After the Christmas Party(118)

Christmas.

It was the blasted holiday that wreaked havoc in her life. Always had. Always would. She really should go to some remote location every December and not come home until well after New Year. If only.

Riley had the nerve to look offended. “You don’t remember last night? Our coming here? What we did after we got here?”

“If I remembered, would I be asking?” Really, she’d thought him smarter than that. Or maybe she was just cranky because a thousand things were running through her mind and not one of them good. “Did we have sex?” she demanded, while her throat still worked because, seriously, the tissue threatened to swell shut any moment.

From where Riley lay next to her, he stared, not saying anything at first, just watching, making her wish she could pull the covers over her head, making her wish her stomach didn’t churn.

“I can assure you—” confidence and perhaps annoyance oozed from his words “—that had we had sex, you’d not only remember, you’d have woken up with a smile on your face and not that look of horror.”

Face aflame, relief flooded her, as did curiosity because sex up to that point in her life hadn’t been that memorable. There had just been Chase but, still, she had been practically engaged to the man. Sadly, she had never woken up with a smile on her face. Quite the opposite. So maybe Riley thought she’d remember if they’d had sex, but maybe she wouldn’t have remembered. Maybe she just hadn’t been impressed and had blocked the experience from her mind.

“You’re saying we didn’t, um, you know?”

Cool amusement at her lack of ability to say the actual words shone in his eyes. “We didn’t have sexual intercourse last night, if that’s what you are attempting to ask.”

No sexual intercourse. His tone mocked her question but, come on, they were in bed and she was only in her skivvies. Which meant that they had done something, right? The way he was looking at her said they’d done something. But what?

Letting her gaze run over his face, his lips, the strong line of his jaw, his throat, his bare shoulders, his chest, his…She gulped. Had she touched him? Kissed him? Run her fingers over those broad shoulders? Those washboard abs? Had she seen him naked? Face afire, she glanced back up, met his gaze, and winced. He so knew what she was thinking and he liked it.

An inferno burned her cheeks.

“Riley, I…” She pulled the covers even tighter around her, holding on in case the material got a sudden urge to slip below her neck and put her chest and abs on display for his inspection. No washboard anywhere in sight at her midsection. More like a laundry basket. Taking a deep breath, she tried to pull her thoughts together and away from their bodies. “I don’t do this.”

“This?” His face was unreadable, his eyes dark. She didn’t like the look and found herself wishing things were different. That she was different. That she could have woken up in bed with him and not freaked out but reveled in a night full of passion. That she really had woken up with a smile. That she could have been good enough that he could have woken up with a smile. That instead of lashing out at him with accusatory questions she could have teased him awake with kisses and had a morning full of passion.

A morning she’d remember always.

A morning he’d always remember.

A morning that would leave them both exhausted and smiling.

But that wasn’t her. She was a woman who disliked Christmas, disliked men, was terrible at sex, and although she’d come to Pensacola to forget her past, she could only handle confronting one hang-up at a time. She seriously had her work cut out for her even with that.

“What is it that you don’t do?” Riley prompted when she failed to elaborate.

Everything. She sighed, took a deep breath and went for broke.

“Wake up in bed with a man and not remember how I got here and what we did while here.” She grimaced. She sounded horrible. Waking up next to him was horrible. He probably thought she was horrible—in bed and out of it. “I don’t do that. Ever.”

“I just told you, we didn’t do anything, not really. We ended up here because I drove you home from the Christmas party and you invited me in. And, although there’s another bedroom, there is no bed.”

Which meant he must have at least considered sleeping elsewhere.

“I wasn’t doing the floor,” he said matter-of-factly, “and I’m too tall to comfortably sleep on your girly sofa.”

She did have a girly sofa. A plush Victorian piece that she loved because it had been the first piece of furniture she’d ever bought for herself, but it really wasn’t that comfy. Not that comfort mattered so much, because she never had company or spent much time there.