First Chapter: Shenanigans
Charli
It’s a beeping alarm that pierces through my hangover to wake me up.
At first, I fight it. I’m lying on my back in a plush bed that’s way too comfortable to be my own. This isn’t necessarily a problem. I’m a professional hockey player, and we spend a lot of nights in hotels.
Not nice hotels, though. It’s the silky, high-thread-count sheets that provide the first clue that something is very wrong.
Also, I’m topless. And I have a hangover headache. But those two things happen occasionally, and neither one is too worrisome.
The alarm, though. It isn’t mine, and it isn’t my road-trip roommate Samantha’s. Whose room is this?
I’d open my eyes to check, but it’s awfully bright, and I’m so sleepy. I drift off for another moment.
Eventually, though, another mechanical beep pulls me back to the surface. This noise is familiar. It’s the sound that Neil—Cornelius Harmon Drake III—makes when he’s testing his blood sugar.
Wait. I’m in a bed with Neil Drake?
And I’m topless, too?
Shit.
My eyes spring open. The first thing I see is… the ceiling. It’s really far away and very decorative. There’s a line of goddamn gold leaf running around the border of the room. It’s further confirmation that Drake is in this bed with me. He’s the richest person I’ll ever meet.
My head throbs in protest, and my mouth is dry. Hello, hangover.
“What the fuck happened here last night?” Drake mumbles from a few feet away. “Why am I not wearing my pants?”
“I am!” This comes out all raspy, as if I smoked a pack of cigarettes. I’m not a smoker, though. Then again, all bets are off this morning.
“You’re wearing my pants?” Drake asks.
“No,” I clarify, relieved to discover that my bottom half isn’t as naked as the top half. “If we’re taking inventory, I’d like to report that I’m wearing underwear and pantyhose. And also…” What is that thing near my foot? With my toe, I drag it upward until I can reach it. I pull one high-heeled shoe out from under the bedclothes.
We both snort at the same time. Apparently, I got in bed wearing my hose and at least one shoe. No shirt, though, which is going to be awkward in a moment when I get up.
Still, it’s a relief. We got wasted in Vegas, but at least we didn’t get wasted and screw each other. So whatever damage control we’re doing right now, it can’t be that bad.
I finally get up the courage to look over at Neil Drake, just about the same time he gets the courage to look at me. His hazel eyes widen. Mine do too.
He looks like he’s been to war. He’s still wearing his bowtie, but the tuxedo shirt underneath is open and missing half its buttons. His thick hair is all askew, like sex hair, even though I’ve established that no sex happened.
Well, no banging happened. But those missing buttons are ringing some bells with me. I think maybe I—
“Oh shit,” I whisper. I’m pretty sure I ripped those buttons off myself. Although I hadn’t been able to get that bowtie off him.
“What the hell happened here last night?” he asks in a harsh whisper. His expression is so confused.
“Um…” Think, Charli. “We did some drinking after the awards ceremony. And after your fight with Iris.”
“My fight with Iris,” he echoes. His eyes squeeze closed with remorse.
The fight had been pretty ugly. Lots of shouting. I’d been eavesdropping from the living room, silently cheering Neil on whenever he landed a verbal blow.
Not that it’s any of my business, but I can’t stand his on-again-off-again girlfriend. They’ve been off for a while, but I think she came to Vegas to try to change that.
It hadn’t worked. When she’d finally screeched her goodbyes and had stormed out of this hotel suite, I’d smiled at the sight of her skinny ass as it departed.
“You got pretty drunk after that,” I say to my tousle-haired companion. “Is your, um, blood sugar okay?”
Neil is diabetic. Before him, I’d never met anyone who has to monitor his own body chemistry to remain alive.
It almost makes him seem less like a carefree rich dude and more like a real person.
Almost. But not quite.
“I need to eat,” he says. “Although we’re supposed to be downstairs in, like, seventeen minutes.”
“Seventeen?” I screech.
“Yeah, I like to sleep as late as I can.”
Ugh. I sit up so fast that I feel nauseated.
Also, I’m still topless. Neil is now staring at my breasts.
“Oops.” I grab them in two hands.
“Wow,” he says, his eyes glazing over lustfully.
“Come on, now. You’ve seen tits before.” I can play this off as a joke, right? We’ll be laughing about this in a week. Remember that time you flashed me your tits before we almost missed the team jet?
But it’s too soon.
“Charli,” he croaks, his eyes still glued to my hands cupping my breasts.
“What?”
“I’ve seen those tits before. They look super familiar. Because we fooled around last night.” He scrubs a hand over his face, somehow without breaking the stare-off he’s having with my tits. “Hot damn.”
“Whoa whoa whoa. First of all, tits are tits.” This is a lie. As someone who’s also fond of tits, I’m oversimplifying things. But now is not the moment for brutal honesty. “Besides, I don’t remember it like that,” I say carefully. “Maybe your memory could also fuck off right about now.”
“That might be tricky. It might be hard to forget playing with those. They’re pretty spectacular.”
I grab the sheet and yank it up to cover me. “Hey! Is mind bleach a thing? Because I think you need some.”
He grins suddenly. “My head is killing me right now. Like someone put an ax through it. But this is going to be so funny later, isn’t it? I think I drooled all over your chest last night like a Saint Bernard.”
“Stop! This isn’t funny! What about Iris?” Honestly, Iris can die slowly in a pit of Las Vegas quicksand. (Is that a thing? It should be.) But if Neil feels guilty, then maybe he’ll put our drunken encounter out of his stupidly handsome head.
Instead, he shrugs. “I told her we’re never getting back together, right? That’s why you and I got drunk. God, never sleep in a bowtie, though.” He reaches up and unclips it.
I blink. “You wear a clip-on tie? You? With your Tom Ford tux?”
“The tux is Armani.” He drops the tie onto the crisp white comforter. “The clip-on is something I bought just to irritate my uncle. But it’s awfully handy. Saves time.”
I just stare at the thing for a moment, because I’m having a bit of a flashback to last night. I’d been tugging on that bowtie to try to get it off him. Then I’d gotten frustrated and yanked the two halves of his shirt apart.
Then? I’d leaned down and licked his sixpack…
Holy, holy crap. I licked Neil Drake. And I liked it.
“You look like you just saw the devil.” He snickers. “We were obviously in a weird, self-destructive mood. I never get drunk. And you never—” He stops talking suddenly. His mouth falls open in shock.
“I never what?” There’s a lot of ways that sentence could end, and none of them are good. I’ve always been careful to never let on that Neil is the most attractive man I’ve ever met. I’ve never torn his shirt off, either. Or shown him my breasts.
His face is seriously confused. “Charli… you told me before that you don’t fool around with men.”
Oh. That’s mostly true, especially lately. But really? That’s what he finds so shocking here?
“But last night you… and I…” He swallows hard. “We were going to…” Then he lifts up the covers and looks down at his body.
His naked body. I can’t see it right this second, but I saw it last night.
“I’m not wearing pants,” he says again. “We were going to—” He’s like a stuck record now.
“Okay, look.” I clap my hands. “Time is wasting. Can we just get out of here, and worry about this later? Can I have the shower?”
“S-sure,” he stammers. He’s still looking at his dick, as if checking to see if it’s still there.
“Close your eyes, please,” I say primly.
Shockingly, he obeys me. He flops back onto the pillow and squeezes his eyes shut.
I dart out of bed and make a run for the bathroom.