Jill Monroe - Naked Thrill

Beeaaatttt.

Her breath hitched and his eyes narrowed at her gasp.

“Do I frighten you, Hayden? Say the word and I’m out of here.”

She was all kinds of afraid of how he made her feel. But no, that wasn’t what he’d asked. She shook her head.

“Then give me your hand.”

Her hand balled up into a fist for a moment, then she lifted her arm. He clasped her fingers in his grip, strong and sure. His head lowered a fraction, as if he was going to kiss her. Hayden’s lips parted in anticipation, and the slow cadence of her heart flipped, now ratcheting up in speed. She spotted want and need in his gaze—and regret. He stopped.

Disappointment razored through her. He was going to give her space.

“Coffee,” she told him. “Everything’s better after coffee.” Tony didn’t drop her hand, and instead walked beside her toward the table where she’d stashed the breakfast from Betty. “Oh, I almost forgot. Apparently we lost a fight with a skunk last night.”

“That explains the burned clothes and bottles of apple cider vinegar.” Tony released her hand to rummage through the bag of clothes.

“I’ll unload our breakfast while you change. In the bathroom.” It was an act of self-preservation. She couldn’t handle Tony dressing in front of her after that near kiss.

“Yes, explains the clothes...but not the hot tub,” he told her as he shut the door, his voice low and setting off a chain reaction of awareness in every part of her body.

Nope, it did not explain the hot tub. Nor that path of towels to the platform bed. Hayden felt her face heat for about the hundredth time. Her skin was probably growing all blotchy. She never handled embarrassment well.

Hayden opened the wicker basket Betty had delivered and pulled out a coffee carafe and mugs. She quickly poured two cups, and then took a long draw from the mug, so glad the brew wasn’t piping hot because she would have gulped it down, burned tongue or not.

She was reaching for the carafe to top off her cup when Tony emerged from the bathroom dressed in jean shorts and a T-shirt announcing I Do A Body Good.

“Oh, if only I could remember,” she teased, surprised she’d so quickly slid into a playful mood. Coffee did a body good, too.

“Don’t laugh. Your shirt is worse,” he said, tossing her a bright pink T-shirt with Too Hot To Handle across the chest.

“Betty and her husband must have an interesting sense of humor,” she said as she raced for the bathroom to change.

Fifteen minutes later, Hayden no longer had to walk with a bedsheet trailing behind her like a train. She dumped the sheet on the straightened bedding. Betty’s bag had also provided her a change of underwear, the promised cami and a pair of khaki shorts. After a quick finger comb to her hair, she joined Tony at the table. The enticing scent of pumpkin spice muffin was too much and she reached into the basket and plopped a piece into her mouth. Delicious.

They sat in silence for a moment. They needed to have a conversation, but what was the protocol here? She’d missed the How to Talk to the Stranger You Just Slept With etiquette lesson. Of course avoidance was the preferred course of action in any social situation. A lesson taken straight from her grandma. Hayden bit back a smile as she remembered the woman’s advice. Hayden, dear, don’t force it. Things have a way of working themselves out, you’ll see.

Now people would call that “escape coping,” but sometimes Grandma was right and things did work themselves out.

In other words, just roll with it. Yes, that’s exactly what she’d do.

But first, one piece of information was best not avoided. For both their sakes. “You don’t have to worry about pregnancy or anything. I’m covered there.”

Alarm flashed through his brown eyes. “Hell, I hadn’t even thought about that yet.”

“Too busy trying to figure out how to ditch me?” she joked.

“No. Too busy trying to figure out what kind of idiot forgets making love to the most beautiful woman he’s ever been with.”

She let out a small laugh, but Hayden was torn. Torn because she didn’t know how to feel. All her emotions warred with each other as if they were battling for the last brownie in the pan. She was mortified that she couldn’t remember last night. Thrilled that she’d connected with Mr. Amazing and Hot. She was a contradictory mess of embarrassment, satisfaction and chagrin. And Tony thought he was the idiot. “I guess I’m strangely flattered.”

Tony leaned toward her, his brown eyes intent. “We have two options. Go our separate ways and forget this ever happened. Or find out why we hooked up and why neither of us can remember it.”

“ How we hooked up. I know why .”

A slow smile curved his gorgeous lips. Tony had mentioned he was a filmmaker. Cue the rainbow. And the birds chirping. Hell, bring in a unicorn because at this moment all the embarrassment and mortification vanished. “I don’t even know where we are,” she said, breathless.

“The back of that take-out menu says Broken Bow, Oklahoma,” he told her, nodding to a couple of menus stuck to a bulletin board with tacks near the kitchen sink. Yeah, the couples who stayed in this lover’s cabin probably didn’t plan to venture out during their whole stay. Drop the supplies at the door and go was more likely their approach once they spotted that heart-shaped tub and platform bed.

“Uh, the last place I remember is Texas,” she said.

“Dallas?” he asked and she nodded. “There’s a start. We must have met in Dallas. Of course, I can’t even figure out how to get back there because I still can’t find my phone.”

“Same. Do you have a map in your car?”

Tony flashed her an embarrassed glance, so Hayden knew the answer was no. Her grandparents had embraced technology as much as the next person, but when it came to navigation, Grandma Taylor insisted on paper. Every year, she gifted Hayden with a new and updated atlas in case technology failed. But Betty had only mentioned one car, and chances were that it was his.

“Maybe Betty can loan us a map,” he offered. “Or we can stop at a gas station on the way out of town. You in?”

Was she? Hayden could only do damage control if she knew exactly what she’d done last night. And that meant she had to stick with Tony. “Yes—we have a plan,” she said, hopeful for the first time that day.

Five minutes later they stepped out together on the wooden planked porch. Two rocking chairs swayed in the breeze. In the distance, the trees loomed tall and lush, so different from the flat terrain of Texas where she’d grown up. Two hawks flew a lazy pattern above her head and the sound of locusts filled the air.

She pointed out two squirrels chasing each other around the trunk of a tree. “You know what’s strange? I’ve lived in Texas all my life, and have never been to Oklahoma. You’d think at least once I would have crossed the border.”

“I’ve never been to Oklahoma, either. Something we have in common.”

“Tony, I bet’s that’s how we ended up here,” she told him, gripping his arm. The muscles beneath her fingertips bulged. “I can’t believe how excited I am to realize that.”

“It sucks not feeling in control. Not knowing what you’ve done.”

Something dark and regretful lurked in his tone—as if he’d weathered a similar situation in his past. She gave his arm a squeeze before dropping her hand down to her side. Until this moment, Tony had been teasing or reassuring. But since waking up, she’d only been concerned about herself. Hayden hadn’t given a second thought to how he must be feeling. Instead, she’d pegged him as that dude —the kind of man who congratulated himself on getting lucky. But there was more to him than that.