Читать книгу It's Always Been You - Elle Wright - Страница 11

Chapter 1

Dr. Lovely Washington frowned when she felt the sun beaming down on her. Morning already? She patted the mattress, pausing when she felt cool skin under her palm. Drake. She pinched him. He pushed her hand away, grumbling something incoherent.

She smacked him. “Drake, what are you doing in my bed? And please...close the blinds. The light is killing me.”

“Whashuleafmelone,” he mumbled.

“I won’t leave you alone until you get up and shut out the sun,” she said, pinching her forehead. “My head hurts. And aren’t you late or something?”

When he didn’t move, she went to throw the sheet off, then stopped abruptly. Frowning, she patted her bare breasts. Uh-oh. Where is my shirt? Reluctantly, she slipped her hand under the sheet, over her stomach, her belly button, her—

She sat up abruptly. “Oh, my God, I’m naked!” Her mind raced to remember how she’d ended up like that. Last night was a blur. They’d booked a two-bedroom suite at the Bellagio because her family reunion was there. Two rooms, two beds. Yet Drake was in her bed and she was naked. “Oh no.”

Drake had agreed to come because she hated going to these things by herself, and she wasn’t particularly thrilled to face her family alone after her breakup with Derrick. When she needed someone—and she did—Drake was always there. He was her very best friend, since the age of two.

Her night had taken a turn for the worse when she’d received a call from the hospital that she’d lost a patient. Drake had dragged her out onto the Strip to distract her. That was all she remembered.

She held her face in her hands, praying the shooting pain in her head would stop. She remembered something else. Tequila. Lots of it. Peeking through her fingers at Drake, she sucked in a deep breath. She couldn’t tell if he was naked. He was lying on his stomach, his bare back gleaming at her in the sunlight. The sheet was draped low. Gently, she lifted the thin material.

“Drake!” she screeched, digging her nails into his back.

He pushed himself up on his elbows. “Ouch! What?”

“Get up,” she ordered through clenched teeth. “Now.”

He blinked and glanced at her with one eye. “What happened?”

Pulling the sheet with her, she hopped out of the bed. “Look at you,” she said, pointing at his bare ass. “You’re naked! Oh, my God.”

“Oh, shit.” He rolled out of bed onto the floor with a loud thump. Reaching up, he pulled the balled-up comforter with him. He finally stood up with the thick cover wrapped around his waist.

There was no movement—just eyes on eyes, heavy breathing and loud thoughts.

“Why are you naked?” Her heart raced as she watched his gaze drop to the bed.

Drake ran a hand through his wavy hair. “Why are you naked?”

She swallowed past a lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. “I asked you first,” she croaked.

“Obviously, I don’t know.” He rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Why are you nervous?” she hissed. Drake was normally a calm and collected person, but they’d been friends long enough that she could recognize when he was nervous. After all, they’d been best friends for almost their whole lives.

His bloodshot eyes flashed to hers and his forehead creased. “I can’t remember. I just remember walking on the Strip doing shots.”

“What do you mean you can’t remember anything? You’re naked!” she shrieked.

He pressed a hand to his temple. “Love, please, be quiet. You’re making my head hurt worse. I don’t need continuous updates on our lack of clothing.”

She clutched the sheet to her chest. Tears pricked her eyes. “Drake, did we...?”

He held a hand up. “Don’t say it. There has to be a good explanation.”

“But we’re both...” She dashed a tear off her cheek.

“Don’t cry. That’s how we got into this situation in the first place.”

Placing her hands on her hips, she hissed, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He covered his eyes. “Pull the sheet back up, Love.”

Realizing she’d let it fall to the floor, she screamed and scrambled to pick it up, twisting the fabric around her body. “This can’t be happening.”

He motioned toward the bathroom. “Put some clothes on, for Christ’s sake. This is already bad enough.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Go in the bathroom,” he demanded.

“You go in the bathroom,” she countered, clutching the sheet in her palms.

“Love.”

“What?”

He stalked toward her and she retreated until the back of her knees hit a chair. Overcorrecting, she stumbled into the seat.

Drake held out a hand and she took it and let him pull her to her feet. Then she shoved him away. “Get away from me, you ass.”

He nudged her toward the en suite bathroom. “Look, get dressed. We’re never going to figure this out standing here like this.”

“I hate you,” she growled as she stomped into the bathroom. Kicking the door closed, she leaned against it. A hotel robe was hanging on a hook and she snatched it and slipped it on. Once she secured the tie, she whipped the door open and stormed back into the bedroom toward a now clothed Drake.

His back was to her and he was murmuring curses to himself. She jumped on his back and wrapped an arm around his neck. “You took advantage of me.” With her other hand, she yanked his hair.

He fumbled with her weight and they both crashed down on the mattress. She flailed her arms and kicked at him until he grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the bed.

“Calm down,” he pleaded. “Stop trying to fight me.” The vein on the side of his temple jumped and his biceps bunched as he held her arms above her head.

Love was angry, but she was something else, too. Something that she’d never felt before. Well, tried to never feel before. His hard chest pressed against her soft one made it kind of difficult not to feel aroused.

“Get off of me, Drake.” Needing to put some distance between them—because the last thing she needed was to be aroused—she bucked against him.

“Love, would you just...” He sighed, his hooded bedroom eyes boring into hers. Bedroom eyes? Her stomach fluttered and a warmth spread over her. She cursed her body for responding in ways she wouldn’t dare admit.

Is he doing this on purpose? His eyes stayed on hers, seeming to look straight into her soul. Maybe he wasn’t trying to turn her on, but he was.

“Promise me.” His husky voice seemed to light a fire in her belly. “If I let you go you have to keep your hands to yourself.”

“You took advantage of me,” she muttered, her voice shaky. The anger she felt was melting under his gaze. Unclenching her fists, she let the tension ooze out of her arms. She chewed on her bottom lip. His breath fanned across her mouth and she couldn’t help but entertain the idea of letting him take advantage of her.

“We don’t know that,” he said, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Neither of us remembers last night. You can’t say for sure that we did anything but sleep.”

“But we were naked,” she murmured. Why am I whispering?

He squeezed her wrists. “Stop saying that. Let’s concentrate on the present.”

“Well, get your naked chest off of me and I’ll try.”

He jumped up, leaving her splayed across the bed, angry with her body for betraying her and with her mind for its wayward thoughts. She glared at the textured ceiling and prayed for a time machine that could zap her into yesterday, where Drake was merely annoying—not annoyingly sexy. Would she ever be able to look at him as the friend he was without thinking about his mussed hair and lean physique? Let alone the fine line of hair that trailed down his stomach and disappeared under the waistband of the low-riding sweatpants he’d donned. She tightened the belt on the robe and sat up, smoothing her hair back.

“What do you remember?” he asked, in the tone he often used on his patients. Detached.

Obviously, he wasn’t as affected as she was. Ouch. She cleared her throat. “Lana called. One of my patients went into labor and was admitted to the hospital, possible peripartum cardiomyopathy,” she answered, as if she was reporting to her chief resident during rounds. “Instead of paging me, she had paged Blake. The mother insisted on a natural birth, but her heart couldn’t take the labor. She died. I was upset that I wasn’t there, so you took me out to get my mind off of it.”

He lifted his eyes toward the ceiling and muttered a string of curses. “I keep replaying last night over and over in my head. I can’t remember how we got in bed. I remember the bar, the shots. You were finally loosening up. When we left Caesars, you were tipsy, so I had to kind of hold on to you. I can see us laughing at random people on the way back to the room. Then we ran into a few of our high school classmates. They asked us to go out with them, but you didn’t want to, so we headed back here. Then...” He averted his gaze, swallowed roughly.

She bowed her head and wondered what he’d just remembered. They were friends. Best friends, in fact. They’d grown up finishing each other’s sentences. Love knew all of Drake’s “tells” and was certain he’d just filled in some blanks.

“The bar and walk I remember,” she croaked. “That’s about it.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. She’d been very inebriated, inconsolable over the loss of her patient. Drake had done what he always did—make it better, help her forget.

“Hopefully, it’ll come back to us later. For now, we can’t assume anything happened.”

They’d shared the same bed many times during their lifelong friendship, and nothing had ever happened. Not even an accidental brush of arms. Hell, he’d seen her in her underwear plenty of times. But...

“We were still clearly on our own sides of the bed,” he continued, without meeting her gaze. “There’s no clue—”

“I feel sore,” she blurted out. “My whole body does.”

“You were drunk. You could’ve fallen or something.”

Love wondered when Drake had turned into Mr. Positivity. The proof was staring them right in the face. The bed. She scanned the rest of the room before zeroing in on the bed again. Frowning, she walked closer to it and ran a finger over the tiny bright red spot. Closing her eyes, she gasped. “Oh, my God!”

“Stop saying that,” he said, between clenched teeth.

“It’s blood. There’s your clue. We had sex.”

“Love, you’re not a virgin. The blood is probably from a paper cut or something.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

He glared at her. “Just...be quiet. Let me think.”

“You know we had sex,” she muttered under her breath. And the worst part? She didn’t remember the details. If she was going to participate in something that would more than likely ruin her friendship with Drake, she would’ve liked to remember it.