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“Who,” I swallowed, my throat once again catching on the bit of saliva that settled against my throat like cement. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?” I was impressed that I was able to hold it together long enough to string not one but two full sentences together.

The giant took a few steps toward me before halting mid-step. He raised his hands up, and his foot fell back a step. His short, brown hair looked tousled, but that was the only thing that looked sleepy about him. His eyes were bright like Granny Smith apples, his lips were full, and when he spoke, his mouth spread wide, curving up from his square jaw.

“I know it was good, but I honestly can’t say that I’ve ever fucked a woman so good she got amnesia. I guess there’s a first for everything.” His smile was disarming in that perfectly charming way a man can sometimes look at you and make you want to cream your panties with a flash of gleaming, white teeth. If I weren’t so nervous by his sudden presence, I would be stunned by his casual arrogance and words that made my ears hot with embarrassment.

“I, uh, we…um…” I didn’t even know what to say. My feet shifted with nerves that urged me to press my hands between my legs to assess the contents of my nether region. My body was aching, but I thought it was the usual pains after a night of hard drinking. Upon second thought, however, the pain seemed to be localized to the inside of my thighs and my stomach muscles.

“Does this mean round two is off the table?” he asked with a smirk. He rubbed down his abs absentmindedly while he spoke, and all I could think about was sitting astride him with that view beneath me. What is wrong with me? This man is a stranger in my home, and all I can think about is the impressive body that’s fully displayed for my viewing pleasure?

I shook those thoughts from my mind and concentrated on the PSA that was still filtering from the screen to his right. He followed the path of my vision, and soon we were both fully engulfed in the message. His body dropped down into the corner of the sectional as if it was just another Saturday morning spent in the comfort of his own home.

“I generally like to know the name of the woman whose taste is still on my tongue the next morning, and seeing as how I’ll be a houseguest for oh, I don’t know, possibly the next few weeks, I’m thinking now would be a good time to ask.”

He didn’t turn to look at me as I groaned behind him. This was going to be a long few weeks, and though rude, I made my way back to my bedroom for a brief reprieve so I could gather my thoughts on what the hell happened the night before.

---The Night Before---

Properly sandwiched between Kerri and Piper, I felt Kerri shift forward. The gleaming wood propped up her already well-endowed bust better than any bra could. My eyes bulged as her cleavage sat atop the bar like an empty glass waiting for the bartender to refill. The ends of her shiny black hair dipped between her low-cut blouse, contrasting with the gold sequins that cascaded down the front of her shirt like a gleaming garland on a Christmas tree.

The bartender finished making a drink before he slid back to our end of the bar.

“Ladies,” the bartender said. His ashy blonde hair clung to his lightly bronzed forehead, making him look like a kid barely old enough to drink, let alone bartend.

“Matthew, I think we need something a little stronger for our girl here.” Kerri giggled like she had just told a joke, and the kid’s smile brightened a little more at having been let in on something that even we couldn’t identify.

“Yeah? Are you having some kind of ladies night out?”

“Yeah,” Kerri said, lifting her hand to cover the right side of her mouth, the side closest to me. “My friend needs to get laid. We’re trying to help her.”

“Kerri, I-I’m not that drunk. We can all hear you,” I added, pulling her hand away from her mouth.

Piper scooted in closer, leaning over the front of me to add her two cents.

I knew if I were a little more sober, I’d be beet red with embarrassment and looking for the nearest exit. They had a hard enough time convincing me to come out in the first place.

Kerri and Piper were already friends when I first started working at Henderson & Fitz Legal six months ago. We bonded over our obsession with soy lattes and bad reality shows. They knew I was relatively new to Vegas and hassled me endlessly about joining them for a night out on the town. They wanted to do it up Vegas-style and teased me, saying for someone in my mid-twenties, I sure acted like I was pushing forty—which was probably a bit closer to Kerri’s age.

Piper was in her mid-thirties. The quieter of the two, she was newly single and getting her groove back with the help of Kerri. I, on the other hand, had to have had a groove to get it back.

I hadn’t been in a long-term relationship since Chase in college, and that went up in smoke the moment I caught him in bed with some girl from his econ class—you know, the friend he swore up and down that that’s all she was. Well the joke was on me ‘cause I fell for it. I wasn’t scorned by the experience. It just so happened that I never really found anyone that I was comfortable enough with to think of as more than a friend, and now that I was at a new firm, I spent much more of my time trying to get ahead.

“Shhh, shhh.” Piper pressed her finger to her lips to silence. I didn’t know who she was shushing, but that one finger couldn’t contain the spit that sprayed past her lips. “We’ll have three shots. Make it a double for this one,” she said, clutching my shoulder. I think she was doing it more to hold herself up than in a gesture of solidarity.

“Maybe we should dance or eat. We’ve only been here an hour and my head feels sloshy.” My head seesawed from left to right as I talked to them, confirming the drunk feeling that had pervaded my body and mind. I usually didn’t drink like this. In fact, the last time I got even remotely drunk was actually on my 21st birthday.

Kerri continued looking at the bartender—young enough to be her son—who was making our drinks. I caught him giving her a cocky wink before he placed the shots in front of us.

“To a memorable night,” Kerri said, raising her glass like an offering. The contents sloshed over the rim and down her forearm, but she didn’t seem affected by her drunken display. Piper and I raised our glasses, not nearly as enthusiastically, before bringing the chilled rims to our lips and tossing back the contents. I watched Kerri pound back her drink before licking the drops from her forearm like the cat that got the cream. The burn of the alcohol wasn’t as strong as I had anticipated, and my stomach basked in the afterglow of alcoholic decadence.

Piper grabbed my hand, bouncing her way through the throngs of other sloshed patrons working off a long workweek. Kerri followed close behind, and soon we were dancing in a semi-circle to the sound of music that had the contents of my stomach rising and falling like bars on a synthesizer.

I always loved how alcohol made me feel less self-conscious about dancing in public. I was actually able to cut loose and spend more time looking at the people I was dancing with or alongside, versus staring at my feet and checking to see if my bottom half was moving to the beat. Kerri stuck to a simple two-step while Piper moved around in circles, reminding me of those old ribbon-dancer commercials. She looked almost childlike in her joy.

We danced like that through a few songs before I interrupted them with my need for a glass of water. They followed me back to the bar, and we weren’t there for two minutes before Kerri was shouting over the music, “Fuck me sideways. Piper, would you look at that.” She pointed to a man standing on the other end of the bar. He was slouched over the bar top with a tumbler placed between outstretched forearms that made my knees weak with their apparent strength. Following the line of his body, I could see that he was extremely tall, and his button-down shirt looked like if he flexed too hard the buttons would pop, pebbling across the counter and floor like M&M’s bursting from the package.