Just A Little Fling

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Either her buttons were remarkably easy to push, or she was very aroused. He knew the feeling. Already, she was restless and impatient under him, but he had no intention of rushing anything or giving her what she obviously wanted.

Instead, he backed off, barely grazing her shoulder with his mouth before he held himself away. His lids lowered as he gazed down at her. Beautiful. Whoever she was, this naked goddess who’d come calling, she was long and lithe, curvy and luscious, with pale, porcelain skin that glowed even in this faint light and a riot of hair spilling out in every direction.

Ian smiled. Yeah, this was going to take a while.

WHY DIDN’T HE hurry up? She was dying down here. Lucie groaned with frustration, writhing near the edge of the bed. She was melting from the inside out, and she didn’t think she could be any more wet, hot, ready. His clever, versatile mouth showed no mercy on her breasts and her belly, teasing her, biting and swirling, pushing her into this mindless, dazzled, semiconscious place, where all she did was ache for him, hate him, wait for him, want him.

Why did he have to move so damn slowly?

Finally, just when she thought she might expire from this terrible need, he slid lower. Lucie gasped. If she’d thought his tongue was skillful before, now she knew what it could really do. It could make her weep with pleasure. It could bring her hurtling to the top so fast she saw stars.

She’d never been like this before, every inch of her humming and shattering, where every flick of his tongue brought her higher, faster, harder.

“Oh, yessss,” she cried. “Don’t stop. Don’t…stop!” But she was already peaking, falling and peaking again. She melted into a puddle of satisfaction, curling into him. “Don’t stop…”

He lifted his head. His low, heated voice coiled around her like flame when he whispered, “Don’t worry. We’re just getting started.”

“I think,” she murmured in a husky, vixenish voice she didn’t recognize as her own, “now it’s your turn.”

She opened her fist again, sparing a moment to stuff the still unused condoms under the pillow for safekeeping.

“Maybe later,” she whispered, sliding down his flank, twisting herself around him.

“Maybe later,” he echoed.

But first…

MORNING LIGHT drifted slowly into the room, casting a soft, warm glow on Lucie.

She opened one eye. “Mmmph,” she mumbled, unable to recognize the fuzzy shapes in front of her.

Stretching out an arm, yawning, she blinked, opening both eyes. A draft tickled her shoulders, making her quite certain she wasn’t wearing a top. Or a bottom.

Naked. In a high, soft bed she didn’t recognize, with intricately carved posts and thick draperies cascading down from the edges of the canopy overhead.

Taking silent inventory, she noted that there seemed to be a pillow wedged under her stomach, and her head, most of her hair, and one arm were hanging off the bed, dangling in space. An assortment of rumpled bedclothes had been tossed onto the floor below her, and a rainbow of small, ripped packets, red and blue and green and yellow, lay scattered around them.

Those were condom packets, she realized with sudden alarm. She counted. Six empty condom packets. Six?

What did that mean?

As she lifted her chin, she thought she could hear someone breathing behind her. Not only that, but she could feel hot puffs of air on her back, just below her shoulder blade, and an unfamiliar weight, as if someone were lying there, his head in the middle of her back, breathing on her.

What in blazes…?

Uh-oh. Things were starting to come back to her. Bad things.

She was getting fragments, strange shards of memory. And her head hurt. She tried to concentrate. What did these bizarre thoughts mean? Something about the reception and some nutty woman telling her she really ought to have a fling. And then Baker and a key and an idiotic blonde in the bathroom, and she’d crept up the stairs and into a dark room…

But this couldn’t be Baker. Not the way her body felt all rubbed down, stoked up, worked out and trampled on, as if it had danced the tango to hell and back. More than once. She tried to move a few muscles. Yeow. Exactly what did they do?

She had these vague memories of her bed partner, of being upside down and on top of him, under him, on the floor, half on and half off the bed, of pretty much acting like a Flying Wallenda without a trapeze. That all had to be some erotic fantasy, right? People didn’t really do those things.

“Okay, you’re fine,” she whispered to herself. “Probably you had too much to drink and you fell into a stupor in some guy’s bed. Probably you were both too drunk to perform and nothing happened.”

Comforting, but hardly realistic given the aftershocks still humming through her nervous system. Not to mention all those empty condom packets.

“Well,” she continued, trying not to panic, “whatever you did, he did it, too. Whoever he is.”

Quietly, carefully, trying not to fall into hysteria, she eased herself back into the bed all the way, craning her neck so she could see who was back there, breathing on her. He rolled away from her, freeing her, and she saw dark hair, a beautifully sculpted torso, broad shoulders…She could just make out the side of his face, but a picture fell into her muddled brain with a clunk. A picture of her half sister standing at the altar, beaming up at a face just like this one.

“Oh, my god!” she screamed, bolting upright, clutching the pillow to her front. “I slept with the groom!”

“The groom? Who? Wha…?” He jumped awake all at once, sitting up stark naked, staring at her. “I’m not the groom. I swear. But who are you?”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Keeping an arm secure around her protective pillow, she lifted a weak hand to her brow, shoving back a wall of hair, wishing her head would stop pounding like that. The whole room seemed to be beating like a drum. Or was that just her heart? Why did it have to be so loud?

“Who are you? And why are you shouting?”

“I remember you now,” Lucie ventured slowly. Breathe in. Breathe out. It could be worse. She remembered him. He wasn’t the groom. He was handsome. He was nice. It could be a lot worse. If only he weren’t quite so naked. She bent down over the edge, grabbed a sheet, and flung it back up on the bed. “If you don’t mind, could you please, you know, cover up?”

His jaw clenched. But he took it. With a grim expression, he looped the fine linen over his lap. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you.” Still unwilling to look directly at him, Lucie compulsively rubbed her finger over the intricate carvings in the dark wood post beside her. “As I said, I remember you. You’re right—you’re not the groom. You’re the best man, Ian. You were supposed to have lip prints all over you from Feather. I was supposed to find Baker and have my one night of nookie. I think we got our wires crossed.”

“Huh?”

Losing it, Lucie bridged the gap between them, took him by the shoulders, and shook him. Hard. “What the hell were we thinking? How did this happen? And how did it happen six times?”

Wincing, Ian peeled her hands off his shoulders. “You just dropped your pillow.”

Her body flushed with hot color as she let loose with a particularly colorful curse word and smacked him with the full brunt of the stupid pillow. Then, with dignity, she reattached it to her front and stretched out her other hand behind her to find something more reliable. But there was nothing to find. The heavy coverlet was pooled on the floor, nowhere near her.

“Sit still,” he said darkly, leaning over her, spreading out his sheet to cover her, too. “There. That ought to do it.”

Delicately clasping it up to her neck, Lucie huddled on her side of the bed, not touching any of him.

“I just…I haven’t got a clue how we ended up together,” he said gingerly. But he extended a finger, gently lifting a tendril of her hair as he smiled encouragingly. “Do we know each other?”

“Well, actually, yes. After last night, I think it’s fair to say we know each other intimately.” She concentrated on bringing air into her lungs. Calmly. Slowly. No need to hyperventilate. Also no need for a mental slide show of the level of that intimacy. “But we did meet before that—you came to my table and you dragged me over to be in the family picture. Ring any bells?”

“Kind of,” he murmured slowly. “But how did we get from there…to here?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. Baker gave me a key. Room 302. I came right here.”

“But this is 203.”

“Isn’t that what I said? Oh. This is 203? Then he must be in 302. But why would his key work in your door?” She shook her head, grabbing her hair in one hand and twisting it into a knot just to get it out of her way. “I don’t understand.”

“The hair. I remember you now. Lucie, the sneezy redhead.” He rammed a hand into his forehead. “Steffi’s sister. Oh, lord. What have we done?”

That was the ten-million-dollar question, wasn’t it?

3

IAN’S HEAD FELT like a bongo drum. He knew he had a massive hangover, but that wasn’t the half of it.

He had just slept with Lucie Webster. And he was in big trouble.

For one thing, she was not at all his type. Sure, they’d hit it off big-time in the sack. But he could tell just by looking she was too bright, too interesting, too challenging, way too six-kids-and-a-house-in-the-suburbs. One glance at her and he saw his future stretching before him, full of lace curtains and hand-thrown pots, salt-and-pepper-shaker collections, New York Times crossword puzzles, and schmaltzy black-and-white movies on video. And that was a best-case scenario. Yechhhh.

She was also not the kind of woman who was satisfied with a one-night stand, which was exactly why she wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted. She had trust and respect and commitment written all over her.

As well as some bodacious curves. Ian, keep your mind on trust, respect and commitment—all the things you avoid with a vengeance.

Even worse than that, she came straight from the same grasping, social-climbing family as the petulant princess who’d just shackled his poor brother. For all he knew, this was the way Steffi got her foot in Kyle’s door. And the last thing he needed was to step into the same quicksand that was trapping Kyle.

Ian tried to sort out how to get out of this mess with even a scrap of self-respect, but every time he tried to think, he kept getting this loud echo inside his brain. Boom, boom, boom. He vaguely remembered a bottle of Scotch with his name on it. That would explain the rock band in his head.

“Listen, can you call down to room service and get some coffee up here?” he asked in a very soft voice, trying to avoid the damn echo. It didn’t work.

“No, I cannot call room service,” the woman in his bed yelled. Well, maybe she didn’t really yell. Maybe it only seemed like yelling. “If I call room service, they will know I’m here, won’t they? I don’t want anyone to know I’m here, and especially not some nice, wide-eyed kid who’s going to roll his cart in here and then run back to Room Service Central to tell everyone that he saw you and me and six empty condom packages. Six!”

He was sorry he’d asked. “We could clean up the floor before he got here. Did you say six?” He didn’t mean to smile. Lord knew, this was nothing to smile about. “Six, huh?”

“I’m glad that news cheers one of us up.”

“I’m sorry,” he offered before he knew what he was saying. He was sorry. It’s just that apologizing wasn’t necessarily the tactic he would’ve chosen if he’d had his wits about him. “Lucie, I don’t know what to say. I wish I remembered more about what happened or what we did…”

But he did remember. All of a sudden, the memories came flooding back with startling detail. Good God.

His gaze rocketed over to her, skidded off, and landed somewhere on the foot of the bed. Could he really have…? Could she really have…? She sure didn’t seem like the type. He wasn’t sure he was the type. Good God. He actually felt like blushing. He hadn’t blushed since he was twelve.

And right now, he had to be out of that bed and more than a few inches away from Lucie Webster. He was starting to sweat from the flashbacks.

“Okay, listen.” He jumped out from under the sheet and deftly whipped the heavy side curtain from the bed around his flanks as he turned. “Probably we need to talk about this, but I think maybe a shower is what I need. Unless…” He gave her a short glance. “You first?”

“I am not going to get naked in your shower,” she returned hotly, as if his shower was any more intimate than what they’d already done. As if anything in the universe was more intimate than what they’d already done.

The shower. Oh, hell. Ian leaned his head against the hard wood of the bedpost. The shower was where they’d ended up during round six of their no-holds-barred wrestling match, unless he was very much mistaken. The kaleidoscope of pictures unfolding in his brain told him he was not mistaken.

There they all were, in blinding clarity. One was on the bed with her on top; two was half-off the bed with him behind; three was on the floor, sort of a continuation of two after they rested for a minute; four was back on the bed but he was on top, and five was on the desk.

And six…up against the wall of the shower, with the water on full blast.

He squeezed his eyes closed but the pictures remained. His only hope of sanity was that Lucie didn’t remember.

“All right,” he said darkly, “then why don’t you get dressed while I take a shower?” He’d just have to keep his eyes shut, point the other way and make the water really cold. Really cold.

“Why don’t I leave? Like, immediately.” Lucie scooted out the side of the bed in a wave of cream-colored linen wrapped toga-style. “I’ll just get my clothes…” She kicked at the pile of tartans on the floor, frowning as she held up her skirt in one hand. “It’s all ripped. All down the side. I guess I was in a…hurry.” Looking even more dazed than before, she took a deep breath. “No buttons on my blouse, either. This is great. This is just great. I suppose I could tie the blouse on, but then what do I do below the waist? You don’t have about ten safety pins, do you?”

“No.” Was she crazy or was he? Safety pins?

“Great,” she repeated, even crankier this time. “I have no clothes, not a stitch, and I’m stuck in a hotel room with Mr. Sleeps-With-Anything-That-Moves of Greater Chicagoland—”

“That’s hardly fair,” he put in, although it was difficult to argue while wearing half a bed curtain, while his mind and body still rocked with erotic aftershocks. “You don’t know who I sleep with.”

He stretched out a toe, trying to snag the bedspread. He also worked on kicking the empty condom wrappers under the bed, since they seemed to be bothering Lucie so much.

“I don’t?” she asked angrily. “Aside from me, who happens to be a virtual stranger, you mean?”

She was busy wiggling into her panties while hanging onto her sheet, and the suggestive motions didn’t do his temperature any good. Much better idea for him to play soccer with condom packages and ignore her.

“And why would I think you sleep around?” she went on. “Hmm…I wonder.”

He held himself very still, hoping she wasn’t going to mention anything about the floor or the shower or the energetic tango half-off the bed. God, that one was magnificent. Kinky, but magnificent.

“Maybe,” she continued, “because I know your first choice of bedpartners last night was a bubble-headed bimbo with fake boobs. Men who lust after Feathers do not get high marks in the taste department in my book.”

Oh, Feather. He’d forgotten about her. “You were hardly expecting to sleep solo yourself, sister,” he shot back. Meanwhile, he’d managed to maneuver the brocade coverlet over far enough to grab it and wrap up a toga of his own. “Besides, you’re the one who crawled in with me, not vice versa.”

“You’re right, I did not intend to sleep solo,” she said smartly. “And you’re also right that I did crawl in with you. But that was a mistake. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I ended up in the wrong room.”

“Uh-huh. Convenient. Maybe you just picked the first door at the top of the stairs.”

“For your information, I planned things rather carefully,” she insisted. “Yesterday was my birthday and I was trying to arrange a very simple little fling. But did I pick some stud ten years younger than me? No! A stranger? No! I chose a decent, normal guy with an IQ well above four. Not Feather McStupid!”

“Okay, that’s not funny.” But he started to laugh anyway. He couldn’t help it. His senses were overloading and he had to break the tension somehow. Feather McStupid? It wasn’t that clever; it just hit him the right way.

“So happy to keep you entertained.”

He shrugged. “I said I was sorry.”

“Yeah, about four times now, like I really believe any of them.” Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t want to ask you for any favors, but do you have any clothes you could lend me? I have a suitcase down in my car, but I can’t get down there dressed like this.” Her eyes were a luminous, misty green as she gazed at him, all woebegone and miserable. “I just really need to be out of here and not talking about this anymore. This whole you-and-me-last-night thing is just too much for me.”