Making Spirits Bright (All or Nothing #3)

Chapter 1 Connor

Connor

I gasped awake with a stranger’s hand around my throat.

Weight pinned my chest, warm breath fanning my neck.

I gripped the hand, tearing it away from my neck and trying to pull away.

After a soft mumble from the person beside me, the hand slid down to rest on my stomach.

What the fuck?

Long hair stuck to my lips and nose, smelling of citrus and smoke. I turned my head, trying to breathe without choking on it.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I blinked hard, forcing my eyes to adjust to the dawn light filtering through the window.

This was my room, right?

I looked around in the dawn light. I’d been gone a month, so everything had a layer of dust, but nothing was out of place: The Golden Gate Bridge painting my mom gave me hung above the bed. My suit from last night hung in the open closet where I’d left it before crashing. My down comforter…

With someone underneath it.

I tried to piece together last night, rewinding every moment. Victoria’s event at the bar. Closing my tab. Walking home alone. I’d unlocked the apartment, grabbed water, brushed my teeth, went to bed.

Alone.

I knew I’d been alone.

So who the hell was this?

A soft snore vibrated against my jaw. The weight on my chest shifted, and a leg wrapped around my thigh, pinning me further.

I looked down.

Tank top. Bare legs tangled with mine. Long blonde hair everywhere—across my chest, my pillow, tickling my face. In the dim light, I could make out pale skin, the curve of a shoulder, fingernails painted dark against my white undershirt.

A woman.

Okay. A woman in my bed.

Had I blacked out somehow? Forgotten an entire night despite being completely sober?

No. Impossible. I remembered every detail—the perfect Manhattan, the Negroni that had tasted like validation, Victoria’s performance, crying like an idiot in the back of the bar, the napkin Hannah had set down without a word.

I froze.

Carefully, heart still racing, I brushed the hair away from the face pressed against my chest.

Soft pink lips, slightly parted. A small scar near her eyebrow I hadn’t noticed last night. Blonde hair that had looked lighter under the bar lights.

Hannah.

The bartender.

My breath came out shaky, but the panic shifted into something else entirely.

Not a stranger. Not a stalker. Not someone I’d forgotten in an alcohol-induced blackout.

But still—how the hell had she gotten into my bed?

I didn’t bring people home. Ever. With casual hookups—who I at least remembered meeting before going home—we went to their place, not mine. That way I could leave when I needed to—and I always needed to. Home before midnight, where I could actually sleep.

No sleepovers. No surprises.

But this woman, with her mane of blonde hair spread across my chest? This was definitely not part of the plan.

I shook her shoulder gently. “Um, hi? Ma’am? You’re uh… you’re in my bed.”

She grunted, her hand sliding lower on my stomach, perilously close to my waistband, awakening a different reason for my heart to pump faster.

Shit. I shouldn’t be turned on by a bedroom interloper.

But she’d been gorgeous and sharp-tongued, keeping up with my banter while filling drink tickets.

She’d moved behind that bar like a dancer, every motion precise and confident, and I’d spent half the night watching her when I should have been coordinating a grand gesture or relaxing with my friends after an impossible month.

I’d wanted to ask when her shift ended, wanted to walk her home in hopes she’d invite me up. I’d considered writing my number on the bar tab… then bailed after leaving a massive tip, not wanting her to think that I was correlating the gratuity with my expectations—especially on my boss’ black Amex.

So I’d left. Alone. I swear I’d left alone.

And now she was here anyway, warm and soft, her bare arm draped across my stomach where my undershirt had ridden up. Even through my flannel pants, I could feel the heat of her leg over mine.

I’d left hours ago and she’d still been working, that concentrated furrow between her brows as she’d strained a martini.

So how…

The blanket slid lower. Hannah squinted against the dawn light from behind the curtain, lips pouting in that way that made me want to trace them with my thumb. Or my mouth.

I shook her again, trying to ignore my body’s response to her soft whimpers and fluttering eyelids but she didn’t stir.

Shaken, not stirred, I thought, then immediately felt ridiculous.

It was five a.m. so I’d gotten six hours of sleep—more than I’d gotten in weeks. Clearly she needed sleep more than I did.

There was a couch in the living room. I could move her head onto my pillow, tuck the weighted blanket around her, extricate myself from her grip without waking her, and slip out quietly…

And while I was at it, I could stop thinking about how right this felt, or how I’d imagined her in my bed—although none of my fantasies involved this much confusion. Or clothing.

I inched away, carefully sliding my arm out from under her head…

Her eyes flickered open.

Then widened in alarm.

And despite the mystery of her arrival and the violation of my personal space, I couldn’t restrain my flirtatious grin. “What are you doing in my bed, Goldilocks?”