Chapter Three
Monica yawned, stretched, and then realized that she was totally naked, and even though the bedroom was identical to hers, something wasn’t right.
Number one was that she did not sleep naked.
Two was that the scent wasn’t right. When she inhaled, she caught a whiff of men’s cologne, not the air freshener that she had sprayed on the curtains.
Flashes of what had happened shot through her mind in mini glimpses.
She had gone into Spencer’s room to get her shoes, and they started making out.
That led to the bedroom and an intoxicating night, tangled up in sheets together.
She sat straight up in bed, wide-eyed and frantic.
Her dress was nowhere in sight, but his shirt was lying on the second bed in the room.
She grabbed it and hurriedly put it on. It hung on her like a muumuu on a broomstick and reached halfway to her knees.
She tiptoed out of the bedroom. The bathroom door was open.
No one was in there, but her underwear was hanging on the doorknob.
She found her dress in the hallway beside the bunkbeds, and her purse casually thrown on a sofa in the living area.
Spencer wasn’t anywhere in the condo. Had he left to give her time to sneak out so that neither of them would have to do the walk of shame? She had never, not once in her life, had a one-night stand, so she had no idea what the protocol was for the situation.
She opened the sliding glass door out onto the balcony. A yellow flag flew that morning. A warning to folks to swim at their own risk. That word, risk, stuck in her head.
The sun was already high in the clear blue sky. She sat down in one of the Adirondack chairs and replayed the whole previous day and evening in chronological order. She had not said no when he walked her backward from the living room to the bedroom.
She felt his presence before he slipped through the half-open door and out onto the balcony. Heat chased around from her neck to her cheeks, leaving them burning with shame.
“Hey, are you hungry?” Spencer brought a brown box and two tall cups of coffee out to the balcony.
“Starving,” she answered a little breathlessly.
He set the coffee carrier and the box on a small table between two of the chairs. “Glad I bought a dozen doughnuts, then. I didn’t know what kind you liked, so I got an assortment.”
The one with chocolate icing and sprinkles looked so good, but shouldn’t they talk about what had happened before she had breakfast with him?
“That shirt looks better on you than it does on me.” He grinned.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” she asked.
“You looked so pretty with your hair all splayed out over the pillow. I stared at you for a long time before I snuck out to go get breakfast, but I could not bring myself to wake you. The truth is, I wanted you to be here when I came back. Please don’t ask me why, because I’m not sure I could get the words all together in the right fashion to form an answer. ”
Monica picked up a cup of coffee and took a sip. “Thank you for breakfast, and I’ll try to limit my whys to only a couple today.”
“I see you eyeballing that chocolate doughnut with sprinkles. That’s something else that we share,” he said. “They are my favorite, too.”
Was he not even going to mention the fact that they had had sex and slept together on a first date? And if so, was it to keep from embarrassing her, or was the breakfast his goodbye to her?
Own your sexuality. Don’t be ashamed of what happened. Be glad for the experience and the memory, the niggling voice in her head whispered.
She picked up one of the four chocolate doughnuts. “Spencer, I’m not this kind of woman.”
“Then why are you eating that particular one?”
“I’m talking about last night. I have never gone out with a strange man and wound up in bed with him. My sister says I’m a naive prude, but I’ve always believed that sex is saved until the third date.”
He chuckled, bent down, and kissed her on the cheek, and took a doughnut from the box. “Your sister is dead wrong. You are sexy as hell, especially in my shirt. And honey, last night was our third date.”
“How sexy is hell?” Monica asked, and then frowned. “How can we have had two previous dates when I only met you yesterday?”
“I’ll rephrase. You are hot as hell,” he teased.
“If we were at my house, I would scoop you up and we’d go skinny-dipping in the swimming pool in my backyard.
” He sat down beside her and held up one finger.
“First date was when we sat together on the beach and found out each other’s names.
” Another finger went up. “Second one was when we went to the restaurant last night.” He brushed a sweet kiss across her lips.
“Then last night the walk on the beach was the third. We only have a week to be together, so each little thing counts as a date.”
Monica took a bite of the pastry and followed it with a sip of black coffee. “I like the way you think, but we’ll have to bypass the skinny-dipping idea. If we do that in the ocean or the pool here, we might get hauled into the city jail.”
“Yep, and they won’t let us share a cell, and I intend to spend every minute I can with you while we are here.” He stood up, bent down, and kissed her. “You had a bit of chocolate on your lip.”
“I like your removal method,” she told him.
“So did I, so should you have a desire to get more on your lip, I wouldn’t be averse to helping you out.” He grinned.
“Oh really?”
“Yep, really,” Spencer answered. “Do we still have a date for a roller-coaster ride today and a walk around Pier Point?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Good, and then we have to go to a grocery store so I can get everything for a picnic on the beach,” Spencer replied and raised an eyebrow. “But do you think we could put all that off for an hour?”
Monica’s grandmother used to say that if you are going to have the name, you might as well have the game. She laid the rest of her doughnut on the table and moved over to sit in his lap. “Make that two hours.”