Touch and Torque (Us Undone #2)

1. Lance

Lance

Azure Tides Resort

Santa Barbara Coast, California

The headache is the first thing I’ve become aware of.

That familiar throbbing behind my eyes only shows up after I’ve done something truly stupid with whiskey.

I’ve had it enough times to know the difference between a respectable two-drink headache and a full-blown what-the-fuck-did-I-do headache.

This one sits firmly in the second category, complete with the usual side order of amnesia and a strongly worded memo from my liver.

I keep my eyes closed and try to piece together where the hell I am from memory.

Trevor’s wedding. That much I remember. Our friend tying the knot yesterday on the beach at sunset, Becca in a dress that rendered him completely speechless for ten seconds—the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen the man do.

The reception that followed, the dancing, the open bar I treated like an all-you-can-drink personal mission.

My best buddy George stayed there with me most of the night, same as ever, with me running my mouth while he looked deeply unimpressed by everything coming out of it, which only encouraged me more.

Becca’s cousins were out in force, one of them I found especially interesting at around ten o’clock.

Plenty of flirting, more dancing, another round at the bar, and then—

Then nothing, just the usual soft blackout that rolls in whenever I go a little too far with the drinking.

I feel warm, too warm for a room that Azure Tides keeps at the temperature of a very tasteful refrigerator. I’m also not lying flat. I’m at an angle, propped against something solid that’s breathing.

I open my eyes.

The first thing I see is a chest. A very large, very bare chest. Brown skin. Dark hair. It rises and falls slowly while my face rides along with it. My cheek is smashed against a hard pectoral muscle. My arm is thrown across a ridged stomach. My legs are tangled with significantly larger legs.

I lift my head.

George is asleep, face turned slightly away from me, one arm slung around my back.

He’s snoring just steadily enough that he’ll absolutely deny it later.

His other arm is flung out across the bed, hand open as if he powered down mid-thought.

His jaw hangs slack under a clean, neatly trimmed beard he clearly got shaped for his stepbrother’s wedding.

His hair is a little longer than his old Navy days, not too long, just enough to look cool when it’s messy against the pillow.

He’s six-four, stacked with muscle. Typical. Sharp Hispanic features, strong jaw, the whole package. Basically engineered to make girls go full loco. It’s offensive, really.

The scar through his left brow had already been there the first time I met him in my college dorm lobby, when he showed up dropping food off for his stepbrother Trevor and invited me in for dinner with all his Chinese takeout.

That was ten years ago. Somehow, I ended up best friends with the grumpiest asshole in the room and never looked back.

Right now, his hand is resting just above my bare ass like it belongs there—like it hadn’t moved all night.

I look down at myself. Yep. Bare ass confirmed.

I am completely, entirely, categorically naked, and the evidence of my morning wood is very much present, currently pressed against George’s also very naked hip with what can only be described as misplaced confidence.

My eyes go wide as I look across the room.

My bed is over to my right near the door, still made and tucked, with the pillow undisturbed. The little Azure Tides chocolate still sits on it like a smug little monument to the version of last night where I probably did something I wouldn’t be able to come back from.

I am not in my own fucking bed.

And judging by the golden light pouring through the huge gap in the curtains, it’s late enough in the morning that the Pacific is glittering out there with no respect for the gravity of my situation.

My eyes now flick to the floor. Our groomsmen suits are scattered everywhere, the room still wrecked from whatever last night turned into.

My jacket hangs halfway off a chair. George’s dress shirt lies crumpled near the door.

My pants are inside out in a heap by the nightstand.

His belt is looped over the lamp like someone threw it there in a hurry.

Our leather loafers are kicked off in opposite directions.

Ties dangle off the edge of the dresser—you get the fucking picture.

I swallow hard and do what any reasonable person in my position would do. I perform a clinical self-assessment.

Does my head hurt? Yes. The worst hangover ever. Moving on.

Does my ass hurt? I pause and run the evaluation with appropriate medical detachment. I flex. I shift. I clench experimentally.

Nothing. No burn or soreness. No “I got absolutely railed last night” tenderness.

Well, that’s either very good news or extremely good news, depending on how you look at it.

I let out a slow breath that comes dangerously close to a wheeze. Okay, so I probably didn’t get fucked. Points to me for that, I guess, but then the next thought slams in.

Did I fuck him?

My brain immediately supplies a helpful visual and I have to fight the sudden urge to hyperventilate. No, probably not, but who the fuck knows anymore? Azure Tides has clearly broken something important in my decision-making center.

I look at George again, at the sheer size of him. My mind drifts back to the week we have spent at this resort. The wild things I have watched happen with our friends, and those I have joined in on.

I think about the fivesome the night before the wedding, with my friends plus the groom’s accidental male entertainer. I shut that memory down fast. It will not help me right now.

I think about George’s face and body during said fivesome. Fuck, that makes everything worse. I shut that down too.

Then my gaze drifts lower, past the edge of the blanket, and I see the thick, heavy outline of his own erection pressing up against the fabric right next to my thigh.

I’m in my best friend’s fucking bed, his dick basically saying good morning against my leg, and I have no memory of how we got here.

This is fine. Everything is fine. I’m definitely not panicking.

Sweet mother of fuck.

I try to ease myself out of his grasp. His stupid arm across my back tightens instead and pulls me closer, my mouth ending up inches from his chin.

“Oof.” I let out a breath I didn’t mean to release.

George shifts in his sleep, a small unconscious movement. His hand on my back slides a fraction lower. My entire nervous system lights up.

Okay. Fucking enough of this.

I give him a sharp kick to the shin, the universal signal for “wake up right now, we have a situation.”

George groans, not fully awake yet. His arm goes rigid, then releases me. “Christ, what’s that for?”

“When you decide to wake up, you’ll fucking know why.” I roll off his chest and land on my back beside him, our shoulders and arms still touching.

He blinks a few times, looks around him, then stares at nothing before he shifts his focus on me. His eyes are wide. “Fuck.”

We stay like that for a long time.

“Did we…?” I ask, my voice coming out rough from sleep and heavy with dread. I cover my face with my hands. “Shit.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “Shit is right.”

“That’s not a no.”

“Not a yes, either,” he says.

“Extremely helpful. Thank you.” I rub my eyes hard. “Fuck, my head really hurts.”

He looks exactly how I feel, a man who made serious promises to alcohol and is now paying the price. “Got some painkillers,” he mutters.

“In a minute.” I keep staring at the ceiling. “Why are you naked?”

He turns his head toward me. “Why you naked in my bed?”

I’ve got nothing, so, deflection. “I asked first.”

“It was hot.”

“It was not hot, George. The air conditioning in this room runs at meat-locker temperature. Spent the entire week complaining about it. You always say you’re hot so I let it be.”

“I turned it off,” George says.

“Turned it off?”

“It was making a noise.”

“Was it?” I turn to face him. He’s studying the ceiling, likely already locking in whatever version of events he’s about to commit to.

I’ve known George Torres-Macklin for a decade, so I know all his faces.

This one is careful, but it’s not the lying-careful yet, just the one where he’s deciding exactly how much truth to survive on.

I don’t have enough information yet to know which way this is going.

If he’s just hot, that wouldn’t explain why I’m fucking naked in his bed.

“We share a room on every trip,” I say slowly. “Colorado, Arizona, Texas, that terrible long weekend in Vegas we agreed never to discuss again. Not once in all that time have I woken up in the wrong bed.”

“First time for everything,” George mutters.

I stare at him. He keeps looking at the ceiling.

“George.”

“What?”

“Did something happen between us last night?”

For a second, his expression changes, then it smooths out completely. “Had too much to drink. Don’t fucking remember,” he says flatly, unreadable. Pure George.

I don’t remember, either. It doesn’t happen to him as often as it does to me.

I can drink too much and lose whole chunks of the night to missing memory.

People know this about me. It’s not a point of pride, but it’s a very consistent personal habit.

And right now, it’s the most inconvenient thing about me.

“We going to talk about it?” I find myself asking.

George grunts. He fucking grunts for replies, and this one I can tell means, “What’s the point?”

I sit up. The sheet comes with me. George grabs it from the other side to cover his junk.

We look at each other over the sheet like two idiots in a very awkward tug-of-war.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” I say.

“Okay,” he says, and doesn’t let go of the sheet.

“So I need the sheet.”

“Same here.”

No shit. There’s only one of it, two naked men, and neither of us has any claim to the moral high ground. I evaluate my options. I have a pounding headache and an unanswered question. George looks at me, perfectly still, waiting to see what ridiculous thing Lance Bradford is going to do next.

I let go of the sheet and drag my naked ass off the bed, doing my own version of the Walk of Shame.

Except that I’m not really ashamed. Why would I be? I’ve kept my dignity intact in way worse situations than this. I refuse to fight a grown man over one hotel sheet when I can just walk away with my head held high.

I head straight for my clothes scattered on the floor to pick them up.

It’s the same automatic move anyone makes after a one-night stand—except this is totally not a one-night stand.

We just woke up naked in the same bed like two responsible adults who definitely did not fuck. Completely different situation.

On pure autopilot, I plant my feet wide and start bending at the waist to grab my pants. Halfway down, I realize one very minor detail.

George is right behind me. Awake. And I’m about to give him a full panoramic view of my ass like it’s a goddamn art exhibit.

I freeze mid-bend, then snap back upright fast.

Fuck. Do I squat down like a girl in a short skirt, knees together, all dainty and proper?

Behind me, George’s deep voice cuts through the silence.

“You gonna pick that up?”

I look back over my shoulder. He’s propped up on one elbow, sheet low on his hips, wearing that classic grumpy smirk that somehow makes him look both annoyed and entertained. The fucker is clearly enjoying this.

“Yeah?” I shoot back. “Why? You got a problem with the view, George?”

He stares at me for a beat, eyes dark. His smirk deepens just enough to be dangerous. “Looks like you’re enjoying the attention more than I am.”

“Fuck you.”

I stay exactly where I am and bend over anyway, grabbing my pants with zero grace. The cool air hits everything. My cock twitches hard and starts filling out more like the traitor it is.

George lets out a low sound—a scoff and a laugh he’s clearly trying to kill.

“There’s another one by the door,” he says, voice thick with amusement, but there’s heat there too. My face feels warmer now.

I glance at my dress shirt and socks near the door. For a second, I consider turning around to face him so I don’t have to bend over again. But that would mean giving him a full-frontal show instead.

Decisions, decisions.

Fuck it. Ass view it is.

I walk over to my clothes, bend over again, slower this time, feet still planted wide. I don’t even know what the hell I’m trying to prove anymore, but I do it anyway. My cock is now fully hard, heat crawls up my neck and spreads down my chest. I snatch my shirt and socks.

Straightening up, clothes in hand, I toss everything onto my luggage near the bathroom door and refuse to cover myself.

Let him look. I’ve never given a shit about being naked in front of him before. Why start now?

Except that it feels different. I can feel his eyes on me too much now, and some stupid part of my brain keeps reacting to it.

Jesus Christ, Bradford. When the fuck did we start doing that?

I slap myself back to reality, mentally at least, and head for the bathroom before I do something even stupider.

The door shuts behind me with an audible click. Once inside, I run cold water. I brush my teeth, splash my face, use the toilet. My body is giving no clear evidence that we had sex, and while the memory loss is inconvenient, the physical evidence is usually reliable.

I’m choosing to believe that we didn’t have sex—actively, with conviction, like a full-time job.

I look at the small mirror by the sink to check for any other signs on my body. We didn’t have sex. Almost certainly not. Maybe seventy-three percent not. This mark on my collarbone is…ambiguous. Could’ve been a jacket clasp, or Becca’s cousin getting way too into a hug. Could’ve been anything.

Wait. That’s a hickey on my collarbone.

Holy clusterfuck of all fucks.

Before I can spiral into a full-blown existential crisis in front of the sink, I jump in the shower, throw on fresh clothes, and go hunt for coffee. The panic attack has been rescheduled for the car ride home.