What the hell?
I smothered a scream and struggled to sit up in bed. Blinking against the sledgehammer banging in my skull, I fell back to my elbow and realized two things at once. One — I knew those eyes. General Beauregard was looking back at me, opening his mouth in a huge yawn, drool stretching between his jowls. Two — I was most definitely not in my own bed.
Looking down to see a tattooed arm draped over my hips, I was slower to realize the most important fact. I wasn’t alone either. The arm moved into a stretch, and the man next to me yawned too.
West.
My elbow fell out from under me, and I laid on my back staring at the ceiling, trying to force my sluggish brain to work. What the fuck happened when I left Grady’s?
West leaned over me to rub General Beauregard’s ears. “Morning, boy. You ready to go out?” West’s voice was a raspy rumble that resonated through me. His bare chest pressed against my left side, and if I lifted myself up the smallest fraction, I’d be able to lick his shoulder. I closed my eyes against the temptation and took a deep breath. I smelled soap, salt, and citrus. I smelled West. I swallowed back a moan.
General Beauregard let out a soft whine of pure bliss and laid his head against me. When I turned to glance at him, his tongue swiped my cheek, and his tail thumped against the floor. West laughed and gave the dog one last pat. “I know, buddy. She does look good first thing in the morning.”
My cheeks warmed. And other parts of me did too.
His arm brushed against my breasts as he pulled it back, and my nipples budded in response. He flipped back the covers on his side and padded across the room to a set of sliding glass doors, opening one enough so that the hound slipped out. The sunrise peeked over the ocean through the glass, but it barely registered before my eyes returned to West.
He stood looking out the door in just a pair of boxer briefs. He was all golden skin and lean muscle, with a tight ass hugged by some thin black fabric. I was jealous of that fabric. As he turned back to face me, the grooved definition of his abs was on display, his torso narrowing to a tempting V before disappearing. My eyes dropped lower, taking in the prominent bulge in his shorts. Maybe I was still dreaming. That would explain everything but the jackhammer in my skull. The light dimmed as he drew the curtains and shut out the light.
Slipping back into bed and covering his lower body, he turned on his side and faced me, one arm tunneling under the pillow beneath his head, the other resting between us. I kept my eyes on his fingers and tried to focus. I did a quick inventory of my body. My head was pounding, but the darkened room helped. My stomach was clenching, but I blamed that more on the view than the hangover. I tensed my legs experimentally. My thighs felt… fine. Not sore at all. What did that mean? Had the sex been bad? Or maybe he had been like Jared, and the act had been over so fast that my muscles never even got a workout.
“Coffee,” I croaked, turning away from him. I couldn’t be expected to think clearly without coffee. I sat up on the side of the bed and swayed for a moment. Jesus Christ, my head. Looking down, I saw I was only wearing one of the logoed bar shirts from the Wreck and my underwear. My cutoffs were on the floor near the end of the bed, and I slid them on, grateful for the oversized length of the shirt.
Without looking back, I left the room, figuring the kitchen couldn’t be that hard to find. Sure enough, it was just down the hall and to the right. I pushed my wild hair out of my face and squinted around the too-bright room. Morning light filtered through curtainless windows and glinted off the oversized stainless steel fridge. I reached for the hair tie on my wrist, but it had disappeared along with the rest of my clothes.
Coffee. I smelled it. I had to be close. Turning around farther, I spotted it. Just past the retro enamel toaster, a glass pot sat beneath the small coffee maker, filled halfway with steaming brown liquid gold. I plucked a cup out of the sink, not caring if it was clean or dirty, and filled it to the brim. Leaning back against the counter, I inhaled deeply, trying to expel the smell of West from my mind.
As I took my first tentative sip, Wyatt walked into the room, wearing only board shorts. I swallowed the wrong way, coughing and sputtering before setting the cup down behind me, my lungs burning. What was it about these guys that messed with my basic ability to breathe properly? And what the fuck was Wyatt doing here?
Wyatt reached around me to pour himself a cup. “Mornin’,” he said, smiling at me with a knowing expression as his eyes ran down the length of my body.
I looked at him in dawning horror.
Oh. My. God.
Did I have a threesome last night?
Wyatt took another swallow and sauntered down the hall toward West’s room. He paused at West’s open door. “Surfin’ in twenty minutes, bro. You coming?”
I felt my face flame at his word choice. Had he already come this morning?
I couldn’t hear the rest of their conversation, only their sporadic laughter. Oh, dear sweet Jesus, don’t let them be laughing at me, I begged. I stared into my coffee cup like it held all the answers and then drank the hot liquid as fast as I could without scalding myself.
Ten minutes later, as I finished my second cup, West came down the hall, dressed in board shorts too. Only board shorts. Were they allergic to shirts? Was I wearing his last clean one or something?
He went to pour himself a cup of coffee and only the dregs were left. My fault. As he refilled the machine, he glanced at me warily. “How’re you feeling this morning? Can I give you a ride home?”
A ride. My mind flashed back to his bedroom and his nearly naked body in the bed next to mine. I could almost picture myself under him, his narrow hips flexing between my legs. I peered out the window over the sink instead of meeting his eyes. That’s right. I knew where I was. I was only a few blocks from home.
“I’m good,” I said. “I can just walk.”
West leaned his hip against the counter and faced me. “You sure? It’s not a problem. I know—”
“It’s fine,” I cut him off, lifting my cup for one last swallow. My head was tolerable now.
He studied me for a long minute. “Okay. Let me just grab your clothes.” He disappeared around the corner and came back with a knotted, plastic Bi-Lo grocery bag. “I tried to rinse them out for you. I thought about washing them, but that pink shirt felt all delicate and crap, and I didn’t want to mess it up.”
I took the bag, not understanding what he was trying to explain, but eager to make a fast getaway. “Okay.”
He led the way through a cozy but masculine living room to the front door and followed me out onto the porch. Facing him nervously, I wet my lips. “Did we — me and you — or me and you and him — did we…” I trailed off, unable to finish my question. When he didn’t answer right away, I peeked up at him.
He looked at me with a steady gaze. “Does it feel like me and you, or me and you and him, did anything?” His voice was even, giving nothing away.
I narrowed my eyes at him and straightened my back. Using my sweetest voice, I hypothesized, “Maybe it just wasn’t that memorable.”
He glared at me. Leaning forward, he grabbed my upper arms, not hard, but enough to keep me in place. He dipped his head close to mine, his lips almost brushing my ear, and in a rough whisper said, “First of all, I don’t share with anybody, not even my brother. And, Sadie, trust me, when we sleep together, you’ll know it.” I pulled back, confused now. He must have seen it, because he crossed his arms over his chest and regarded me with exasperation. “Do you remember anything from last night?”