Книга - Just A Little Fling

Just A Little Fling
Julie Kistler


Lucie Webster is miserable! On the night of her thirtieth birthday, she's bridesmaid #13 at her younger sister's Scottish themed wedding. Sipping champagne for courage, Lucie decides to discard her scratchy kilt and have a fling with one of the safe ushers.But an accidental hotel key mix-up lands Lucie in a sinful romp in the wrong four-poster–with the wild and sexy best man!Ian Macintosh is shocked–and delighted–by the gorgeous female who's appeared in his bed. Footloose and fancy free, he's ready to continue the fling. But a mortified, conservative Lucie is convinced she's made a mistake. Especially when her gorgeous indiscretion keeps luring her back under the covers!









Lucie crept closer to the bed


She slipped one hand inside the heavily draped four-poster. She thought she could hear him breathing. Her palm closed on warm, smooth skin. Oh yeah, he was in there.

The bed frame squeaked as she moved across the mattress. Her fingers slid over the firm ridges of his ribs, the strong expanse of his muscled torso.

“Is that you?” she whispered, even as she knew that no way in hell that chest belonged to safe, reliable Baker Burns.

What was worse, she didn’t care!

His hand snagged her wrist suddenly, hauling her on top of him. She was sliding up his body, taking in the hard feel of him against her skin. A moan of pure bliss escaped her lips. He groaned almost in unison.

Had she ever felt pleasure like this? Not a chance!

She pressed closer, fitting herself to his long, lean body, making herself tingle from head to toe. So this was what a fling felt like. Like one big beautifully wrapped package that she got to keep opening all night long.

Lucie smiled wickedly into the darkness. Oh, yeah. Happy birthday to me….


Dear Reader,

Some of my favorite authors and dearest friends have written for Harlequin Temptation over the years, so I was absolutely delighted to get the chance to write Just a Little Fling for this terrific line. I love fast-paced, sexy, funny books, so THE WRONG BED miniseries seemed like the perfect place for me under the Harlequin Temptation umbrella.

As I mused on the Wrong Bed theme, I came up with all kinds of intriguing ideas. After all, I thought, what could be more fun than a hotel full of gorgeous groomsmen, all wearing kilts at a Scottish-themed nightmare of a wedding, too many similar keys, identical bridesmaids’ bags and one plucky bridesmaid facing her thirtieth birthday in desperate need of a little fling? It worked for me. I had a wonderful time writing the story, and I hope you enjoy it, too!

Cheers!

Julie Kistler




Books by Julie Kistler


HARLEQUIN DUETS

19—CALLING MR. RIGHT

30—IN BED WITH THE WILD ONE

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

740—TUESDAY’S KNIGHT

782—LIZZIE’S LAST-CHANCE FIANCÉ


Just a Little Fling

Julie Kistler






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To Vicki Lewis Thompson, Temptation doyenne, and to Birgit, who is such a pleasure to work with




Contents


Chapter 1 (#u6d0c1c93-81d7-5d40-92f0-00dc9a5f8526)

Chapter 2 (#ueac0533a-dc62-517a-b1f5-3f8a347cfdb2)

Chapter 3 (#ud7405c85-90e4-5c29-897c-c7f06570c2d8)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)




1


LUCIE WEBSTER WAS already itching to bolt the chapel—and they weren’t even up to “Do you take this man?”

Lucky thing it wasn’t her wedding, or she would’ve.

But no, it was her much younger half sister, Steffi, who was tying the knot. With nine years between them, she and Steffi had never been close, which put Lucie well down the line at number thirteen in a collection of fifteen bridesmaids. She knew she was picked out of desperation—it was hard to come up with fifteen willing attendants, for goodness sake—but she could hardly say no when her father started twisting arms on behalf of his beloved Steffi.

So here she was, squashed together with the other losers at the end of the line, right where they ran out of space around the altar and had to sort of huddle against a stone wall. Well, she thought, trying to look on the bright side, at least this way she had something to lean on, which took some of the pressure off the nasty, high-heeled granny boots Steffi had chosen for the bridesmaids.

Quietly shifting her weight, Lucie glanced around the chapel. Actually, this place was rather pretty, in a gloomy, Gothic way, with crumbling stone and flickering candles giving it a romantic glow.

It did seem kind of strange as churches went. But what could you expect from a chapel attached to a golf course? If someone needed divine intervention to get out of a sand trap, this would be the place to turn. Still, Lucie felt sure it wasn’t intended for a crowded, over-perfumed spectacle like this one. Under the circumstances, St. Andrew’s Chapel felt more like Sardines R Us.

Plus, Steffi’s super-Scottish theme had necessitated itchy kilts and even itchier wool jackets for the whole bridal party. Except for Steffi herself, of course. She was radiant in a white lace dress that stood out like a beacon in this sea of dark, rather menacing, red-and-black tartans.

Maybe it was the overabundance of plaid making Lucie swoon. That or the heat of a sultry June evening, the close conditions, the thick odor of roses and melting wax, or the tight, uncomfortable clothing.

As the voices up in front droned on, Lucie used her bouquet as a block so she could reach inside her kilt and give her waistline a good scratch.

“Aaah,” she breathed. More dirty looks. Well, good grief, it wasn’t her fault if Steffi’d stuck them all in these silly outfits. So she was marrying a guy named Mackintosh. So his family owned golf courses and resorts with goofy Scottish names—all “Bonnie Brae” and “Glen Loch Laddie”—all over Chicagoland. Did that mean Steffi had to dredge up kilts and tams and bagpipers out the wazoo just to marry the guy?

Apparently.

Lucie’s nose began to tickle. Uh-oh. Sneeze coming on. She tried her best to stifle it into her bouquet, but that made her inhale half a rose petal, and the sneeze came barreling out with a loud “ha-ha-ha-chooooo!”

Oops. A rustle ran up and down the wedding party, and she felt her cheeks flush with warmth.

Par for the course, Steffi stamped her tiny foot, smacked the maid of honor with her bouquet, and demanded, “What was that? Who did that?” Nobody answered her, but they were all craning their necks. Even the best man turned back to see who’d made the rude noise.

The very, very cute best man. Lucie managed a weak smile.

His name was Ian. Even though they hadn’t been introduced, she still knew that much. He was the groom’s brother, practically a twin, and every single one of the fifteen bridesmaids had had her eye on him since the festivities began. He also looked a heck of a lot better in a skirt than she did.

He caught her eye, sending her a wink—bless his gorgeous heart—and then he turned back to the waning moments of the ceremony like everyone else.

Nice legs. Lucie’s smile widened behind her bouquet. What a picker-upper to have someone like Ian Mackintosh wink at her. But, for now, she’d just have to content herself with the view and speculating on what he might be wearing underneath that thing.

“Absolutely nothing,” she whispered, feeling a little tingle run down her spine at the very thought.

Guys like Ian—all dark good looks and arrogance sculpted into a dynamite package—would rather die than wear briefs or boxers under there. That seemed like a given. But she’d love to check it out, just to be sure. What would the petulant bride do if her half sister dropped to her knees and crawled up to the altar to peek under the best man’s kilt?

But she didn’t. No, she was good. She stood where she was, and she didn’t sneeze or scratch or faint or peek or any of the other things she wanted to do.

Finally, blessedly, they got to the end of the ceremony, and the bagpipes geared up for a recessional that rattled the rooftop in the tiny chapel. Steffi and Kyle, the bride and groom, swept down the aisle, with Steffi looking triumphant and Kyle every bit as cute as his brother. Trying not to feel envious of her half sister, Lucie waited her turn to make tracks as well. As she hung back in position number thirteen, she found herself singing something under her breath, but it wasn’t remotely what the pipers were playing.

No, it was “Happy Birthday.”

“Happy birthday to me,” she hummed defiantly, linking up with Baker Burns, her counterpart groomsman, to shuffle slowly out of the chapel. She’d known Baker forever, but not even he had remembered that today was her birthday. Lucie lifted her chin and kept on humming. You only hit the big 3-0 once, after all. Steffi’s wedding certainly wasn’t her first choice for a proper celebration, but Lucie would make do.

“Having a good time?” Baker asked, pitching his voice loud enough to be heard over the bagpipes. “Are you singing something?”

He really was a nice man. Except for a thinning hairline, he was exactly the same sweet boy who’d offered her his seat on the bus on the way to seventh grade.

But she didn’t want to confide today’s humiliating facts, not even to Baker. She’d just keep it to herself that she was turning thirty in about two hours and not one solitary soul had remembered.

“It’s nothing,” she told him. “Just glad to be out of that church. Phew.”

Not that it was any better outside in the still, humid air. Perspiration trickled inside her stiff white blouse, making her feel damp and sticky. She’d done her best to smooth her thick, wavy red hair into a neat bun, as per Steffi’s instructions, but she knew little wisps were curling around her hairline and tendrils had escaped at the nape of her neck. In short, she was a mess.

“So where do we go from here?” she asked Baker. “Please tell me it’s someplace with really potent air-conditioning.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you weren’t listening when Ginetta gave out the orders?”

“Sort of.” Actually, she’d tuned out most of it. But she did remember that Steffi and her mother, the hard-as-nails Ginetta, seemed to have this whole wedding party choreographed to within an inch of its life.

“Do not pass Go,” Baker continued, mocking Ginetta’s snobby, nasal voice. “Do not collect two hundred dollars. Just proceed straight over to the Inn.”

“Oh, right.” It was all coming back to her now. No dawdling, no receiving line. Just hurry over to the reception, sit down, be quiet, and await further instructions.

As the wedding procession navigated a short path from the chapel to the main building, a castle-like structure called the Highland Inn, Lucie held onto Baker’s arm. The worn pavement was uneven, and the last thing she wanted to do was topple over and embarrass herself even more.

Looking up as they turned the corner, she caught her breath. It had rained earlier in the day, creating a soft mist around the Inn’s stone turrets and balconies, making it look as if it had been plucked from the Scottish highlands and set down intact in the Chicago suburbs.

“It’s lovely,” she whispered.

“Would it dare be anything else?” Baker asked wryly.

The Highland Inn was the finest golf resort in the senior Mr. Mackintosh’s empire, and so the natural, rent-free choice for Steffi’s wedding. Lucky Steffi. Except she should’ve left it as is, instead of adding all the over-the-top Scottish nonsense. As they ducked inside, they were hit in the face with cascading plaid fabric, tons more candles, and bowers of red and black roses arranged in rows to look as if they were—you guessed it—plaid. And, of course, the ever-present pipers wailed away.

As everyone filed in, kilt-clad waiters guided them to their assigned seats. “Them, too?” Lucie whispered. “Is there anyone here not in a kilt?”

Lucie thought of herself as a free spirit, but this was too much, even for her. All they needed was the Loch Ness monster rising up from the punch bowl, and the evening would be complete.

“You’d think somebody would’ve stopped Steffi from going so nuts with this stuff.” Grimly, Baker adjusted his own tartan, but his knobby knees were still visible. Poor Baker didn’t have the legs for it.

Meanwhile, the ballroom was a beehive of activity, with wedding guests trying to squeeze around the clustered tables to find their wee plaid place cards.

Lucie was much too tired to look at the tiny cards on every single table. So she commandeered a rather surly young man who informed her that he was not a waiter, just a busboy, and as such, was not responsible for figuring out where they were supposed to sit. She should’ve known he wasn’t anyone important—no kilt. But then Baker slipped him a ten, and the bad-tempered busboy managed to scare up a list, after which he led them to a table near the back of the room, where some of the other unpopular members of the wedding party were already parked.

A very lively girl named Delilah, aka bridesmaid number twelve, was pouring champagne. “This has to be the dullest wedding I’ve ever seen,” she complained.

But then she grinned, quickly shedding her red wool jacket and undoing the first few buttons on her shirt. Wiggling, Delilah made a point of showing off some cleavage, which seemed to perk up the cranky busboy hanging over her.

“Hon, can you run get us a couple more bottles of bubbly?” she inquired. “We’re just parched here.” As he skedaddled, Delilah raised her glass and called out, “Let’s get this party started, shall we?”

Lucie wished she were as brave as Delilah, so cheerfully stripping out of her bridesmaid duds and throwing caution to the winds. She was afraid her father or her half sister would come trolling around and yell at her. Still, she did manage to discard her jacket and undo the top button on her blouse, and then fanned herself with the plaid-covered wedding program on the table. Still melting. She definitely needed a drink, and the champagne was handy. It was cold and it was wet, and that was good enough.

But as she tipped up her glass, she caught sight of the best man, the adorable Ian, angling her way, and she almost choked in midswallow.

As she watched his progress, she decided that he was making the rounds of all the tables, offering some sort of announcement. When he got to their table, he smiled, not even a big smile, but Lucie felt a tangible punch to her solar plexus. Wow, that was weird. Must be the champagne. Maybe it had gone down the wrong way. So why did she still feel compelled to drop to the floor and check under his kilt?

Behave, she ordered herself.

“My dad asked me to stop by to make sure you’re all enjoying yourselves,” Ian offered. “I see you’ve got champagne, but the bar is also open—anything you want, courtesy of the Highland Inn. The waiters aren’t going to start serving dinner for a while, though—the photographer is taking a few extra family pictures. But as nonfamily, you guys are off the hook, so you might as well have a few drinks, a dance, whatever.”

He skimmed a quick glance around the table, long enough for Lucie to get a good glimpse of the color of his eyes. Blue. A beautiful, rich shade of blue that made her feel as if she’d just dived into the deep end of Lake Michigan. Or Loch Lomond. You take the high road and I’ll take the low road and I’ll peek under your kilt on the wayyy… She knocked back another glass of champagne.

But his gaze lit on her…and lingered.

“Wait,” he said, and her heart felt as if it had stopped right there. Oh, she was waiting, all right. He narrowed his eyes. “I remember you from the rehearsal dinner. It’s Lucie, isn’t it?”

He knew her name? She was shocked. Especially since she’d been sitting about a football field away from him at the rehearsal dinner.

“Aren’t you Steffi’s sister?” he asked.

“Half sister,” she corrected quickly.

“What’s a half between friends?” He held out a hand. “I’ll bet they’re waiting for both of us, and I don’t think your mother is a woman you want to leave hanging.”

“Ginetta isn’t my mother,” Lucie said quickly. That should have been obvious—Steffi and her mother were both tiny in stature, barely five feet, with dark hair and eyes. At five nine, with wayward, wavy red hair and green eyes, Lucie wasn’t even in the same ballpark. “Steffi and I…We share the same father.”

“That still makes you part of the family.” When she didn’t take his offered hand, he reached for hers, pulling her to her feet. “Come on, don’t be shy. I don’t want to have to come back for you. The faster we get this whole photo thing over with, the faster we can join the party.”

We? What we? But she didn’t have a chance to find out.

Stumbling along behind him, Lucie stared down at their joined hands, watched the pleats in his kilt frisk his well-shaped calves, gulped, blinked twice, shook her head, and gulped again. But he held on, steering them both across the ballroom and out the side door.

Uh-oh. What was wrong with her? For one thing, she’d shed her jacket and loosened her blouse, so she wasn’t presentable for pictures. For another, she should’ve told him that no one would be champing at the bit, waiting for her to pose for family pictures.

She knew Steffi and Ginetta like the back of her hand, and they weren’t going to like this. In their minds, there was Family—Dad, Ginetta and Steffi—and then there was the outsider, the nuisance, the nitwit—Lucie. She tried to get along with them, really she did. But they’d made it clear for years that she was persona non grata.

Ian pulled her behind him into a side room where a small cluster of people milled about, including the bride and groom. “Ian!” three different people cried at once.

“Ian, let’s get a move on,” the groom said impatiently. “Come on, we’ve been waiting for you.”

“Hey, I completed my mission as fast as I could.” He smiled, dropping Lucie’s hand, but then slid a casual arm around her. “Look, Steffi, I found your sister.”

“Half sister,” the two of them said automatically, as their mutual father, Donald Webster, started to get pink and fidgety, glancing between the bride and her mother as if he expected one or the other to blow sky-high.

A self-made man, he had a horror of looking tacky to those more sophisticated or higher up the social ladder, like the old-money Mackintosh family. Lucie recognized the symptoms—he always got that nervous shift to his eyes, those beads of sweat on his upper lip, when he felt outclassed.

There was an awkward silence.

“Excuse me. I’ll just…” She’d never had any desire to annoy her father or put a crimp in Steffi’s big day. So Lucie edged backward, ducking around Ian’s arm and making for the door. “I’m sure Steffi wanted, you know, immediate family, and I’m sort of, well, extended.”

“No, no, I’m sure—” Ian began. She heard his brother whisper, “Steffi? Don’t you want your sister in the family pictures?” but the photographer was trying to push them into some sort of arrangement, and Lucie took her chance to escape.

She did pause for one extra second, however, long enough to watch the Mackintosh family pose as gracefully as you please, as if they had just stepped into an ad for greeting cards. They stood tall, exuding wealth and style. From the distinguished parents to their two elegant, fabulous sons and poised teenaged daughter, this family made a picture of perfection. And when they smiled, the whole room seemed to light up without any need for flashbulbs.

Wow. Lucie looked at them with real envy. No wonder Steffi wanted to marry into this family. It wasn’t just that her groom was adorable and wonderful, rich and charming, although he certainly seemed to be. No, it was the whole family. They were perfect. But what would they want with Steffi?

None of her business, was it? She had a table full of wallflowers to get back to. As she slipped away into the reception, she heard the photographer behind her command, “And smile!”

IF ONE MORE PERSON told him to smile, Ian Mackintosh swore he’d start knocking heads together.

God, he hated weddings. Especially this one, with its boatload of pseudo-Scottish junk, outrageous number of bridesmaids, and way too many people smiling and pretending to be thrilled for Kyle.

Thrilled? Ha! His brother was making a huge mistake. Colossal. What else could you call it when a great guy like Kyle signed up for a life sentence with a twenty-one-year-old bimbo with a hot bod and the brains of a twig?

Ian wasn’t that fond of the idea of marriage, anyway. As far as he was concerned, you traded a few minutes of pleasure for a lifetime of effort and commitment, boredom and compromise. He hated compromise. Even his parents, who looked like a flawless match on the outside, had had their share of ups and downs. It seemed like a full-time job for his dad to keep that marriage humming.

He loved his mother and his sister dearly, but they were often on some other planet he couldn’t—and didn’t really care to—understand. He just wasn’t sure he could ever put that much work into something as mercurial and infuriating as a woman.

Besides, as he’d watched friends get married over the past few years, they’d so often seemed to be doing it for the wrong reasons—because somebody’s parents were pushing it, or the girlfriend wanted a baby, or he was the right age, or she had a nice smile, or he was lonely, or all their friends were married…

It didn’t take long for one or the other to be miserable. It didn’t take long for Ian to run in the other direction. The merest hint of matrimony on the mind of a woman he was dating had him saying goodbye.

And he was even more convinced he was right now that he’d seen Steffi in action. Sure, he’d tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, and he’d been kind of amused by her sister, the sneezy redhead. At least she seemed like a real human being. But when he’d brought Lucie back for family pictures, snotty little Steffi had acted ruder than rude—to her own sister.

“Half sister,” he said under his breath.

Fine. A bimbo, a social climber and a bitch, and she’d just married his brother. Wonderful.

What the hell was Kyle thinking, marrying Steffi? “She must be something special in the sack,” he muttered, taking a long swig of his drink. Forget champagne. He’d turned to Scotch on the rocks a long time ago. Well, hey, at least it fit the theme.

“Ian, Ian, Ian, what are you doing all alone?” a silky female voice purred.

He glanced up. Ah, yes. The maid of honor. What was her name again?

The leggy blonde perched herself on the chair next to his. “Lucky I ran into you.”

She’d apparently slipped upstairs to her room at the Inn long enough to change her clothes. All he had up in his room was an extra pair of jeans and a T-shirt to wear home tomorrow, or he would’ve gotten rid of his own kilt hours ago. But this nubile young thing had planned ahead, shedding her long wool skirt and hot jacket for a slinky little cocktail dress. He had to say, it looked good on her. And partially off her.

Although Ian was fully aware the maid of honor was cut from the same cloth as the bimbo bride, he also knew she could be useful for a few hours. She’d already telegraphed her interest, and then some. She might be feeling no pain at the moment, but she’d been perfectly sober when she tried to trap him in the coat room at the rehearsal dinner, and then pinched his butt as they walked out of the church after the ceremony.

The way he figured it, he was bummed and she and her bubble-headed beauty were a distraction. Where was the harm in that?

“Can I get you a drink, um…?” Damn. He really could not recall her name.

“Feather,” she finished for him.

How could he have forgotten anything that silly? “Feather. Right. Let me get one of the waiters.”

Feather downed several more Cosmopolitans (which was exactly what he would’ve guessed she’d drink) as she gossiped about Steffi and the other bridesmaids. “I think Steffi should’ve cut back to about five attendants and only picked the really good-looking ones, y’know?” She sat up straighter, only slightly wobbly. “A person has to have standards.”

What was he supposed to say to that? Sure, have all the standards you want. Who cares? He raised his glass to his lips, preferring not to comment.

“Did you know that Steffi and I are soro…soror…sorory sisters?” She tried to get a grip on her drink, giggling when it sloshed over its rim and splashed red liquid onto the white linen tablecloth. “Oopsie! What was I saying? Oh, yeah—me and Steffi. We are just like that.” She squinted, trying to focus long enough to put her index fingers together. “Like that.”

“I got it.”

Tipping over to one side, she propped herself up on an elbow. “You are so cute, y’know?”

“Uh, sure. Whatever.” When she waited expectantly, he hastened to add, “And you, too. You’re beautiful. But you already know that.”

“Well, duh. Come on, don’t I see myself in the mirror? Like, news flash.”

Okay, not even for a few hours could he put up with this. He started to rise.

“Hey, where you goin’? Am I invited?”

He tried to remind himself that he wasn’t looking for conversation, just one night of guilt-free seduction, nothing too taxing, nothing too clingy, just fun and a few fireworks. What was he going to do otherwise? Go back to his room by himself, drink the other half of the bottle of Scotch, and fall into a depressed stupor. Yeah, that sounded enticing.

Feather gave him a sly wink, winding her tongue around a cherry she’d plucked from someone else’s drink. After fooling with it for a few seconds, she popped it out of her mouth with the stem neatly tied in a knot. “Everybody has to have a talent,” she giggled.

Ian sat back down.

“LUCIE,” DELILAH ANNOUNCED, “I think we need to find some guys and fast. You and I—and especially you—need a fling.”

“A fling?” By this time, Lucie had ditched her shoes under the table and rolled up her sleeves, and she was feeling much better. She’d also switched from champagne to strawberry margaritas, and she swirled sugar onto her tongue while she considered her fellow bridesmaid’s idea. “You mean like a one-night stand? Why exactly do I need that?”

“Dying on the vine, my dear. Dying on the vine. I mean, here we are, bridesmaids at this big, ugly ol’ wedding with a million guys running around, and what are we doing? Talking to each other.” Delilah shook her head sadly. “We need to get out there and find us some guys. You know, for overnight. Or maybe not even overnight, just a couple of hours. Heck, just a couple of minutes!”

“You are so bad,” Lucie returned in a stage whisper. She said with determination, “If I’m doing it, I’m not settling for a couple of minutes. Not tonight.”

“You go, girl!”

“Darn right.” Lucie lifted her chin. “Did I tell you it’s my birthday? And not just any birthday. The big 3-0.”

Delilah’s mouth dropped open. “Get out! You’re thirty? Today? Okay, now I know I’m right. Lucie, honey, you are in dire need of a little nookie, a little fun, some snap and crackle, y’know? I mean, good grief.”

“I don’t know….”

“Oh, come on!” Delilah’s speech picked up speed and volume as she gained enthusiasm. “Go for it! Have a fling! You’ll never turn thirty again. Besides, you’re a bridesmaid. It’s what bridesmaids do. Look around you—everyone is pairing up.”

Through the mist of a few too many alcoholic beverages, Lucie surveyed the rapidly thinning crowd in the ballroom. “Oh, my god. You’re right. There are trysts forming before my very eyes!”

In fact, directly in her line of vision, she saw Ian, the handsome best man, sitting very close to Steffi’s maid of honor, the one with the silicone-inflated cleavage and legs up to her chin. From here, it looked as if the two of them were getting cozy. Very cozy. Yuck.

And if she looked the other way, her gaze hit snippy little Steffi, out on the dance floor in her white lace wedding dress, clinging to her handsome groom like there was no tomorrow.

Steffi, twenty-one and married to a drop-dead gorgeous guy in his thirties. Her hideous maid of honor, also twenty-something, also attached to a gorgeous guy in his thirties.

And here sat Lucie, thirty and alone. “Well,” she said with spirit, “isn’t that a kick in the pants?”

AS IAN TRIED to decide where he was going with this, Feather made her move. Bending in close enough to give him a full view of her dangerously round breasts, she slid a hand onto his knee, teasing the edge of his kilt. She whispered, “Are you feeling what I’m feeling?”

“What are you feeling?”

“Hot. Hot, hot, hot.”

He smiled. Okay, so he was human, and when a woman put her hand under his kilt, he had the obvious reaction. “Maybe.”

“I know you’re as turned on as I am,” she mouthed. “Tell you what—just give me your key, and we’ll take this upstairs.” As he made no move, she pouted and tried, “Come on, Ian. Everybody knows the best man and the maid of honor are supposed to make it on the wedding night. It’s kind of a…” She winked at him. “A tradition.”

He told himself not to be an idiot. She might not be the swiftest boat in the fleet, but Feather was a beautiful, willing, sexy woman. Was he really going to turn her down?

Not on your life. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the key. The number 2-0-3 caught the light of a nearby candle as he slipped it across the table.

Feather offered a triumphant smile, nabbing the key and sticking it quickly into the small plaid handbag looped around her wrist. “You go ahead,” she said in a breathy voice. “I’ll just freshen up and then I’ll be right with you.”

As she toddled off in the direction of the ladies’ room, Ian pondered the odds of her actually making it up the stairs to his room. Fifty-fifty, he decided. But hey, that was like letting fate decide whether a horizontal tango with Feather was meant to be.

He grabbed the bottle of Scotch on the table, stopped by the front desk for another key to his room, and strolled up to the second floor, still in a very dark and cynical frame of mind.

If Feather made the climb or if she didn’t, it was no big deal to him.

“IT’S WHAT HAPPENS at weddings, Luce. It’s like they pump something into the air. All the sexual tension, the weepy till-death-do-us-part stuff, everyone thinking about honeymoons and garters and sloppy kisses and white lace and roses and…Well, the open bar doesn’t hurt, either.”

“Okay, so everyone else is doing it. That doesn’t mean I have to,” Lucie protested. “I’m just not that kind of person.” She hiccuped delicately. “Besides, my father would have a fit.”

“What’s he got to do with it?” Delilah argued. “And why would he even have to know?”

“He wouldn’t, I suppose. It’s just…he’s very hung up on toeing the line, not making waves, not doing anything that would embarrass him.”

“Let me get this straight. This is the same man whose daughter just foisted this Scottish monstrosity of a wedding on about four hundred people?” Delilah shook her head so hard she looked dizzy. “Lucie, you are thirty years old. What your father does or doesn’t like is hardly important at this point—especially when the old jerk let Steffi have her wedding on your birthday.”

“Oh, I’m sure none of them remembered. It’s not like it was intentional,” Lucie assured her new friend.

“That’s even worse.”

“Not really—”

“I’m telling you, Luce,” Delilah interrupted. “Tonight, for a few hours, you deserve to think about you, to celebrate the big 3-0, to be as wild and wicked as you’ve always wanted to be.”

Still, Lucie hesitated.

The other bridesmaid demanded, “Come on, Lucie, what are you afraid of?”

What was she afraid of?

“Don’t be shy—don’t even think about it,” Delilah counseled. “After all, it’s no biggie.” There was a spark of mischief in her smile. “Just a harmless little fling.”




2


JUST A LITTLE FLING.

It might not sound scary to Delilah, but it was like jumping off a cliff to Lucie.

“I don’t know if I can,” she hedged. But a tiny, reckless voice inside her whispered, You know you want to. “I—I don’t know.”

“Which is exactly why you’re sitting here by yourself on your birthday, with nobody warm and friendly to curl up to.” Delilah pushed herself to her feet. “Harsh words, my dear, but true. Don’t look now, but my best shot at my own fling is heading for the bar, and I think I can intercept him. Paolo has my name written all over him.”

With a determined glint in her eye, Delilah stalked off in search of big game.

“Paolo?” Lucie muttered, squinting after Delilah. “Who is Paolo? Oh, good heavens. It’s the cranky busboy.”

Dejected, Lucie watched the candle flame sputter into a wisp of smoke in front of her. The bride and groom had left. Ian and his bimbo had left. Delilah was hot on the trail of a busboy. And Lucie was alone at her table.

Alone on her thirtieth birthday. This was just wrong.

“I’m going to do it,” she said suddenly. Fortifying herself by chugging the last of her margarita, Lucie stood up and unsteadily surveyed the ballroom. “Who’s it going to be?”

She frowned, weighing the prospects. It couldn’t be just anyone. Her head might be buzzing with champagne and tequila, but she still wasn’t stupid enough to put the moves on just anybody. Nobody with a wedding ring. Nobody who looked too old or too young or too…scary.

But then who? Shaking her head from side to side, Lucie tried to clear her mind enough to make a rational decision. Not that there was anything rational about any of this.

It’s my birthday, the brash, foolhardy side of her brain argued. You didn’t get even one present. You deserve this!

Okay, okay. The fling was on. So who was the lucky guy?

There was a relatively cute guy over by the dance floor giving her the eye, but he looked kind of strange. Or maybe just a little too eager.

And then there was Baker Burns.

Good old Baker. Feeling sentimental all of a sudden, Lucie smiled. He gave her a friendly wave from the cake table, where he was casually eating dessert, not a care in the world. He, too, was all by himself. Hmm…Okay, so he wasn’t terribly exciting. But he was safe, and that seemed like a good idea at the moment. Safe, predictable, boring Baker Burns…

“He’s perfect,” she whispered. All she wanted was one night of—what had Delilah called it?—nookie. One night of nookie. No future. No trouble. Just one night. Who else but Baker Burns fit that bill?

So she grabbed her tartan purse, the useless little thing Steffi had given them all as bridesmaid’s presents, and padded purposefully to the cake table.

“Hello, Baker,” she began, working hard to keep that breathless, tipsy tremble out of her voice.

“Hiya, Luce,” he said calmly, holding up a plate in each hand. “Did you want white or chocolate? Don’t worry—only the icing is plaid.”

Naturally he assumed she was trolling for extra wedding cake. “Oh, no. None for me, thanks.” As he set down the plates, she forged ahead, determined to be bold. What did vampy, flirty girls do in these situations? Maybe a little eyelash batting? “Having a good time, Baker?” she inquired coyly, leaning in nearer and flapping her lashes to beat the band.

He’d turned away to retrieve his own cake, but he stopped, his fork in midair. With concern, he asked, “Is there something wrong with your eye?”

Oh, hell. Eyelash batting was a bust.

“Listen, Baker,” she said, coming right out with it, “I’m by myself, you’re by yourself, and it’s my birthday. I was wondering whether you were interested in getting together tonight. You and me.”

“You? A-a-and me?” It sounded as if a hunk of cake had lodged in his windpipe. He choked, “D-did you just…?”

“Right. You and me. What do you say?” When he still couldn’t manage to get out any words, Lucie snapped, “Come on, I haven’t got all day. Do you want to sleep with me or not?”

Baker’s eyebrows rose past his receding hairline. “Are you drunk?”

“Heavens, no.” Lucie paused, wondering if the cake behind Baker was really tilting or her eyesight had gone wacky. Best not to think about it. “Well, maybe I’ve had a little more to drink than normal,” she admitted. “But that’s not what this is about. I’m serious, Baker. What do you think about a wedding-night fling with an old friend?”

“Y-yes. Sure! Now? Do you want to leave now?”

“Yes, I want to leave now. Right this minute.” Before I lose my tequila-induced nerve.

“Okay.” He paused, carefully placing his plate back on the table behind him. Taking a deep breath, he peered at her, as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. She knew the feeling. “Where? I mean, your room or mine? I mean, you do want to go to a room, right? You don’t have fantasies about, like, the 18th green or a phone booth or the hood of a Corvette or something, do you?”

Lucie’s mouth dropped open. Clearly, there was more to Baker than she’d realized. Eighteenth green? Phone booth? Hood of a Corvette? She swallowed. “Actually, I was thinking of a, uh, bed.”

A bed. Good lord. Bed. She’d no more said the word than hazy, smoky images assailed her. Images of sheets tangled around sweaty, naked skin. Pillows and blankets scattered to the four winds in reckless, passionate abandon. Springs squeaking in protest as bodies thrashed above them. And a man, pressed so close she could hear his heartbeat, feel his heat, touch his…

Baker cleared his throat. “Um, Lucie?”

She jumped, wobbling onto one foot, as her erotic reverie ended in a hurry. Get a grip, she told herself curtly, fanning herself with the miniature handbag. We’re talking Baker here. Forget tangled sheets and mad passion. This is Baker.

“Listen…” He wiped his brow with the back of one hand, reaching into the pocket of his jacket with the other. “About the room thing. Mine’s fine, if you want to. I mean, I’m in…” he peered at his key. “…uh, 302. Where are you?”

She glanced at the brass key in his hand. Curving script that read Highland Inn was etched into the metal, and then the number 302. “You mean Steffi put you up here, in the Inn?”

Oh, sure! Baker had a room at the Inn. Probably every single member of the wedding party except Lucie got to stay right here. But her? Not even close. “I’m in some junky motel halfway to Wisconsin,” she told him with more than a touch of annoyance. “I’m not even checked in yet.”

“Uh, right.” Baker blinked. “Well, it doesn’t sound like we want to have our, uh, liaison there. So I guess it’s my room then. You know, if you want to give me a few minutes, I could go on up and arrange some champagne and candles and stuff. That might be nice.”

Lucie barely heard him. She was still seething over the way Steffi managed to diss her, even when it came to a hotel. He awkwardly handed her the key, and without thinking, she grabbed it and dropped it into the bottom of her tiny purse.

“All right then,” he told her, his words tumbling over each other. “But I want you to know, if you change your mind, I won’t hold it against you. I’ll just wait, oh, I don’t know, a half hour, and if you’re not there, I’ll blow out the candles and forget it ever happened. Okay?”

“Right. Half an hour.” And then she realized what she’d done. She’d just taken Baker’s key. They had made an official…assignation.

It’s not too late to back out, the timid half of her brain put in. Are you really sure you want to do this?

But Baker was already scooting off to the stairs, sending her encouraging glances over his shoulder.

“Baker,” she called out, “about what you said, about how I might need to, maybe, I don’t know, reserve the right to, you know…”

Change my mind? But he was gone.

“What have I done?” Lucie cried. With the ribbon ties on her purse clutched in both hands, she swung one way and then the other, looking for something in the room that would give her courage or help her make up her mind. “The ladies’ room!”

She had no idea why that would help, but it always seemed to. The few times she’d been on rotten dates and she was trying to decide whether to bolt or stick it out, a trip to the rest room had been really comforting, really useful. She could splash cool water on her face, sit down for a sec, give herself time to think. At the very least, she could loosen her uncomfortable skirt and get a little more blood flowing.

“A time-out is just what I need,” she decided, making a beeline for the ladies’ room out in the hall on the other side of the ballroom.

She pushed open the door in a rush, giving herself a pep talk and not really paying attention to much else. Momentarily blinded by a cloud of perfume and hair spray, she almost collided with the same giggly blonde she’d seen sticking her hands under Ian Mackintosh’s kilt earlier, Steffi’s insipid, snobby maid of honor, the one with the stupid name. Flora? Fauna? No, more like Finger. Flicker?

Whatever her name, she was exactly the person Lucie did not want to run into.

“Would you watch where you’re going?” the girl snarled. “What a klutz.” Only it came out more like klush. With a huff, she turned back to the process of peering at herself in the mirror over the sink, attempting to add another layer of lipstick to already overglossed lips.

One look and Lucie could tell that the maid of honor was sloshed to the gills. Maybe it was the flushed cheeks or the drooping eyelids or the slurred speech. Or the way the girl’s head bobbled back and forth as she tried to focus on keeping the lipstick remotely inside her lipline.

“Isn’t that attractive?” Lucie muttered.

“Can I borrow that?” another twenty-something chirped, popping up at the first one’s elbow. “It’s mocha cocoa muck, isn’t it? I love that color on you, Feather.”

Oh, right. Feather. Worse than Flora or Fauna.

“It is not mocha cocoa muck. It’s Poisonberry Smog. It’s all I ever wear. And no, you cannot borrow it,” Feather returned, giving herself another thick coat of the stuff, smacking her lips at the mirror. “I need it. All of it. I want to leave marks all over him.” She swung one arm wide, almost hitting her friend. With a smirk, she added, “Three days from now, Ian Mackintosh is still going to be finding traces of Poisonberry Smog.”

Lucie narrowed her eyes. The idea of Feather applying Poisonberry lip-prints all over Ian Mackintosh was too disgusting to contemplate.

And then the blonde made it even worse. Giggling, she trotted over to a small machine attached to the wall, started spinning the crank, and scooped little multicolored packets out of it like there was no tomorrow. “Free condoms!” she cooed. “And I plan to use every single one of them.”

“Excuse me, but don’t you think you should leave some for the rest of us?” Lucie interrupted, skirting around the sink and honing in. “I think the machine is there as a courtesy, not for your private stock.”

“Oh, yeah, like you expect me to believe you need one. Puh-leez.” Her nose in the air, Feather tossed about ten of them into her plaid minibag and closed the drawstring with a vicious jerk.

Really starting to get ticked off here, Lucie grabbed a handful herself, whipped out her own identical purse, and shoved in the rainbow assortment of small squares. She made a point of yanking her ribbons, too, with the same show of force. Only she yanked too hard and the whole purse went flying, like a slingshot, smacking Feather in the right eye.

“Oh, my God!” Feather howled, dropping her bag, strewing condoms and cosmetics every which way as she covered her injured eye. “She tried to kill me!”

“I’m so sorry,” Lucie tried immediately, hovering there. “Are you all right?”

“Do I look all right? I’m probably blind, you idiot!” She began to wail loudly, as her friend attempted to pry her fingers away.

“Feather, I think it looks okay. Really.” The other girl bent to gather the scattered items. “Your lipstick rolled under the sink, but I got it. Don’t move, because the blush and mascara and stuff are right by your foot. Where’s your purse?” She glanced between the two matching plaid bags lying side by side on the floor. “Which one is which?”

“No problem. We’ll just look inside. I think this one is mine,” Lucie said awkwardly, reaching for the closest purse. She opened it quickly, finding seven or eight condoms and a Highland Inn key right on top. Yeah, that’s what should be in her purse. But just to be sure, she pulled out the key. “Room 203,” she read. That was what she recalled Baker had said.

“Give me my purse!” Feather cried tearfully. “If that’s yours, I want mine. With all my stuff in it. I need to fix my eye. My mascara is running!”

“I put everything back. It’s fine,” the friend said soothingly. “Look, here’s your makeup and your room key and, see, I’m putting all your condoms back…”

Deciding a quick exit was in everyone’s best interests, Lucie got out of there, clasping the small tartan bag securely to her chest. But where was she going to go?

The reception hall was almost empty as she passed through. It seemed everyone had either paired up or gone home. Walking slowly into the front hall, Lucie hesitated. It had started to rain again during the reception, and she could hear the steady pitter-patter of the downpour against the windows.

On one side was the main door, leading to the outside world. On the other was the big double staircase leading to the second floor and the hotel part of the Inn.

Which way? Should she march out the front door into the rain, find the parking lot and her car, and drive an hour to that cut-rate motel in the middle of nowhere when she’d been drinking? Or should she pull out the key to room 203, climb the stairs, and have her cozy little rendezvous with Baker Burns?

She’d been over all the reasons she wanted to do this, all about her neglected birthday and her nine-years-younger sister marrying the perfect man and now poor Baker up there with champagne, depending on her, and her in no condition to drive…She licked her lip, gazing around at the Highland Inn, at the flickering candles casting a romantic glow on the soft stone walls and that wide, inviting, dangerous staircase.

“Lucie, are you a woman or a worm?” she asked out loud. “You’re not a child, you’re not a virgin, and you have condoms. What more do you need? Lightning bolts?”

As if some cosmic force had heard her words, there was a huge clap of thunder, and the front hall lit up with the slash of accompanying lightning. Lucie jumped about a foot.

“Okay, so I got the lightning bolt.”

A rushing sound filled her ears, as she stumbled up the stairs, one hand stuck to the heavy wooden railing and the other clutching the key. “What’s that number again?” she murmured, squinting down into her hand as she hit the landing. “Was it 302? No, 203.” Bad time to turn dyslexic. Maybe she was just nervous.

Nervous? No, she was petrified!

But lo and behold, there was room 203 right in front of her. She tiptoed up, she slid the key into the hole, and easy as you please, the door yawned open.

Her heart pounding, the rushing sound getting louder, Lucie took one step inside. Inky blackness greeted her.

So much for candles and champagne. She must not have made it upstairs within the allotted time. Poor Baker must’ve decided not to wait. That was okay. In her newfound boldness, she would simply wake him. In a way, it was less scary like this. She would strip off her clothes, climb in with him, and ease them both into this fling thing.

Lucie paused, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but it didn’t help much. She could make out a large, square blob directly ahead, with a few other indistinct shapes looming here and there. A canopy bed, maybe, with curtains pulled around it. And a desk? There was no light coming in at all to relieve the unrelenting darkness.

“Baker?” she whispered.

No answer. Had she said his name out loud or only thought it? If only she hadn’t drunk so much champagne and knocked back all those margaritas. If only her brain were functioning.

But if she hadn’t, or if it were, she wouldn’t be here, would she?

She took another step. Her stocking foot slid on a pile of fabric lying right in her path. Although it gave her a moment of panic when she began to slip, she caught herself and then stood still for a second, trying to refocus her swimming head. Peering down, she also identified the nubby wool still cloaking her foot. A kilt. A black-and-red Mackintosh tartan, just like all the groomsmen had been wearing. Baker’s kilt.

Okay, that wasn’t so frightening, was it? Exhaling a nervous puff of air, Lucie bent to quietly drop her purse and take off her boots. Oh, she wasn’t wearing any. Where had they gotten off to? She didn’t remember doffing her shoes, but she supposed she must’ve. Maybe she’d left them downstairs in the reception hall with her jacket. Oh well.

At least her hideous kneesocks were easy to peel away, even if she was a bit uncoordinated at the moment. But it felt great to be free of the nasty things. She flexed her bare toes, beaming into the dark room.

Picking up steam, she reached for the waistband of her skirt, but her fingers were clumsy and she couldn’t get the complicated little fasteners to work. “The hell with it,” she swore under her breath, popping hooks and buckles as she tore off the skirt, letting it pool at her feet on top of the groomsman’s kilt.

Ah, that felt like heaven. She could breathe again! She wanted to dance on it, stomp it into the carpet.

Now all she had to do was get rid of the rest of her confining clothes. Impatient, she ripped off her blouse, her panties and bra, throwing them carelessly aside. I am a wild woman, hear me roar! she sung inside her head. Happy birthday to me!

Swinging her head, she undid the neat bun, releasing the full length of her red-gold hair to flow freely over her shoulders. Paradise!

And now she was ready. Nothing left to do but…

Wait a second. She scampered back to where she’d discarded her purse, pulling out one of the bright packets from the machine and closing her hand around it. Best to be prepared. Not that she and Baker were necessarily going to do that, anyway, but that was the idea, wasn’t it? If she got in with him wearing nothing but a smile, she had to expect a certain level of, well, intimacy.

So…She extracted another foil square, clutching it in her hand with the first one. You never knew.

Her heart was in her throat as she crept closer to the heavily draped four-poster. She slipped her free hand inside the curtain, feeling for anything. She thought she could hear him breathing.

The rhythm of his breath grew rougher, more ragged, as her hand closed on warm, smooth skin. Oh, yeah, he was in there. The wooden bedframe squeaked as he moved nearer her hand.

This was no time to be shy. Leaning inside the dark bed curtain, Lucie balanced one knee on the mattress. And her fingers stretched further, sliding over the firm ridges of his ribs, the strong expanse of his muscled torso. Her gulp sounded like a gong in the silent room.

“Is that you?” she whispered, in a raspy, strange voice.

But she knew, even before the words left her mouth, that there was no way in hell that chest belonged to safe, reliable Baker Burns.

What was worse, she didn’t care.

His hand closed over her wrist, grabbing her, pulling her off balance, hauling her all the way through the curtains and into the bed. She didn’t even try to regain her equilibrium, just went with the flow, sliding up his body, taking in the hard, slippery, intoxicating feel of him against her skin. A moan of pure bliss escaped her lips. Had she ever felt pleasure like this? Not a chance.

Closing her eyes, she pressed closer, fitting herself to his long, lean body, rubbing just enough to make herself tingle from head to toe. So this was what a fling felt like. Like one big beautifully wrapped package that she got to keep opening all night long.

Lucie smiled wickedly into the darkness. Oh, yeah. Happy birthday to me.

IAN KNEW THE SECOND he touched her that this was no Feather. His brain was hazy and polluted by Scotch fumes, but not oblivious enough to mistake a living, breathing, vivacious woman for a pale imitation like Feather.

Was he dreaming? But her skin and her curves felt warm, vibrant, incredibly real—too real to be either Feather or a dream.

So who was she and where did she come from? He peered at her in the dim light, but her features were obscured by a long fall of hair, and he knew he’d never seen this body before. Who was she? His mind was foggy enough and his body turned on enough not to complain.

As the long tendrils of her silky hair rippled over his shoulder and his chest, he felt small sparks of desire in its wake. He leaned back, giving in to the sensations. But the way she was wiggling against him, her hips meeting his, was already making him feel like a rocket, ready to launch, and he knew he had to slow it down. Fast.

He reached for her, arching up, filling his hands with her hair, finding her sweet, wet mouth and plunging inside. God, she tasted good.

Even better, she kissed him back hard, hungrily, ferociously, making more of those greedy little noises that were driving him insane. She was nibbling and sliding, tasting and rubbing, climbing all over him in her eagerness. He grinned against her mouth. It just didn’t get any better than this.

With one swift motion, he rolled her underneath him, pinning her hands at her sides. She whimpered, edging up into him, teasing him with the feel of her soft, full breasts brushing his chest. He held himself rigid. “Whoever you are, lady, I want you. I want you bad. But are you sure this is what you want?”

“Positive,” she said breathlessly. Slowly, she opened her hand, the one she’d been holding in a tight little fist, revealing two small, opaque packets, one red and one blue. “See? I came prepared.”

Ian laughed out loud. “You hang onto those,” he murmured, bending down to press his lips into the slope of her neck, enjoying the unsteady pulse that throbbed there, the way she panted and shivered when he kissed her. “We’ll get to them.”

Either her buttons were remarkably easy to push, or she was very aroused. He knew the feeling. Already, she was restless and impatient under him, but he had no intention of rushing anything or giving her what she obviously wanted.

Instead, he backed off, barely grazing her shoulder with his mouth before he held himself away. His lids lowered as he gazed down at her. Beautiful. Whoever she was, this naked goddess who’d come calling, she was long and lithe, curvy and luscious, with pale, porcelain skin that glowed even in this faint light and a riot of hair spilling out in every direction.

Ian smiled. Yeah, this was going to take a while.

WHY DIDN’T HE hurry up? She was dying down here. Lucie groaned with frustration, writhing near the edge of the bed. She was melting from the inside out, and she didn’t think she could be any more wet, hot, ready. His clever, versatile mouth showed no mercy on her breasts and her belly, teasing her, biting and swirling, pushing her into this mindless, dazzled, semiconscious place, where all she did was ache for him, hate him, wait for him, want him.

Why did he have to move so damn slowly?

Finally, just when she thought she might expire from this terrible need, he slid lower. Lucie gasped. If she’d thought his tongue was skillful before, now she knew what it could really do. It could make her weep with pleasure. It could bring her hurtling to the top so fast she saw stars.

She’d never been like this before, every inch of her humming and shattering, where every flick of his tongue brought her higher, faster, harder.

“Oh, yessss,” she cried. “Don’t stop. Don’t…stop!” But she was already peaking, falling and peaking again. She melted into a puddle of satisfaction, curling into him. “Don’t stop…”

He lifted his head. His low, heated voice coiled around her like flame when he whispered, “Don’t worry. We’re just getting started.”

“I think,” she murmured in a husky, vixenish voice she didn’t recognize as her own, “now it’s your turn.”

She opened her fist again, sparing a moment to stuff the still unused condoms under the pillow for safekeeping.

“Maybe later,” she whispered, sliding down his flank, twisting herself around him.

“Maybe later,” he echoed.

But first…

MORNING LIGHT drifted slowly into the room, casting a soft, warm glow on Lucie.

She opened one eye. “Mmmph,” she mumbled, unable to recognize the fuzzy shapes in front of her.

Stretching out an arm, yawning, she blinked, opening both eyes. A draft tickled her shoulders, making her quite certain she wasn’t wearing a top. Or a bottom.

Naked. In a high, soft bed she didn’t recognize, with intricately carved posts and thick draperies cascading down from the edges of the canopy overhead.

Taking silent inventory, she noted that there seemed to be a pillow wedged under her stomach, and her head, most of her hair, and one arm were hanging off the bed, dangling in space. An assortment of rumpled bedclothes had been tossed onto the floor below her, and a rainbow of small, ripped packets, red and blue and green and yellow, lay scattered around them.

Those were condom packets, she realized with sudden alarm. She counted. Six empty condom packets. Six?

What did that mean?

As she lifted her chin, she thought she could hear someone breathing behind her. Not only that, but she could feel hot puffs of air on her back, just below her shoulder blade, and an unfamiliar weight, as if someone were lying there, his head in the middle of her back, breathing on her.

What in blazes…?

Uh-oh. Things were starting to come back to her. Bad things.

She was getting fragments, strange shards of memory. And her head hurt. She tried to concentrate. What did these bizarre thoughts mean? Something about the reception and some nutty woman telling her she really ought to have a fling. And then Baker and a key and an idiotic blonde in the bathroom, and she’d crept up the stairs and into a dark room…

But this couldn’t be Baker. Not the way her body felt all rubbed down, stoked up, worked out and trampled on, as if it had danced the tango to hell and back. More than once. She tried to move a few muscles. Yeow. Exactly what did they do?

She had these vague memories of her bed partner, of being upside down and on top of him, under him, on the floor, half on and half off the bed, of pretty much acting like a Flying Wallenda without a trapeze. That all had to be some erotic fantasy, right? People didn’t really do those things.

“Okay, you’re fine,” she whispered to herself. “Probably you had too much to drink and you fell into a stupor in some guy’s bed. Probably you were both too drunk to perform and nothing happened.”

Comforting, but hardly realistic given the aftershocks still humming through her nervous system. Not to mention all those empty condom packets.

“Well,” she continued, trying not to panic, “whatever you did, he did it, too. Whoever he is.”

Quietly, carefully, trying not to fall into hysteria, she eased herself back into the bed all the way, craning her neck so she could see who was back there, breathing on her. He rolled away from her, freeing her, and she saw dark hair, a beautifully sculpted torso, broad shoulders…She could just make out the side of his face, but a picture fell into her muddled brain with a clunk. A picture of her half sister standing at the altar, beaming up at a face just like this one.

“Oh, my god!” she screamed, bolting upright, clutching the pillow to her front. “I slept with the groom!”

“The groom? Who? Wha…?” He jumped awake all at once, sitting up stark naked, staring at her. “I’m not the groom. I swear. But who are you?”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Keeping an arm secure around her protective pillow, she lifted a weak hand to her brow, shoving back a wall of hair, wishing her head would stop pounding like that. The whole room seemed to be beating like a drum. Or was that just her heart? Why did it have to be so loud?

“Who are you? And why are you shouting?”

“I remember you now,” Lucie ventured slowly. Breathe in. Breathe out. It could be worse. She remembered him. He wasn’t the groom. He was handsome. He was nice. It could be a lot worse. If only he weren’t quite so naked. She bent down over the edge, grabbed a sheet, and flung it back up on the bed. “If you don’t mind, could you please, you know, cover up?”

His jaw clenched. But he took it. With a grim expression, he looped the fine linen over his lap. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you.” Still unwilling to look directly at him, Lucie compulsively rubbed her finger over the intricate carvings in the dark wood post beside her. “As I said, I remember you. You’re right—you’re not the groom. You’re the best man, Ian. You were supposed to have lip prints all over you from Feather. I was supposed to find Baker and have my one night of nookie. I think we got our wires crossed.”

“Huh?”

Losing it, Lucie bridged the gap between them, took him by the shoulders, and shook him. Hard. “What the hell were we thinking? How did this happen? And how did it happen six times?”

Wincing, Ian peeled her hands off his shoulders. “You just dropped your pillow.”

Her body flushed with hot color as she let loose with a particularly colorful curse word and smacked him with the full brunt of the stupid pillow. Then, with dignity, she reattached it to her front and stretched out her other hand behind her to find something more reliable. But there was nothing to find. The heavy coverlet was pooled on the floor, nowhere near her.

“Sit still,” he said darkly, leaning over her, spreading out his sheet to cover her, too. “There. That ought to do it.”

Delicately clasping it up to her neck, Lucie huddled on her side of the bed, not touching any of him.

“I just…I haven’t got a clue how we ended up together,” he said gingerly. But he extended a finger, gently lifting a tendril of her hair as he smiled encouragingly. “Do we know each other?”

“Well, actually, yes. After last night, I think it’s fair to say we know each other intimately.” She concentrated on bringing air into her lungs. Calmly. Slowly. No need to hyperventilate. Also no need for a mental slide show of the level of that intimacy. “But we did meet before that—you came to my table and you dragged me over to be in the family picture. Ring any bells?”

“Kind of,” he murmured slowly. “But how did we get from there…to here?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. Baker gave me a key. Room 302. I came right here.”

“But this is 203.”

“Isn’t that what I said? Oh. This is 203? Then he must be in 302. But why would his key work in your door?” She shook her head, grabbing her hair in one hand and twisting it into a knot just to get it out of her way. “I don’t understand.”

“The hair. I remember you now. Lucie, the sneezy redhead.” He rammed a hand into his forehead. “Steffi’s sister. Oh, lord. What have we done?”

That was the ten-million-dollar question, wasn’t it?




3


IAN’S HEAD FELT like a bongo drum. He knew he had a massive hangover, but that wasn’t the half of it.

He had just slept with Lucie Webster. And he was in big trouble.

For one thing, she was not at all his type. Sure, they’d hit it off big-time in the sack. But he could tell just by looking she was too bright, too interesting, too challenging, way too six-kids-and-a-house-in-the-suburbs. One glance at her and he saw his future stretching before him, full of lace curtains and hand-thrown pots, salt-and-pepper-shaker collections, New York Times crossword puzzles, and schmaltzy black-and-white movies on video. And that was a best-case scenario. Yechhhh.

She was also not the kind of woman who was satisfied with a one-night stand, which was exactly why she wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted. She had trust and respect and commitment written all over her.

As well as some bodacious curves. Ian, keep your mind on trust, respect and commitment—all the things you avoid with a vengeance.

Even worse than that, she came straight from the same grasping, social-climbing family as the petulant princess who’d just shackled his poor brother. For all he knew, this was the way Steffi got her foot in Kyle’s door. And the last thing he needed was to step into the same quicksand that was trapping Kyle.

Ian tried to sort out how to get out of this mess with even a scrap of self-respect, but every time he tried to think, he kept getting this loud echo inside his brain. Boom, boom, boom. He vaguely remembered a bottle of Scotch with his name on it. That would explain the rock band in his head.

“Listen, can you call down to room service and get some coffee up here?” he asked in a very soft voice, trying to avoid the damn echo. It didn’t work.

“No, I cannot call room service,” the woman in his bed yelled. Well, maybe she didn’t really yell. Maybe it only seemed like yelling. “If I call room service, they will know I’m here, won’t they? I don’t want anyone to know I’m here, and especially not some nice, wide-eyed kid who’s going to roll his cart in here and then run back to Room Service Central to tell everyone that he saw you and me and six empty condom packages. Six!”

He was sorry he’d asked. “We could clean up the floor before he got here. Did you say six?” He didn’t mean to smile. Lord knew, this was nothing to smile about. “Six, huh?”

“I’m glad that news cheers one of us up.”

“I’m sorry,” he offered before he knew what he was saying. He was sorry. It’s just that apologizing wasn’t necessarily the tactic he would’ve chosen if he’d had his wits about him. “Lucie, I don’t know what to say. I wish I remembered more about what happened or what we did…”

But he did remember. All of a sudden, the memories came flooding back with startling detail. Good God.

His gaze rocketed over to her, skidded off, and landed somewhere on the foot of the bed. Could he really have…? Could she really have…? She sure didn’t seem like the type. He wasn’t sure he was the type. Good God. He actually felt like blushing. He hadn’t blushed since he was twelve.

And right now, he had to be out of that bed and more than a few inches away from Lucie Webster. He was starting to sweat from the flashbacks.

“Okay, listen.” He jumped out from under the sheet and deftly whipped the heavy side curtain from the bed around his flanks as he turned. “Probably we need to talk about this, but I think maybe a shower is what I need. Unless…” He gave her a short glance. “You first?”

“I am not going to get naked in your shower,” she returned hotly, as if his shower was any more intimate than what they’d already done. As if anything in the universe was more intimate than what they’d already done.

The shower. Oh, hell. Ian leaned his head against the hard wood of the bedpost. The shower was where they’d ended up during round six of their no-holds-barred wrestling match, unless he was very much mistaken. The kaleidoscope of pictures unfolding in his brain told him he was not mistaken.

There they all were, in blinding clarity. One was on the bed with her on top; two was half-off the bed with him behind; three was on the floor, sort of a continuation of two after they rested for a minute; four was back on the bed but he was on top, and five was on the desk.

And six…up against the wall of the shower, with the water on full blast.

He squeezed his eyes closed but the pictures remained. His only hope of sanity was that Lucie didn’t remember.

“All right,” he said darkly, “then why don’t you get dressed while I take a shower?” He’d just have to keep his eyes shut, point the other way and make the water really cold. Really cold.

“Why don’t I leave? Like, immediately.” Lucie scooted out the side of the bed in a wave of cream-colored linen wrapped toga-style. “I’ll just get my clothes…” She kicked at the pile of tartans on the floor, frowning as she held up her skirt in one hand. “It’s all ripped. All down the side. I guess I was in a…hurry.” Looking even more dazed than before, she took a deep breath. “No buttons on my blouse, either. This is great. This is just great. I suppose I could tie the blouse on, but then what do I do below the waist? You don’t have about ten safety pins, do you?”

“No.” Was she crazy or was he? Safety pins?

“Great,” she repeated, even crankier this time. “I have no clothes, not a stitch, and I’m stuck in a hotel room with Mr. Sleeps-With-Anything-That-Moves of Greater Chicagoland—”

“That’s hardly fair,” he put in, although it was difficult to argue while wearing half a bed curtain, while his mind and body still rocked with erotic aftershocks. “You don’t know who I sleep with.”

He stretched out a toe, trying to snag the bedspread. He also worked on kicking the empty condom wrappers under the bed, since they seemed to be bothering Lucie so much.

“I don’t?” she asked angrily. “Aside from me, who happens to be a virtual stranger, you mean?”

She was busy wiggling into her panties while hanging onto her sheet, and the suggestive motions didn’t do his temperature any good. Much better idea for him to play soccer with condom packages and ignore her.

“And why would I think you sleep around?” she went on. “Hmm…I wonder.”

He held himself very still, hoping she wasn’t going to mention anything about the floor or the shower or the energetic tango half-off the bed. God, that one was magnificent. Kinky, but magnificent.

“Maybe,” she continued, “because I know your first choice of bedpartners last night was a bubble-headed bimbo with fake boobs. Men who lust after Feathers do not get high marks in the taste department in my book.”

Oh, Feather. He’d forgotten about her. “You were hardly expecting to sleep solo yourself, sister,” he shot back. Meanwhile, he’d managed to maneuver the brocade coverlet over far enough to grab it and wrap up a toga of his own. “Besides, you’re the one who crawled in with me, not vice versa.”

“You’re right, I did not intend to sleep solo,” she said smartly. “And you’re also right that I did crawl in with you. But that was a mistake. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I ended up in the wrong room.”

“Uh-huh. Convenient. Maybe you just picked the first door at the top of the stairs.”

“For your information, I planned things rather carefully,” she insisted. “Yesterday was my birthday and I was trying to arrange a very simple little fling. But did I pick some stud ten years younger than me? No! A stranger? No! I chose a decent, normal guy with an IQ well above four. Not Feather McStupid!”

“Okay, that’s not funny.” But he started to laugh anyway. He couldn’t help it. His senses were overloading and he had to break the tension somehow. Feather McStupid? It wasn’t that clever; it just hit him the right way.

“So happy to keep you entertained.”

He shrugged. “I said I was sorry.”

“Yeah, about four times now, like I really believe any of them.” Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t want to ask you for any favors, but do you have any clothes you could lend me? I have a suitcase down in my car, but I can’t get down there dressed like this.” Her eyes were a luminous, misty green as she gazed at him, all woebegone and miserable. “I just really need to be out of here and not talking about this anymore. This whole you-and-me-last-night thing is just too much for me.”





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