Something else I don’t understand? Why she leans in and brushes a kiss over my forehead. An off-limits, naked body part skims my arm and I glance down.
No.
Erase.
Hana isn’t hookup or spank bank material. She’s younger than me, she’s my best friend’s little sister, and honestly she drives me nuts with her organic, do-gooding, naive approach to life. I’m a negotiator.
“How do you feel?” Concern slowly replaces happiness on Hana’s face. Just imagine the sun ducking behind a cloud.
Heavy drinking always hurts, which is the whole point of doing it. “My head is pounding, my mouth is drier than the Sahara, and I have a bizarre urge to find the nearest twenty-four-hour diner and order obscene quantities of waffles and fried eggs.”
Her brows draw together. She has a new eyebrow piercing, a delicate gold hoop that winks in the morning sunlight. It’s cheerful, which is typical Hana. “I meant about last night. Us.”
Right. Somehow we’ve ended up in bed together, naked and spooning. Tread carefully. If I’m lucky—and unfortunately I believe in opportunities, not luck—then we’ve just had a harmless sleepover because there was nowhere else in my fifteen-bedroom mansion for her to crash. Or clothes to wear.
“What exactly happened last night?”
The furrow between her brows achieves Grand Canyon-like depths. “You don’t remember?”
Do I?
I flop back on my pillow. I’m sure my party planner picked some suitably exotic theme for last night’s sex party, but I can’t remember what I approved. I do recall a circus tent (what the fuck?), a clown (again—WTF?), someone’s hands holding mine and mine holding hers, and then some disconnected flashes of lips, boobs, a great ass, and coming like there was no tomorrow. I spend an extra six seconds with that last memory because as sex memories go, it’s a good one and today is shaping up to suck.
She huffs out a breath. “Do you remember riding the Ferris wheel with me?”
“No.”
More loud exhalations. I’m pretty sure that not only is her memory working perfectly but she’s about to hold each and every one of those memories against me.
“So you don’t remember getting stuck at the top? Or what I promised if we got down?”
“No.”
Christ, I hope we didn’t have public sex under the big top. If we did that, the pictures will surface shortly on the gossip sites because that’s how my life has gone lately. It won’t matter that there’s a strict no-pictures-and-no-phones rule at all my parties or that I hire security to enforce that policy—someone will have bent the rules. That beeping sound is the Karma Bus backing up over me.
“Or how you swept me off my feet when we were back on solid ground?”
From the slightly dreamy look on Hana’s face, sweeping is 100 percent euphemism and the actual activity involved orgasms. Jax is going to kill me. This is his sister. His sweet, innocent little sister.
I need to kill me.
“Can you please put on some clothes?” I grab the sheet and tuck it around myself like a six-hundred-thread-count toga. We haven’t even touched on the wedding ring she’s sporting because I’m not ready for that conversation. I would have said I don’t sleep with married ladies, but clearly last night was a series of truly abominable firsts for me. I may have just hit the bottomest bottom of the moral abyss otherwise known as my soul.
Her gaze catches on my waist and dips downward. Is she checking me out? And what the hell? This Hana seems remarkably different from the one I’ve known for years. More self-possessed, less tongue-tied and blushing—although just as wholesome.
She chews on her bottom lip. “No.”
That’s also different. I don’t recall Hana being utterly unreasonable, despite her adamant dislike of all things corporate and that bizarre love of organic farming. This makes her refusal to do as I’ve asked unexpected. Frankly, she’s hero-worshipped me from her tween years onward and my few suggestions have been solid gold commands in the Hana-verse. Since it was cute and useful, I’d taken shameless advantage to keep her safe. What the hell happened to her?
She rolls her eyes. “When did you turn into a prude?”
“I’m not a prude.” Normally when someone accuses me of holding back sexually, I do something particularly, publicly dirty like fuck on a San Francisco cable car or visit one of the city’s many sex clubs. Since this is neither a childhood game of one-upsmanship nor the moment to explain just how dirty I am, I practice self-restraint.
Okay. I try to.
I can practically hear the board of Galaxtix laughing their collective asses off.
Hana looks right at me. “We had sex.”
What’s left of my conscience goes supernova.
She can’t be serious.
Fucking hell.
I mean, I’m naked, I’m in bed, and I was looking to hook up in the most inappropriate way possible, but I guess I’d been holding out hope that I still had some secret, well-hidden shred of decency and I’d had amazing, mind-blowing sex with someone else before my drunk ass passed out next to a naked Hana. Her expression tenses, her cheeks flushing. Unless she’s really changed, that pretty pink color is a dead giveaway that she’s about to lose it. She doesn’t get mad often, but when she does, it’s best to not be in the way.
“I shouldn’t have done—that.” I wave the hand that isn’t clutching the sheet to my abs like I’m a vestal virgin. A nice person would apologize and provide aftercare for any dirty things I’d done to her last night. What are the chances that we had sweet, innocent sex and I haven’t scarred her for life?
Low.
“You’re unbelievable.” She hops off the bed, bare knees bumping against the edge of the mattress. Jesus Christ, why is she still naked in my bedroom?
“I get that a lot.” I wink at her reflexively, the words shooting out of my mouth before I remember that this is Hana and not some casual hookup. I can’t flirt with her. She’s off-limits.
“Unbelievable,” she repeats and saunters across the room. Slowly. Still naked. Still clearly ready to rip my balls off and feed them to me for breakfast.
“So about last night—”
She turns and shoots a look at me. Usually, Hana is all smiles and laughter. She’s a California girl through and through, sunny and warm and level-headed. I’d have said she’s my honorary little sister except that would put last night’s bedroom activities squarely in the realm of Victorian pornography and that’s an even harder no for me.
“Show and tell,” she announces. “Show.”