn’t
finding anything. The sunlight hadn’t quite reached this side of the bed yet, so it was too dark to find. She heard him roll over in the bed and panicked. No time for the bra, and she still hadn’t found her underwear either. She spread out on the floor on her stomach and did a little starfish crawl, whereupon she found both boots—thank God. She would never give those things up. She slipped her tank on, braless, and decided it was better to leave those wounded soldiers behind than to have to face the music with Sleeping Beauty up there if and when he awoke. She crawled like a commando to the door, not even bothering to don her boots, quietly stood up, undid the latch, and ever so gingerly turned the door lock, then quietly slipped out into the hallway, her dignity and pride having taken a hit, but at least she had enough clothes to do the walk of shame without having to steal anything of his. As far as she was concerned, this event never happened.
Chapter Six
Will woke to the telltale snick of the door latch, and he immediately knew that meant Elise had pulled a runner. Dammit, he should have insisted on Round Two with her before she’d fallen back to sleep right after that glorious and most unexpected orgasm. Considering this opportunity might never present itself again, at least he could have built up a stockpile for the memory books. It was obvious he’d gotten his hopes up for nothing. It wasn’t every day that you awoke to the unexpected sensation of a warm, wet mouth encircling your cock while you slept. By the time he was awake enough to realize someone was sucking his dick, he wasn’t able to think clearly enough to put a stop to it if he’d wanted to. Not that he’d ever want to. After all, what was he gonna do, declare a time out? Kind of a moot point, anyhow, because it was all so damn dreamlike that were it not for the sound of the door clicking shut, he’d almost think it hadn’t happened. But for the musky scent of aroused woman that lingered on his sheets, there was no evidence of what had taken place. If only he could bottle that aroma for a memento.
He scratched his chest, rubbed the sleep from his face, stretched out his arms, then propped his head on his bent arms, trying to analyze what had happened. The last thing he’d known before going to sleep was that Elise was snoring away on the far side of the bed, fully clothed. After he’d gotten ready for bed, he stripped down like he did every night of his life, and settled under the blankets, respectfully as far away from his unexpected “houseguest” as possible. Hell, he’d even turned his back away from her for good measure.
Next thing he knew he was about to blow his load into her mouth and he sure as hell hadn’t instigated that. He hoped Elise had finally realized how irrational she’d been all those years ago—and continued to be. And that she’d decided to make up for lost time the moment that happened.
Of course, now he realized what probably happened is that she was either sleep-fucking—was that a thing?—or she thought she was turning on some other guy. Probably the dickhead in the ten-gallon hat. He wanted to believe it was sleep-fucking. Because surely that would be no different than waking up and walking into the shower or wandering down the street. That shit happened all the time, didn’t it? Hell, there was that thing with some sleeping pill that caused people to eat a whole bag of hamburger buns in the middle of the night. So maybe she sleep-sucked, for starters, then sleep-fucked for the grand finale, and then in the morning, she realized who her unwitting partner was and freaked out.
One thing was for sure: she must’ve freaked out. He chuckled. He could only imagine her this morning upon waking—her instincts would’ve been like a cat whose tail got caught under a rocker. But then she’d have been conflicted for fear of waking him—the last thing she’d want to do is face the music with him if she was riddled with regrets. He’d have loved to see how she managed to round up her clothes and slip out the door without waking him. She must’ve been shitting bricks.
He replayed what had happened in his mind, from the minute central command in his brain told him that someone’s tongue was stroking his cock, to the moment she insisted that he enter her from behind. Although he regretted that this didn’t afford him the chance to put his mouth on hers or to suck on her nipples, although he had at least reached around her to tweak them with his fingers. It had been years since his eyes had feasted on those gorgeous tits, though, so he lamented missing out on the opportunity. And then, of course, he replayed the moment he buried himself deep inside her and stilled himself as his body convulsed in such overwhelming pleasure, he was amazed he didn’t shout loud enough to wake the neighbors.
He rolled off the bed and padded to the bathroom. His foot made contact with something other than carpet. He stooped over and picked up a tiny slip of silky black fabric and dangled it above his head as he gave a long, low whistle. Well, if he couldn’t package up the smell of sex on his sheets, at least he would be able to pocket the smell of Elise on her panties—slight concession. His eyes scanned the carpet for any other parting gifts, which was when he found the matching silky black push-up bra poking out from beneath the bed. This was good. What better conversation starter with Elise at the rehearsal dinner tonight than the fact that he was carrying her matching bra and panties along as a memento of their hot little session. You never knew if they’d come in handy or not.
RICARDO WAS WAITING for Will in the lobby.
“I’m starving, man. What took you so long?”
Will shrugged. For now, he was going to keep this under his hat. No sense in everyone hearing about this—it would only make Elise more skittish than she already was.
“Just getting a slow start. Where’d you get that?” he asked, pointing at his friend’s coffee cup. “I need caffeine something fierce.”
Ricardo pointed to a line with easily fifteen people in it. “Let’s get to the diner and you’ll have all the coffee your heart desires.”
Will nodded, then pulled on his hoodie as they left the hotel. Probably far greater chance of avoiding the morning-after interrogations anyhow if he stayed clear of everyone who might have seen him leaving last night with a certain someone dangling over his shoulders.
They walked the two blocks to Grady’s Eggs & Pies and settled into a booth in the back of the spacious diner. Will flipped his coffee cup in a less-than-subtle manner to indicate his dire need for java.
The waitress came by and filled it. “What’ll it be boys?”
“Western omelet, home fries, and a side of bacon, please.” He grinned at the waitress. “And a healthy slice of huckleberry pie.”
“At ten in the morning?” Ricardo knit his brow.
“Trust me, the pie’s the best part.”
His friend nodded. “Great. Gimme one slice huckleberry and the other slice, chocolate cream. And a side of bacon.”
The two men laughed.
“Michelle hiding from you today? Or she doesn’t want to watch you eat weird shit?”
“She’s pretty hung this morning,” Ricardo said. “I think all the ladies were pretty shit-faced. Basically, all those shots Jennifer and her girls were doing? It was like a wave at a football game, with a constant passing around and throwing back of shots.”
Which made Will happy—the drunker everyone else was, the fewer people might have even noticed what had gone on with him and Elise. And those who noticed may well have forgotten. The only one he needed to worry about was Elise and he was fairly certain she remembered. No doubt to her own chagrin.
“Looks like I was the only one not out of my mind drunk last night,” Will said.
Ricardo scratched at his unshaven chin. “Yeah, what was up with you last night? One minute I see you mixing it up with that guy coming on to your old girlfriend, the one you hugged yesterday, and the next you’re lugging her ass out of the bar, and we never saw you again. So did you two do it?”
Will felt a rush of heat climb from his chest, along his neck, then across his face. So much for no one noticing. He pursed his lips. “It was nothing. That guy’s from my high school and he’s an asshole. He was getting handsy with her and she was so drunk I wanted to make sure she was safe from
him.”
“So you two didn’t—” He formed a circle with his thumb and pointer finger of one hand and pressed his pointer finger of his other hand into the circle.
Will shook his head. “What’d you learn that little hand gesture at sixth-grade summer camp?” He rolled his eyes. “Nothing like that. It was all good.” There. He didn’t lie, but he managed to evade the truth. Perfect.
“All good would mean you got laid. This doesn’t sound good at all.”
Will frowned. “Did I not already tell you she hates my guts?” Though maybe she still had an affinity for his cock. If only.
“Was just hoping you’d get a little wedding action, maybe get that ex-girlfriend to realize how much she had a jones for boner. A jonser for your boner.” He laughed. “I crack myself up.”
Will rolled his eyes. “At least someone does.”
The waitress brought their food, and Will wrinkled his brow as he watched his friend crunch bacon into his pies.
Ricardo grinned, chocolate cream pie in his teeth. “What? Everything’s better with bacon.”
Bird Dog (Confessions of a Chick Magnet Book 4) Page 4