Reopening my eyes, I caught sight of the sleeping woman next to me. Her auburn hair glowed in the light like a halo, but angelic was the last word I would use to describe Holly. Not unless angels were talented at given multiple orgasms to mere men. I might not have remembered everything, but something about what I did remember made me think that last night might have been the best sex I’d had in awhile.
So, what was the problem—other than the headache? Because what guy didn’t want to hook up with a woman who could make his cock sing hallelujah more than once in anight?
The problem was that most women I’d had sex with over the past few years were one-night stands. It was easier that way with my career. It was tough when you were on the road all the time. Girlfriends got clingy or suspicious that you were cheating. One-night stands didn’tcare.
But here was the thing with one-night stands—sleepovers tended not to happen, for good reason. Having sex and then escaping while the girl slept avoided all the awkwardness the next morning. The fact that Holly wasn’t a one-night stand who I would never see again further compounded the awkwardness. She was the colleague of my best friend and his girlfriend’s best friend. Avoiding Holly wouldn’t bepossible.
But did I want to avoid her? Notreally.
Did I want to make what we’d shared last night a regularthing?
Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed a good fuck like the next man. But I didn’t do the fuck-buddy arrangement. Too complicated. So as much as I enjoyed last night (well, what I remembered of it), it couldn’t happenagain.
Unfortunately, my cock chose to ignore the memo. It was more than willing to sink inside her once more, to help me remember details about last night. It didn’t care that I was hungover. As far as it was concerned, I was still alive, which was goodenough.
But while that might have been true in my dick’s case, I didn’t think Holly would share thesentiment.
I carefully shifted the bedding off me, making sure not to disturb her, and scooted to the edge of thebed.
I sat up—and Hollygroaned.
Just not in the same way she had last night when she was getting all shades of turned on. This was more like aWhy-the-hell-did-I-drink-all-that-alcohol?moan.
Either way, it was about to make my great escape moreawkward.
“G’day,” a sleepy, pained voice said with an Aussie accent that sounded a little rougher than normal. A little rougher but a whole lot sexier—if that was at allpossible.
I turned to look over my shoulder at her. “Hey, how are you feeling?” My voice came out not much different than hers, minus the accent. Neither of us had survived last night unscathed, but after our day yesterday, no one could blame us for ouractions.
And fortunately, no one had to know aboutthem.
“Remind me next time I wish to mourn a loved one’s death not to drink so much wine. And to skip on the daiquiris.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “And the tequilashots.”
In spite of myself, I chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind for nexttime.”
Instinct told me to bail. For once I chose to ignore it. “I’ll be rightback.”
Not bothering with my clothes, I left the bedroom, took a quick whiz in the bathroom, then after searching both there and in the kitchen, finally found some painkillers. After taking one myself, along with a good amount of water to rehydrate, I filled a glass for Holly and returned to her bedroom, picking up my trail of clothes along theway.
“Here,” I said, handing the bottle of painkillers and water to her. “I thought you might needthese.”
She reached for them. “Thanks. Do you want some coffee? Or I can make us some food?” She didn’t say it in a way that sounded like she was hoping I’d stay—for the long term, in a relationship. It was in a friendly, no-commitment tone. My favorite post-sextone.
“Sure, that’d begreat.”
Twenty minutes later, we were sitting at the kitchen table, eating scrambled eggs and toast. While Holly had been cooking, I had showered, avoiding the awkward time until now. An uncomfortable tension sat between us—thoroughly enjoying how we had both been idiots last night when it came to getting off and thebooze.
“So about last night,” Holly said after a few minutes of us pretending to be engrossed with the food. “Trent and Kelsey don’t need to know about it.” She quickly shoved a fork full of eggs into hermouth.
I nodded. “Agree.”
“I mean, it’s better they don’t know about it. There’s no point of them thinking anything could happen between us.” I bet runaway trains moved slower than the words spilling from hermouth.
“Agree.”
“That would only make things more awkward for everyone,” shesaid.
“True.” Why did I have a strange feeling I was forgetting something—somethingmonumental?
