Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
AIDEN
A loud click woke me, and I dragged my eyes open, blinking slowly into the light coming in through the curtains.
Curtains I didn’t recognize. I glanced around, trying to acclimate myself.
This wasn’t my bedroom, and it sure as hell wasn’t my bed.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d woken up and I didn’t know where I was…
College, probably, but that was almost fifteen years ago and not something I aimed for now as a thirty-four-year-old grown-ass man.
My only excuse was that after a hard night’s sleep, I always awoke feeling drugged almost, all languid and slow. My eyes were gritty and tired, made worse by the fact that I fell asleep with my contacts in. I couldn’t remember the last time that’d been an issue for me.
As a rule, I didn’t sleep, and I certainly didn’t sleep well. And I most definitely did not sleep well in a random place with a stranger sharing the bed.
And yet, I had. Here. With her.
I didn’t remember anything after I’d cleaned her up and settled into bed next to her.
It was like my head had hit the pillow and I’d been out.
Which was unheard of for me. I was a massive insomniac—the wee hours of the night were when I’d started writing my first book—and sleep did not come easy for me. Or at all.
I turned my head to glance around, and flashes of last night came to me unbidden.
Her pressed up against the door, staring down at me as I knelt in front of her, devouring her pussy.
Her on her hands and knees, wet and swollen and ready for me.
Her needy little moans as I’d fucked into her as deep as she could take me…
Christ, I couldn’t remember the last time it had been like that for me.
Hell, I couldn’t remember it ever being like that.
I didn’t know if it was because I’d let my guard down with her—something I hadn’t done with a woman since high school.
Or if it was because we’d just clicked from the instant we met, an ease in our conversations paired with the undeniable chemistry that crackled between us.
Regardless, there was no denying the fact that she’d ruined me in only a few short hours.
But fuck, had it felt good to be ruined.
I had no idea what time it was. Had no idea if I was late for the resort’s morning meeting or if I’d missed it entirely. If it was the latter, I had no doubt I’d have a dozen texts from my siblings wondering where the hell I was, because my not showing up wasn’t something that happened. Ever.
I rolled over, reaching toward her side of the bed, only to find what I’d anticipated. Cold, empty sheets and just the faint hint of her scent left on her pillow.
While I’d been all too ready to give my mystery woman another half dozen orgasms this morning, it seemed she had other ideas.
I had no doubt she was sore, and I hated the fact that I couldn’t check on her.
Make sure she was okay and then make her come one more time to ease that ache a little…
I hated that I couldn’t take care of her, period.
But she wasn’t mine to take care of.
I lay there, listening for sounds in the room, but it was silent save for the sporadic muted voices coming from the hall. She was definitely gone, swept out of my life as quickly as she’d strolled into it.
With a groan, I threw off the covers, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and braced my elbows on my knees. A folded note on the side table with BB scrawled across the front caught my eye, and I grabbed it, flipping it open to read what was inside.
BB,
And here I thought men like you only existed in books… Thanks for being my real life book boyfriend and for a night I’ll never forget.
xoxo, Bunny
PS: I grabbed you a late checkout, so stay as long as you need. You seemed like you could use the rest.
I read the looping script five times before I folded it again and clutched it in my hand.
“Fuck.” Releasing a deep sigh, I scrubbed a hand over my face just as my phone rang.
I didn’t need to glance at the screen to know it was one of my siblings. Truth be told, it was a miracle they had waited this long.
I reached for my phone from the crumpled pile of my jeans and answered when I saw Brady’s name on the screen. “Yeah.”
“Who is she?” my older brother asked without preamble.
“Who is who?”
“The woman you spent the night with.”
“How do you know I spent the night with someone?”
He didn’t dignify that with a response, just waited me out.
I shook my head, no longer surprised at the things he knew as Starlight Cove’s sheriff. “I don’t know who she is.”
He grunted. “Well, I hope she was worth Addison’s wrath, because the little tyrant was furious with you this morning—first for all your fuckups this week, then because she had to clean up your mess yesterday.
And then you skipped the meeting on top of all that.
For the first time ever. So we all got to deal with it instead of you. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“You think she’s still pissed?”
“Without a doubt,” he said. “But one of her friends is in town, and they were going to grab breakfast, so you might just luck out and her ire will have fizzled by the time you see her.”
“One can hope…”
“So…was she?”
“Was who what?”
“Worth it? The girl you lost your mind over last night.”
“Who said anything about losing my mind?”
His silence spoke volumes, and I breathed out a heavy sigh as I glanced around the empty hotel room. A completely foreign ache bloomed in my chest over the fact that I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye. “Yeah. She was worth it.”
After I gave him a brief rundown of our introduction last night and keeping most of the rest of it to myself, he said he had to run, but that he’d see me later today at the fall tournament for the Little League team the resort sponsored.
And then I just sat there, unable to force myself to move.
I had so much shit to do—baseball notwithstanding.
Between righting the colossal mistakes I’d made at the resort this week and meeting my publisher’s deadline for turning in my next book, I was spread as thin as one could be without turning into Swiss cheese.
And yet, here I sat. Thinking about last night and remembering just how good she’d felt under my fingers and under my tongue…
How unbelievable she’d felt wrapped around my cock.
One night with her hadn’t been enough, but it didn’t matter. She was gone. And didn’t it just figure that the first woman I’d met in more than a decade who I was interested in would be someone I’d never see again.