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ALANA SMILED, awake, but only barely, and not nearly ready to open her eyes yet. Mmm. She’d slept like a log, and what a won-derful dream. An incredibly sexy stranger had gone down on her right here in her bed. She could remember so clearly the warm feel of his tongue and the insistent push of his fingers inside her. The guy knew exactly what he was doing. She’d love to meet someone like that in real life, no offense to Sam, her old boyfriend, who wasn’t big on, um, oral traditions.
The imagined feeling had been so amazing and so vivid she’d actually climaxed. Usually when she was aroused in a dream she’d get ri-i-ight to the brink, then wake up before the final rush, frustrated and horny. But last night, mmm, no problem all the way from A to Z. If that’s what those new sleeping pills did, she’d take them every night.
She managed to get her eyes open a slit, enough to see sunshine pouring in around the shades in her old room. She used to lie here as a child and imagine herself—
Her body went rigid.
Oh my God.
Someone just moved behind her.
Hardly daring to breathe, she turned over…
Gah! She flung herself over the edge of the mattress, turned and stared, panting, hand to her chest. There was a man in her bed. God, last night…what…how could she…who…
She dragged the spread from the bed and wrapped it around herself. The blood rushed from her head; she bent over before she passed out, keeping her forehead low.
What. The. Heck.
Was that not a dream?
She was going to be sick.
Had a complete stranger actually taken advantage of her while she was asleep?
She coughed a few times to get the blood solidly back in her brain, then raised her head slowly and carefully, forcing her breath down deep so she wouldn’t hyperventilate.
Bastard. Whoever he was…
“Hey.” She gave the mattress a good kick to jiggle Prince Not-At-All Charming awake. “Hey.”
His eyes opened. She kicked the mattress again. He turned and squinted in annoyance. “Why are you kicking my bed?”
“This is my bed.”
“Uh.” He looked around in confusion. “I don’t…”
“Who are you?”
He stared as if she’d lost her mind, then shook his head. “Oh, no. You did have that drink.”
“Whah?”
“The one you told me not to have, Phil’s ’specialty of the house.’ It does something to your brain.”
She stared blankly. Oh my God. A complete psycho. Clearly one of Melanie’s friends. “I was not drinking last night.”
“The bachelor party for Dan? Thrown by my brother, Finn Kern?”
“I don’t know anyone named—”
“We talked for a long while.” His eyes narrowed. He had the gall to look her up and down. “Though, actually, you do look different than I remember.”
“I have no idea who you are.”
“Sawyer Kern? Ring any bells?”
“Sawyer!?” She gasped, practically inflating with outrage on her sister’s behalf. This…this predator was Melanie’s The One? The guy who was different from all the rest?
“I guess you do remember.”
“You…you’re Melanie’s…”
His eyes narrowed. “You know Melanie?”
“I’m her sister.” Oh, Melanie. Alana had been stupid enough to hope this guy would be different.
“Alana?” He hoisted himself to sitting, rubbed his face as if trying desperately to make himself wake up the rest of the way. She refused to notice that his chest was broad and magnificent. Or that his lips were full and masculine and had been between her…never mind. “What were you doing at the bachelor party?”
“I wasn’t at the party.”
He appeared to process that for a while.
“So I didn’t pick you up there, bring you here and then forget.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “I knew I couldn’t have been that out of it.”
How could he find anything about this situation funny? “You came home and crawled into bed with me. In this room.”
“I drank something pretty strong and didn’t notice you.” He turned his deep brown eyes on her face. “That is, I didn’t notice you at first…”
His smile became suggestive and secretive. Alana took a step back, clutching the bedspread, feeling a massive blush coming on even while thinking, Oh, great, not just a womanizer, a blacking-out alcoholic womanizer. Her sister never did anything by halves. “I took a sleeping pill and didn’t wake up until this morning. Just now. Not before. Slept all night. All of it.”
He grinned at her confusion. “You don’t remember…anything?”
“Of course not. I was asleep.”
“Hmm, I better fill you in, then, because I remember a whole lot of what happened around 3:00 a.m. You were lying there, and I—”
“No. Don’t.” She waved furiously, stop stop stop, then had to grab the bedspread covering her before it fell.
“Huh?” His face was pure innocence. “You don’t want to know? I should think that would be pretty important.”
“I…” Enter massive blush. “I know that you were…I mean, you were definitely…there, but…”
“But?”
“I, er, thought I was dreaming.”
One eyebrow went up over a mischievous eye. “Sweet dream?”
“Not in the slightest.” Her voice shook; her blush deepened.
“Hmm, that’s not how I remember it. You practically lifted off the—”
“We are not going to discuss this.”
“No?” He raised his hand like a schoolboy with a question, rumpled and sexy in her childhood bed. “I need to say something.”
Argh. “Go ahead.”
“I was drunk, you were drugged, we both have excuses. Let’s just start over.” He patted the sheets next to him. “Come back to bed.”
“What?” She could not believe she’d actually heard him say that. “You know I’m Melanie’s sister and you want me back in bed?”
“Geez.” He clutched his head and glared. “Melanie told me you were strung like a piano wire. Could you not shriek quite so loud—”
“I’ll shriek as damn loudly as I want to. I knew you’d be like this. Like all the others. That’s why I came.”
“That’s why you came? I thought my technique had something to do with that.”
She was not amused. At all. His wink did nothing to her. At all. Even though it was atrociously sexy. “I arrived here to protect her. And you, you jump into bed with me and do God knows what. And by the way, piano wires are strung tight so they can play at their best.”
“If you say so.”
“Now please get out of my room so I can—”
“Your room? Melanie set this room up for me. She had no idea you were coming, or if she did, she didn’t tell me.”
“Oh, well, no. She didn’t know.” Alana frowned. Something about this made no sense. “But…why aren’t you in the master bedroom with her?”
His eyebrows raised again. “Why would—”
“Alana!?” Melanie’s blond head poked around the door, expression incredulous. “What the hell are you—”
She saw Sawyer in the bed and gasped. “Oh my God.”
“No.” Alana put both hands out toward her sister.
“You slept with Sawyer last night?” she shrieked.
Sawyer helped the situation not at all by clutching his head in his hands and groaning, which made him look guilty and contrite instead of hungover and tired of shrieking.
“Melanie, this is not at all what it looks—”
“Give me a break.” She came out from around the door, wearing a wrinkled short skirt and top she’d obviously slept in, and took two menacing steps forward, hands jammed on her hips, hazel eyes flashing. “Okay, I’ll tell you what it looks like, Alana, and you let me know how on target I am. You slept with Sawyer last night.”
“No, I didn’t. I swear.” She realized that she was standing there with bed-head, wrapped in a bedspread, mostly bare shoulders showing, and that Sawyer was still half under the covers, clearly just awake and naked from the waist up, so her words wouldn’t carry much weight. “Sleeping, okay, sleeping, but that’s it, and that wasn’t on purpose. He got into bed with me. I didn’t even wake up.”
“You know, that’s the nicest thing a woman has ever said to me.”
She glared at him. He was smirking, the jerk. He’d cheated on Melanie with a member of her own family and thought this whole thing was amusing? “You’re not helping.”
He put his hand up to block his mouth from Melanie’s view. “You want me to tell her what you can do in your sleep?”
“Shh.” She looked around. Any weapons? Blunt or otherwise?
“What are you whispering about?” Melanie shrieked. Shrieking must run in their family. Alana had never noticed before.
“State secrets.” He turned to Melanie. “Alana is correct. She slept all night. I thought she was someone else when I woke up.”
“You mix up women in bed?” Alana snorted. “Impressive.”
Melanie looked crestfallen. “I didn’t realize you were that type when I asked you to move in, Sawyer.”
“No, I meant…” He sighed. “I’m just saying. If I knew she was your sister, I never would have—”
“Stayed.” Alana nodded at her sister. If he said anything about what he did to her, she’d show him what shrieking could sound like. She’d have a talk with Melanie later and bring it up only if Melanie needed proof the guy was a sleazeball. Why hurt her more? “If he knew I was me, he would have run. Far.”
“That’s for sure.” He rolled his eyes. “Very far.”
Alana ignored him. She was damn glad she’d delayed her trip to Florida and showed up here, because her sister definitely needed saving from Sawyer. If Melanie thought this guy was even close to someone she should get serious about…
Melanie’s face crumpled; she hid her face in her hands. “I can’t believe you did this.”
Alana and Sawyer exchanged glances. Sawyer pointed to himself, then to Alana, then shrugged, hands up. Which one did she mean?
Alana pointed emphatically at him. Give her a break.
“Why did you come here?” Melanie raised her tear-stained face, mascara already smudged from sleep making black tracks down her cheeks. “I told you not to.”
Alana gaped. She was in trouble? Oh, that was just special. “I came so I could—”
“And now look what you’ve done.” Melanie gestured to Sawyer.
“What I’ve done?” He poked himself in the chest. “You’re mad at me?”
“You slept with my sister.”
He put his hands to his ears. “I did not realize she was your sister.”
“Ha!” Alana turned on him. “Like that makes any difference?”
“I’m sorry, did I take some vow of chastity I’m not aware of?” He had the gall to look bewildered. A sociopath, devoid of a conscience. Add that one to the other two and you got Womanizing Alcoholic Sociopath. The triple crown. Except don’t forget unemployed, which made it a home run, round all four base flaws.
Alana strode across the room, nearly tripping on the bedspread, took Melanie’s shoulder and steered her to the door. “C’mon, Mel. Let’s get out of here. Give Mr. Kern lots of privacy to dress and hardly any time to get the hell out of here.”
She led her sister down the hall, more angry and shaken up than she’d been in a long time. She hated that she’d been so vulnerable and had responded so thoroughly to Sawyer instead of punching him in the jaw and throwing him out of the house.
The worst part? Standing there just now, wanting to throttle him for the way he’d taken advantage of both her and Melanie, a stupid hormonal part of her had been taking in his muscled body, warm and alive against the white sheets, his vivid brown eyes and strong, handsome features. No matter how much her brain said jerk, jerk, jerk this other part had only managed to come up with mmm-more.
