“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.