CHAPTER 3
Ian
Ian’s eyelids lifted slowly, the lavender hue of the sky visible from the bare windows telling him that dawn was breaking.
He grinned.
He thought he’d had hot sex before, but last night had been … well, phenomenal. He hadn’t ever had a marathon like that.
He reached to the other side of the bed.
Empty.
He raised his head and looked around, passing a hand over his face. Maybe she was in the bathroom?
He listened, but all he heard was the steady hum of the air conditioner. He let his head fall back onto the pillow and stared at the ceiling. Part of him was not surprised. A greater part of him was.
Because he had believed she, too, had felt whatever it was between them that was so strong, it practically scorched the penthouse in which he’d taken Claire in every way he possibly could last night.
She’d been insatiable. She hadn’t even needed to voice some of her desires because, somehow, he’d sensed what she wanted. And the time with her hands pressed to the glass as he had taken her from behind with the Vegas lights casting a glow on her beautiful body …
Jesus. That was a forever memory, to be shelved and pulled out whenever he needed a lift.
Pun intended.
If he were frank with himself, he’d thought he’d find her pressed against him in the morning, ready for wake-up sex.
Wake-up sex. That had been out of his repertoire since one morning just like this one, two years ago, when the woman he had believed was The One had pulled a similar stunt.
Why the fuck was he thinking about her?
He was older and wiser now. He’d played the field since then and had felt comfortable there.
When he needed to get laid, he got laid. Simple.
Last night had been the lay of the century, and he wanted repeats.
His gaze searched the nightstands, then across the room, for a note or business card Claire may have left, but all he saw were scattered empty gold foil wrappers.
Well, shit. This was a first.
This hadn’t happened in all the years since he was a teenager. Every last one had left some way for him to call or text.
He frowned. So, this was what it felt like, the wham-bam thing. Not cool at all. He threw back the covers and headed for the bathroom, still looking for the smallest scrap of paper she may have left behind.
Nothing.
He flicked on the bathroom lights. That was when he saw it: on the lower corner of the mirror, an imprint of her kiss in red lipstick.
He shook his head. That was it. No note, no number.
A night like that, and the woman left only a goodbye kiss on the mirror.