One and Only(9)

Utterly, totally, embarrassingly hung over.

It had happened once before, during orientation week at university. She’d awakened with a mouth full of cotton. Her head had felt like it was in the middle of a demolition zone. Oh, the shame of it. She might as well have walked around the quad that next day wearing a giant sandwich board that said, “Hi. I lost control. I made a fool of myself. Other people had to take care of me.”

Ever since their dad died, her brother Noah had taken care of her. Their mom had checked out, lost in her own grief and barely able to function, and Noah had stepped in to provide for them, both financially and emotionally. She’d tried to make it easy for him. To be good and avoid trouble. What would he have thought of her then?

What would he think of her now?

At least she wasn’t in a strange bed. It wasn’t hers, but, as she opened her eyes a tiny bit, wincing against the brightness in the room, she recognized the pale green walls and crown moldings as Elise’s work. She was in Jay’s guest room. She and the girls occasionally crashed here when they were out late downtown.

Well, there was nothing to do but get on with things. The bachelorette party was Saturday and she was going to Comicon Sunday, so that left two days in which to finish her Xena costume and, hopefully, to make some progress on the book before she pretty much had to take a deep breath and let the wedding tsunami sweep her away. But it would depend on what Elise expected on an ongoing basis in terms of babysitting.

God, she was so hot. Why was it so hot in here? She flung the covers off.

Wait.

There was one thing Jane hadn’t noticed immediately when she woke up.

And that would be the arm slung across her body.

The very male, muscle-bound arm.

She closed her eyes against that arm like it was blinding sunlight. Oh dear God. Had she slept with Cameron MacKinnon?

She couldn’t remember. Her brain, despite its pain, did a quick catalog of all the times he had been surprisingly chivalrous: offering to help her out of the Corvette, insisting she order first at the steakhouse, steadying her on the bar stool last night. That guy wouldn’t take advantage of her. But the gentlemanly, almost old-fashioned way he behaved was so at odds with the ludicrous, arrogant things that came out of his mouth. He was a mass of contradictions.

A mass of contradictions she prayed to God she hadn’t slept with. The image of Cameron licking the ice cream spoon at the steakhouse popped into her mind. Heck, if she was going to break her self-imposed five-year dry spell, it would be nice to be able to remember something about it. She opened her eyes and tried to crane her neck so she could see him without moving too much and disturbing him. The arm was bare, but was the rest of him?

Yes, yes he was.

And he was wide awake.

He was covered in tattoos. She had known he would be. A sleeve of them ran down one arm—a forest of sorts, trees bleeding into more trees, interspersed with the occasional flower. His chest was covered with an image of an angel in a flowing white gown that was so hauntingly beautiful—it looked like a Renaissance painting—it made her gasp. No co-opted tribal bullshit on this guy.

And muscles. Everywhere muscles. He was a soldier, sure, but still, how was that possible? How did he just walk around with so much contained power as if it were no big deal?

He shot her a lazy grin. God, his jawline—you could cut glass with that jaw.

Maybe she could use it to slit her wrists.

Then that maddening, slow drawl: “Good morning, Jane. Sleep well?”





It wasn’t nice to laugh at people when they were panicking. Cam knew that in his mind. But it was damn near impossible not to laugh in this specific instance. Witnessing Jane regain consciousness and then really regain consciousness had been hilarious. He’d been lying there, listening to her breathe, willing his morning wood to go away. That was probably a lost cause, though. She was so soft and pliant—when she was asleep.

He’d been a jerk to agree when she insisted he share the bed. He’d been fully prepared to decamp to Jay’s sofa last night, but when she’d grabbed his hand and pulled him down with her, then snuggled up against him and fallen promptly asleep…well, no one was that virtuous. And to his great surprise, when she was asleep, prickly Jane was a snuggler. He wasn’t complaining. Well, he was in the sense that his plan had been to wake up this morning cuddling with a woman with whom he’d had scorching sex the night before. But still, the human contact was nice. He’d missed it. And sleepy, snuggly Jane—as opposed to awake, talking Jane—was actually kind of pleasant.

But sleepy, snuggly Jane was gone. She sat bolt upright. “Please tell me we didn’t…” She was clutching the sheet over her chest, which wasn’t necessary because although he’d gotten her out of her jeans and blazer—they’d just seemed way too uncomfortable to sleep in—he hadn’t fully undressed her. He wasn’t that much of a jerk, and the idea that she might think he was pained him a little. He had even averted his eyes when he was pulling her jeans off.

Her eyes roamed his chest. Right. Women always went crazy for his tattoos. He readied himself to trot out the half-true version of what they meant that he deployed in these sorts of situations, but she didn’t ask. She met his gaze again and did that single-eyebrow-lifting thing that was so maddening. “Answer me. Did we sleep together?”

“Depends what you mean by ‘sleep,’” he countered, trying to get her to stop looking at him like she was Mary Poppins waiting for him to clean his room.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, and she fell back onto the bed. She swallowed hard, the way people do when they’re trying not to cry.

“Hey, hey, I’m sorry. I was only teasing,” he rushed to assure her. “Nothing happened.”

“Really?”

“Jesus Christ, Jane, give me a little credit.” What kind of man did she think he was? But of course the answer to that question wasn’t very flattering, was it, given what she had seen of him yesterday?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think we had…done anything, but…” She looked around the room, and her eyes landed on her blazer, which he’d draped over a chair in the corner.

“You were pretty drunk,” he said, and she massaged her temples and nodded her agreement. “I was going to put you in a cab, but it…didn’t seem wise. So I suggested you sleep here. You agreed. But then you…”

“Then I what?”

“I was going to sleep on the couch, but you wouldn’t let me. You kind of…tackled me, actually.”

She nodded. “Right.”

He cocked his head. He had been prepared for more arguing, to have to defend himself a lot more vigorously.

“I can be very adamant when I have my mind set on something,” she said. “And I’m sure alcohol only intensifies it. I’m sorry.”

Well, knock him over with a feather. “Hey, it’s okay.” He pushed the covers off, intending to get up and get dressed, but she shrieked and clasped her hands over her eyes. “I hate to disappoint you, but I’m wearing boxers.”

She spread her fingers enough that she could peek through them, and once she’d confirmed that he was, in fact, not naked, she let them fall. Not the usual reaction, to say the least.

“How do you feel?” he asked, walking around to her bedside table, where he’d left a glass of water and a bottle of Advil. “I made you drink as much water as I could last night, but you should probably have some more.” He handed her the glass.

She tipped her head back and drank. She was wearing a loose, low-cut, silky T-shirt, and he was a human male who had only recently woken up. Predictable things happened. But, thankfully, she didn’t see. He cleared his throat. “Then maybe some coffee when you’re done with that?”

She moaned when he said “coffee,” which wasn’t helping matters south of the equator. In addition to sleepy, snuggly Jane, there was something to be said for this version with the messed-up hair and the low, throaty moan.

He threw on a pair of jeans. He needed to get out of here. “Let’s get some food into you, too. I’ll see what I can throw together.”

“Is Jay home?” she whispered. “Oh my God, is Elise here?” She fumbled for her phone on the nightstand and scrolled through her texts. “Oh, no, the girls are doing more teapots this morning.” She sighed in relief.

“Doing more teapots? What does that mean?”

“I have no idea.”





When Jane made her way into the kitchen ten minutes later, she felt considerably less like she wanted to die. She’d brushed her hair, swished with some of Jay’s mouthwash, and put herself together as best as she could. She was back in control.

“Crap.”

Cameron turned from where he was standing over the stove, poised with a spatula in his hand. “Everything okay?”

Had she said that out loud? So much for back in control. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

It was just that, confronted with Cameron MacKinnon, with his bare feet poking out of faded jeans and his mass of tattoos only partially concealed by a white tank top, standing at a stove cooking, whatever control she thought she’d gained vanished like a sugar cube melting into a cup of—