Читать книгу Just A Little Fling - Julie Kistler, Julie Kistler - Страница 9

JUST A LITTLE FLING.

It might not sound scary to Delilah, but it was like jumping off a cliff to Lucie.

“I don’t know if I can,” she hedged. But a tiny, reckless voice inside her whispered, You know you want to. “I—I don’t know.”

“Which is exactly why you’re sitting here by yourself on your birthday, with nobody warm and friendly to curl up to.” Delilah pushed herself to her feet. “Harsh words, my dear, but true. Don’t look now, but my best shot at my own fling is heading for the bar, and I think I can intercept him. Paolo has my name written all over him.”

With a determined glint in her eye, Delilah stalked off in search of big game.

“Paolo?” Lucie muttered, squinting after Delilah. “Who is Paolo? Oh, good heavens. It’s the cranky busboy.”

Dejected, Lucie watched the candle flame sputter into a wisp of smoke in front of her. The bride and groom had left. Ian and his bimbo had left. Delilah was hot on the trail of a busboy. And Lucie was alone at her table.

Alone on her thirtieth birthday. This was just wrong.

“I’m going to do it,” she said suddenly. Fortifying herself by chugging the last of her margarita, Lucie stood up and unsteadily surveyed the ballroom. “Who’s it going to be?”

She frowned, weighing the prospects. It couldn’t be just anyone. Her head might be buzzing with champagne and tequila, but she still wasn’t stupid enough to put the moves on just anybody. Nobody with a wedding ring. Nobody who looked too old or too young or too…scary.

But then who? Shaking her head from side to side, Lucie tried to clear her mind enough to make a rational decision. Not that there was anything rational about any of this.

It’s my birthday, the brash, foolhardy side of her brain argued. You didn’t get even one present. You deserve this!

Okay, okay. The fling was on. So who was the lucky guy?

There was a relatively cute guy over by the dance floor giving her the eye, but he looked kind of strange. Or maybe just a little too eager.

And then there was Baker Burns.

Good old Baker. Feeling sentimental all of a sudden, Lucie smiled. He gave her a friendly wave from the cake table, where he was casually eating dessert, not a care in the world. He, too, was all by himself. Hmm…Okay, so he wasn’t terribly exciting. But he was safe, and that seemed like a good idea at the moment. Safe, predictable, boring Baker Burns…

“He’s perfect,” she whispered. All she wanted was one night of—what had Delilah called it?—nookie. One night of nookie. No future. No trouble. Just one night. Who else but Baker Burns fit that bill?

So she grabbed her tartan purse, the useless little thing Steffi had given them all as bridesmaid’s presents, and padded purposefully to the cake table.

“Hello, Baker,” she began, working hard to keep that breathless, tipsy tremble out of her voice.

“Hiya, Luce,” he said calmly, holding up a plate in each hand. “Did you want white or chocolate? Don’t worry—only the icing is plaid.”

Naturally he assumed she was trolling for extra wedding cake. “Oh, no. None for me, thanks.” As he set down the plates, she forged ahead, determined to be bold. What did vampy, flirty girls do in these situations? Maybe a little eyelash batting? “Having a good time, Baker?” she inquired coyly, leaning in nearer and flapping her lashes to beat the band.

He’d turned away to retrieve his own cake, but he stopped, his fork in midair. With concern, he asked, “Is there something wrong with your eye?”

Oh, hell. Eyelash batting was a bust.

“Listen, Baker,” she said, coming right out with it, “I’m by myself, you’re by yourself, and it’s my birthday. I was wondering whether you were interested in getting together tonight. You and me.”

“You? A-a-and me?” It sounded as if a hunk of cake had lodged in his windpipe. He choked, “D-did you just…?”

“Right. You and me. What do you say?” When he still couldn’t manage to get out any words, Lucie snapped, “Come on, I haven’t got all day. Do you want to sleep with me or not?”

Baker’s eyebrows rose past his receding hairline. “Are you drunk?”

“Heavens, no.” Lucie paused, wondering if the cake behind Baker was really tilting or her eyesight had gone wacky. Best not to think about it. “Well, maybe I’ve had a little more to drink than normal,” she admitted. “But that’s not what this is about. I’m serious, Baker. What do you think about a wedding-night fling with an old friend?”

“Y-yes. Sure! Now? Do you want to leave now?”

“Yes, I want to leave now. Right this minute.” Before I lose my tequila-induced nerve.

“Okay.” He paused, carefully placing his plate back on the table behind him. Taking a deep breath, he peered at her, as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. She knew the feeling. “Where? I mean, your room or mine? I mean, you do want to go to a room, right? You don’t have fantasies about, like, the 18th green or a phone booth or the hood of a Corvette or something, do you?”

Lucie’s mouth dropped open. Clearly, there was more to Baker than she’d realized. Eighteenth green? Phone booth? Hood of a Corvette? She swallowed. “Actually, I was thinking of a, uh, bed.”

A bed. Good lord. Bed. She’d no more said the word than hazy, smoky images assailed her. Images of sheets tangled around sweaty, naked skin. Pillows and blankets scattered to the four winds in reckless, passionate abandon. Springs squeaking in protest as bodies thrashed above them. And a man, pressed so close she could hear his heartbeat, feel his heat, touch his…

Baker cleared his throat. “Um, Lucie?”

She jumped, wobbling onto one foot, as her erotic reverie ended in a hurry. Get a grip, she told herself curtly, fanning herself with the miniature handbag. We’re talking Baker here. Forget tangled sheets and mad passion. This is Baker.

“Listen…” He wiped his brow with the back of one hand, reaching into the pocket of his jacket with the other. “About the room thing. Mine’s fine, if you want to. I mean, I’m in…” he peered at his key. “…uh, 302. Where are you?”

She glanced at the brass key in his hand. Curving script that read Highland Inn was etched into the metal, and then the number 302. “You mean Steffi put you up here, in the Inn?”

Oh, sure! Baker had a room at the Inn. Probably every single member of the wedding party except Lucie got to stay right here. But her? Not even close. “I’m in some junky motel halfway to Wisconsin,” she told him with more than a touch of annoyance. “I’m not even checked in yet.”

“Uh, right.” Baker blinked. “Well, it doesn’t sound like we want to have our, uh, liaison there. So I guess it’s my room then. You know, if you want to give me a few minutes, I could go on up and arrange some champagne and candles and stuff. That might be nice.”

Lucie barely heard him. She was still seething over the way Steffi managed to diss her, even when it came to a hotel. He awkwardly handed her the key, and without thinking, she grabbed it and dropped it into the bottom of her tiny purse.

“All right then,” he told her, his words tumbling over each other. “But I want you to know, if you change your mind, I won’t hold it against you. I’ll just wait, oh, I don’t know, a half hour, and if you’re not there, I’ll blow out the candles and forget it ever happened. Okay?”

“Right. Half an hour.” And then she realized what she’d done. She’d just taken Baker’s key. They had made an official…assignation.

It’s not too late to back out, the timid half of her brain put in. Are you really sure you want to do this?

But Baker was already scooting off to the stairs, sending her encouraging glances over his shoulder.

“Baker,” she called out, “about what you said, about how I might need to, maybe, I don’t know, reserve the right to, you know…”

Change my mind? But he was gone.

“What have I done?” Lucie cried. With the ribbon ties on her purse clutched in both hands, she swung one way and then the other, looking for something in the room that would give her courage or help her make up her mind. “The ladies’ room!”

She had no idea why that would help, but it always seemed to. The few times she’d been on rotten dates and she was trying to decide whether to bolt or stick it out, a trip to the rest room had been really comforting, really useful. She could splash cool water on her face, sit down for a sec, give herself time to think. At the very least, she could loosen her uncomfortable skirt and get a little more blood flowing.

“A time-out is just what I need,” she decided, making a beeline for the ladies’ room out in the hall on the other side of the ballroom.

She pushed open the door in a rush, giving herself a pep talk and not really paying attention to much else. Momentarily blinded by a cloud of perfume and hair spray, she almost collided with the same giggly blonde she’d seen sticking her hands under Ian Mackintosh’s kilt earlier, Steffi’s insipid, snobby maid of honor, the one with the stupid name. Flora? Fauna? No, more like Finger. Flicker?

Whatever her name, she was exactly the person Lucie did not want to run into.

“Would you watch where you’re going?” the girl snarled. “What a klutz.” Only it came out more like klush. With a huff, she turned back to the process of peering at herself in the mirror over the sink, attempting to add another layer of lipstick to already overglossed lips.

One look and Lucie could tell that the maid of honor was sloshed to the gills. Maybe it was the flushed cheeks or the drooping eyelids or the slurred speech. Or the way the girl’s head bobbled back and forth as she tried to focus on keeping the lipstick remotely inside her lipline.

“Isn’t that attractive?” Lucie muttered.

“Can I borrow that?” another twenty-something chirped, popping up at the first one’s elbow. “It’s mocha cocoa muck, isn’t it? I love that color on you, Feather.”

Oh, right. Feather. Worse than Flora or Fauna.

“It is not mocha cocoa muck. It’s Poisonberry Smog. It’s all I ever wear. And no, you cannot borrow it,” Feather returned, giving herself another thick coat of the stuff, smacking her lips at the mirror. “I need it. All of it. I want to leave marks all over him.” She swung one arm wide, almost hitting her friend. With a smirk, she added, “Three days from now, Ian Mackintosh is still going to be finding traces of Poisonberry Smog.”

Lucie narrowed her eyes. The idea of Feather applying Poisonberry lip-prints all over Ian Mackintosh was too disgusting to contemplate.

And then the blonde made it even worse. Giggling, she trotted over to a small machine attached to the wall, started spinning the crank, and scooped little multicolored packets out of it like there was no tomorrow. “Free condoms!” she cooed. “And I plan to use every single one of them.”

“Excuse me, but don’t you think you should leave some for the rest of us?” Lucie interrupted, skirting around the sink and honing in. “I think the machine is there as a courtesy, not for your private stock.”

“Oh, yeah, like you expect me to believe you need one. Puh-leez.” Her nose in the air, Feather tossed about ten of them into her plaid minibag and closed the drawstring with a vicious jerk.

Really starting to get ticked off here, Lucie grabbed a handful herself, whipped out her own identical purse, and shoved in the rainbow assortment of small squares. She made a point of yanking her ribbons, too, with the same show of force. Only she yanked too hard and the whole purse went flying, like a slingshot, smacking Feather in the right eye.

“Oh, my God!” Feather howled, dropping her bag, strewing condoms and cosmetics every which way as she covered her injured eye. “She tried to kill me!”

“I’m so sorry,” Lucie tried immediately, hovering there. “Are you all right?”

“Do I look all right? I’m probably blind, you idiot!” She began to wail loudly, as her friend attempted to pry her fingers away.

“Feather, I think it looks okay. Really.” The other girl bent to gather the scattered items. “Your lipstick rolled under the sink, but I got it. Don’t move, because the blush and mascara and stuff are right by your foot. Where’s your purse?” She glanced between the two matching plaid bags lying side by side on the floor. “Which one is which?”

“No problem. We’ll just look inside. I think this one is mine,” Lucie said awkwardly, reaching for the closest purse. She opened it quickly, finding seven or eight condoms and a Highland Inn key right on top. Yeah, that’s what should be in her purse. But just to be sure, she pulled out the key. “Room 203,” she read. That was what she recalled Baker had said.

“Give me my purse!” Feather cried tearfully. “If that’s yours, I want mine. With all my stuff in it. I need to fix my eye. My mascara is running!”

“I put everything back. It’s fine,” the friend said soothingly. “Look, here’s your makeup and your room key and, see, I’m putting all your condoms back…”

Deciding a quick exit was in everyone’s best interests, Lucie got out of there, clasping the small tartan bag securely to her chest. But where was she going to go?

The reception hall was almost empty as she passed through. It seemed everyone had either paired up or gone home. Walking slowly into the front hall, Lucie hesitated. It had started to rain again during the reception, and she could hear the steady pitter-patter of the downpour against the windows.

On one side was the main door, leading to the outside world. On the other was the big double staircase leading to the second floor and the hotel part of the Inn.

Which way? Should she march out the front door into the rain, find the parking lot and her car, and drive an hour to that cut-rate motel in the middle of nowhere when she’d been drinking? Or should she pull out the key to room 203, climb the stairs, and have her cozy little rendezvous with Baker Burns?

She’d been over all the reasons she wanted to do this, all about her neglected birthday and her nine-years-younger sister marrying the perfect man and now poor Baker up there with champagne, depending on her, and her in no condition to drive…She licked her lip, gazing around at the Highland Inn, at the flickering candles casting a romantic glow on the soft stone walls and that wide, inviting, dangerous staircase.

“Lucie, are you a woman or a worm?” she asked out loud. “You’re not a child, you’re not a virgin, and you have condoms. What more do you need? Lightning bolts?”

As if some cosmic force had heard her words, there was a huge clap of thunder, and the front hall lit up with the slash of accompanying lightning. Lucie jumped about a foot.

“Okay, so I got the lightning bolt.”

A rushing sound filled her ears, as she stumbled up the stairs, one hand stuck to the heavy wooden railing and the other clutching the key. “What’s that number again?” she murmured, squinting down into her hand as she hit the landing. “Was it 302? No, 203.” Bad time to turn dyslexic. Maybe she was just nervous.

Nervous? No, she was petrified!

But lo and behold, there was room 203 right in front of her. She tiptoed up, she slid the key into the hole, and easy as you please, the door yawned open.

Her heart pounding, the rushing sound getting louder, Lucie took one step inside. Inky blackness greeted her.

So much for candles and champagne. She must not have made it upstairs within the allotted time. Poor Baker must’ve decided not to wait. That was okay. In her newfound boldness, she would simply wake him. In a way, it was less scary like this. She would strip off her clothes, climb in with him, and ease them both into this fling thing.

Lucie paused, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but it didn’t help much. She could make out a large, square blob directly ahead, with a few other indistinct shapes looming here and there. A canopy bed, maybe, with curtains pulled around it. And a desk? There was no light coming in at all to relieve the unrelenting darkness.

“Baker?” she whispered.

No answer. Had she said his name out loud or only thought it? If only she hadn’t drunk so much champagne and knocked back all those margaritas. If only her brain were functioning.

But if she hadn’t, or if it were, she wouldn’t be here, would she?

She took another step. Her stocking foot slid on a pile of fabric lying right in her path. Although it gave her a moment of panic when she began to slip, she caught herself and then stood still for a second, trying to refocus her swimming head. Peering down, she also identified the nubby wool still cloaking her foot. A kilt. A black-and-red Mackintosh tartan, just like all the groomsmen had been wearing. Baker’s kilt.

Okay, that wasn’t so frightening, was it? Exhaling a nervous puff of air, Lucie bent to quietly drop her purse and take off her boots. Oh, she wasn’t wearing any. Where had they gotten off to? She didn’t remember doffing her shoes, but she supposed she must’ve. Maybe she’d left them downstairs in the reception hall with her jacket. Oh well.

At least her hideous kneesocks were easy to peel away, even if she was a bit uncoordinated at the moment. But it felt great to be free of the nasty things. She flexed her bare toes, beaming into the dark room.

Picking up steam, she reached for the waistband of her skirt, but her fingers were clumsy and she couldn’t get the complicated little fasteners to work. “The hell with it,” she swore under her breath, popping hooks and buckles as she tore off the skirt, letting it pool at her feet on top of the groomsman’s kilt.

Ah, that felt like heaven. She could breathe again! She wanted to dance on it, stomp it into the carpet.

Now all she had to do was get rid of the rest of her confining clothes. Impatient, she ripped off her blouse, her panties and bra, throwing them carelessly aside. I am a wild woman, hear me roar! she sung inside her head. Happy birthday to me!

Swinging her head, she undid the neat bun, releasing the full length of her red-gold hair to flow freely over her shoulders. Paradise!

And now she was ready. Nothing left to do but…

Wait a second. She scampered back to where she’d discarded her purse, pulling out one of the bright packets from the machine and closing her hand around it. Best to be prepared. Not that she and Baker were necessarily going to do that, anyway, but that was the idea, wasn’t it? If she got in with him wearing nothing but a smile, she had to expect a certain level of, well, intimacy.

So…She extracted another foil square, clutching it in her hand with the first one. You never knew.

Her heart was in her throat as she crept closer to the heavily draped four-poster. She slipped her free hand inside the curtain, feeling for anything. She thought she could hear him breathing.

The rhythm of his breath grew rougher, more ragged, as her hand closed on warm, smooth skin. Oh, yeah, he was in there. The wooden bedframe squeaked as he moved nearer her hand.

This was no time to be shy. Leaning inside the dark bed curtain, Lucie balanced one knee on the mattress. And her fingers stretched further, sliding over the firm ridges of his ribs, the strong expanse of his muscled torso. Her gulp sounded like a gong in the silent room.

“Is that you?” she whispered, in a raspy, strange voice.

But she knew, even before the words left her mouth, that there was no way in hell that chest belonged to safe, reliable Baker Burns.

What was worse, she didn’t care.

His hand closed over her wrist, grabbing her, pulling her off balance, hauling her all the way through the curtains and into the bed. She didn’t even try to regain her equilibrium, just went with the flow, sliding up his body, taking in the hard, slippery, intoxicating feel of him against her skin. A moan of pure bliss escaped her lips. Had she ever felt pleasure like this? Not a chance.

Closing her eyes, she pressed closer, fitting herself to his long, lean body, rubbing just enough to make herself tingle from head to toe. So this was what a fling felt like. Like one big beautifully wrapped package that she got to keep opening all night long.

Lucie smiled wickedly into the darkness. Oh, yeah. Happy birthday to me.

IAN KNEW THE SECOND he touched her that this was no Feather. His brain was hazy and polluted by Scotch fumes, but not oblivious enough to mistake a living, breathing, vivacious woman for a pale imitation like Feather.

Was he dreaming? But her skin and her curves felt warm, vibrant, incredibly real—too real to be either Feather or a dream.

So who was she and where did she come from? He peered at her in the dim light, but her features were obscured by a long fall of hair, and he knew he’d never seen this body before. Who was she? His mind was foggy enough and his body turned on enough not to complain.

As the long tendrils of her silky hair rippled over his shoulder and his chest, he felt small sparks of desire in its wake. He leaned back, giving in to the sensations. But the way she was wiggling against him, her hips meeting his, was already making him feel like a rocket, ready to launch, and he knew he had to slow it down. Fast.

He reached for her, arching up, filling his hands with her hair, finding her sweet, wet mouth and plunging inside. God, she tasted good.

Even better, she kissed him back hard, hungrily, ferociously, making more of those greedy little noises that were driving him insane. She was nibbling and sliding, tasting and rubbing, climbing all over him in her eagerness. He grinned against her mouth. It just didn’t get any better than this.

With one swift motion, he rolled her underneath him, pinning her hands at her sides. She whimpered, edging up into him, teasing him with the feel of her soft, full breasts brushing his chest. He held himself rigid. “Whoever you are, lady, I want you. I want you bad. But are you sure this is what you want?”

“Positive,” she said breathlessly. Slowly, she opened her hand, the one she’d been holding in a tight little fist, revealing two small, opaque packets, one red and one blue. “See? I came prepared.”

Ian laughed out loud. “You hang onto those,” he murmured, bending down to press his lips into the slope of her neck, enjoying the unsteady pulse that throbbed there, the way she panted and shivered when he kissed her. “We’ll get to them.”

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?