Mari
The moment I woke up after my best friend’s raucous bachelorette party in Las Vegas, I realized two things in quick succession:
- I was spooning with a man who was very, very naked.
- And I had no idea who he was.
To my horror, the man had his arm slung across me, and it weighed at least a thousand pounds, I was sure. My bladder yelled profanities at me as I pushed at the ridiculously heavy arm trapping me against the bed.
Finally, he turned over, taking his arm with him. I shuffled to the bathroom and didn’t feel the panic hit me until after I’d peed and saw the ring on my left hand.
Ring. Left hand. I didn’t wear a ring there anymore since I’d caught my ex-fiancé cheating on me. I’d thrown the ring David had bought me in his face.
This ring wasn’t that diamond David had gotten me. I peered more closely at it. It was—plastic? Was it from aring pop?
Did I call the police? No, that was stupid.911, I got married last night to a stranger.Yeah, that’d go over well. I was sure the Vegas police would just laugh and tell us to get a lawyer.
I heard movement in the room. I froze. Glancing in the mirror, I saw a wild-eyed woman with bedhead, smeared lipstick, raccoon eyes from melted mascara, and a whole bunch of hickeys across my collarbone.
I very rarely swore, but at that moment I wanted to swear until I was blue in the face.
What had I done last night? And who was in my bed with me?
I wasn’t that kind of girl—you know, the wild girl. The girl who had one-night stands in Vegas. The girl who threw caution to the wind.
I’d been about to get married to a man who drove a Prius and was an accountant. I always got the perfect attendance certificate in elementary school. I’d been one of the valedictorians at my high school; I’d gotten an A-oncebecause my teacher had dared to think my essay on fashion inThe Great Gatsbywas “insipid, at best.” (She’d been wrong, by the way.)
I was Marigold Wright, and I was a good girl.
I prided myself on my good girl-ness. Where my sisters were either oddballs or outright deviants (at least in my mind), I never crossed lines. I liked lines. Lines were comforting. They existed for a reason; otherwise the world would be in utter chaos.
My one real indulgence in life was my makeup obsession. My collection was scattered across the bathroom counter—an excessive amount of products for one person on a brief trip—and strangely enough, having this man see it all seemed like a violation of my privacy. Even more than being in bed with me and him being naked. I began to put my makeup away, knowing in my haste I’d have to go through it and reorganize it when I got home.
“Are you done in there?” a growling male voice said through the bathroom door. “I’m fuckin’ dying out here.” An accent tinged his speech, but I was too tired to try to place it.
I tossed the last products into my makeup bag and scrubbed at my face. Realizing it didn’t matter, I opened the door with a frigid expression.
The man—who wore only a sheet draped around his hips—smiled down at me. No, he didn’t smile; he smirked. I’d never been the recipient of a true smirk before, but this man clearly had perfected the look.
He was tall, so tall I had to tilt my head back. He had to be at least six-five; I was five-ten, so it was rare that men were tall enough that I felt short in comparison. But what arrested me most was how dark his eyes were. Oh, and the fact that he was jacked. Muscles for days, his chest covered in dark hair that matched the beard shadowing his cheeks and jaw.
“Are you done or can I take a piss now?” he said.
I blushed to the roots of my hair. Being a redhead, my blushes tended to be bright and extremely obvious, and this man in front of me seemed very amused with my red cheeks. I wanted to ask him if he remembered what had happened last night, but it was as if the words had dried up in my throat.
Or maybe it was because I had a large male glaring down at me because I wouldn’t let him pee.
“Be my guest,” I said, ducking under his arm. I tried to look as prim as I could, but it was difficult when I looked like a total wreck and didn’t even know this man’s name.
He shut the door with an ironic bow, giving me some time to collect my thoughts. Actually, I didn’t need to collect my thoughts: I needed torun.But as I got dressed and began to toss things into my suitcase, I realized he was the one who needed to leave. This wasmyroom.
I stopped packing when memories started to surface, like images from a movie. I remembered stumbling down the Las Vegas strip, and I could remember this man’s voice beside me. Then the bachelorette party where the bride-to-be, Jenna, kept shoving tequila shots in front of me. Or had that happened before we’d stumbled down the strip?
Worst of all, I remembered the touch of a man—this man—who made heat lick through my veins.
But he wasn’t just any man. He had a name. I remembered that now, because we’d met the day prior to the bachelorette party.
Liam. His name was Liam, but his last name eluded me at the moment. He’d sat next to me at the rehearsal dinner, and then at the hotel pool after that—
Oh God, had I slept with him last night? Based on the hickeys, it certainly seemed plausible. But I couldn’t remember, and that made my stomach curdle.
I needed a bottle of water, ibuprofen, and some explanations. I scrambled around in my suitcase, only to find a gift bag from the bachelorette party the night before. Right as I pulled out a pink dildo that saidPleasure foryourpinkon the base, Liam emerged from the bathroom.
“I’m flattered, love, but pink isn’t really my color,” he said over my shoulder. “Besides the fact that I’m always the one who does the penetrating,” he added with a wry chuckle.
I tried to stuff the dildo back into the bag, but I only proceeded to empty the rest of its contents, which included: a handful of condoms—ribbed for her pleasure, so obviously there was a theme here; a butt plug with a diamond handle; and a bullet vibe that started buzzing way too enthusiastically for my pounding head.
I could’ve cheerfully strangled Jenna for giving us these party favors last night. Whatever happened to a piece of jewelry or a gift certificate from Starbucks? Something benign, something that didn’t involve things that went up your butt. Although anything could become a butt plug if you really tried, I reasoned.
“Oh my God,” I groaned. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening—”
I turned to face Liam, only to see that he was naked.
