Chapter 5 Connor
Connor
“What are you doing in my bed, Goldilocks?” I asked.
Hannah lifted her head, hair a tangle of damp curls, sleep still heavy in her eyes… before she froze.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, lifting her head from my bicep to look around. “Connor? What are you doing here?”
“You mean here, in my bedroom?” I answered. “I was sleeping.”
Hannah scrambled upright, tugging the blanket around her chest like it could hide her entire existence.
“Shit, you’re… I thought your name was familiar, but I—” She shifted away.
“Teresa said her roommate left, and he wasn’t…
I usually crash on the couch, but there was something on it—” My suitcase, I realized, annoyed at myself that I hadn’t brought it to my room.
“And I just finished a double shift, and I was dead on my—”
“Hey,” I said, resting a hand on her shoulder to slow her heartbeat. “It’s ok.”
“It’s not okay. I didn’t even know you were—” she dropped her head into her trembling hands, muttering into her palms. “Shit, I am so sorry.”
And there it was. The truth.
No stalking or seduction, just mortification over an honest mistake. The tightness in my chest loosened.
I pried her hands away from her face. “Seriously. Last month, when Victoria’s grandfather died, I left on an hour’s short notice. I didn’t even tell Teresa where I was going. And yesterday was full of surprises.”
“What, waking up with a stranger in your bed wasn’t on your checklist?” she asked dryly.
I chuckled. “You still weren't a part of my plan.”
“Yeah, my timing has been pretty shit all year.” She forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. "So I guess that's my cue to go."
“But I wanted more,” I confessed, looking her in the eye.
“I thought about leaving my number, but I didn’t want to be another guy who hit on you during your shift.
And I don’t typically—” I said, then caught myself.
“I mean, I hadn’t been here in a month. If I'd invited you back, who knows what I could have led you into? Maybe Teresa would have redecorated the living room with erotic clown paintings.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“It’s among my worst fears,” I deadpanned, choosing not to mention my other fears when I’d turned that key in the doorknob for the first time in a month: walking in to find something had gone catastrophically wrong—something I could have prevented.
Clown erotica was a close second, though.
Hannah bit her lip to hold back laughter. “You’ve had this problem before?”
“Not yet. But I remain vigilant.”
She lost it then, with a full-body laugh that shook the bed, one hand pressed to her mouth like she was trying to contain it. When she finally caught her breath, she wiped at her eyes. “God, I needed that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She looked at me then with the soft expression I'd seen at the bar, without the panic clouding everything. “I wish you had invited me back. Last night.”
And just like that, we weren’t strangers in the wrong bed anymore.
“You could have invited me,” I said, lifting my hand slowly, giving her a chance to shift away. When she didn’t, I ran my fingertips along her jaw, slow and measured. She swallowed, eyes becoming heavy-lidded.
The moment cracked open, just wide enough to fall through.
“I wanted to,” she said, leaning into my palm. “But I wasn’t going to offer to fuck you on my sister’s couch.”
The knowledge that they were sisters was completely overshadowed by the phrase ‘offer to fuck you’ rolling comfortably off her tongue. She uncrossed her arms, the blanket falling to reveal her low cut tank top.
I swallowed, fingers continuing their path along her jaw to tuck a hair behind her ear, feeling the shiver she repressed as I smirked, “You could have invited me back to my bed.”
“Oh shut up,” she laughed, nudging my shoulder.
And when she leaned closer, I did too.
And kissed her.
It wasn’t rushed or urgent. It hadn’t been in any of my meticulous plans.
Yet when she wrapped her hand around my neck and kissed me back, I forgot all about the damned checklists.