dragged the spread from the bed and wrapped it around herself. The blood rushed from her head; she bent over before she passed out, keeping her forehead low.
What. The. Heck.
Was that not a dream?
She was going to be sick.
Had a complete stranger actually taken advantage of her while she was asleep?
She coughed a few times to get the blood solidly back in her brain, then raised her head slowly and carefully, forcing her breath down deep so she wouldn’t hyperventilate.
Bastard. Whoever he was…
“Hey.” She gave the mattress a good kick to jiggle Prince Not-At-All Charming awake. “Hey.”
His eyes opened. She kicked the mattress again. He turned and squinted in annoyance. “Why are you kicking my bed?”
“This is my bed.”
“Uh.” He looked around in confusion. “I don’t…”
“Who are you?”
He stared as if she’d lost her mind, then shook his head. “Oh, no. You did have that drink.”
“Whah?”
“The one you told me not to have, Phil’s ’specialty of the house.’ It does something to your brain.”
She stared blankly. Oh my God. A complete psycho. Clearly one of Melanie’s friends. “I was not drinking last night.”
“The bachelor party for Dan? Thrown by my brother, Finn Kern?”
“I don’t know anyone named—”
“We talked for a long while.” His eyes narrowed. He had the gall to look her up and down. “Though, actually, you do look different than I remember.”
“I have no idea who you are.”
“Sawyer Kern? Ring any bells?”
“Sawyer!?” She gasped, practically inflating with outrage on her sister’s behalf. This…this predator was Melanie’s The One? The guy who was different from all the rest?
“I guess you do remember.”
“You…you’re Melanie’s…”
His eyes narrowed. “You know Melanie?”
“I’m her sister.” Oh, Melanie. Alana had been stupid enough to hope this guy would be different.
“Alana?” He hoisted himself to sitting, rubbed his face as if trying desperately to make himself wake up the rest of the way. She refused to notice that his chest was broad and magnificent. Or that his lips were full and masculine and had been between her…never mind. “What were you doing at the bachelor party?”
“I wasn’t at the party.”
He appeared to process that for a while.
“So I didn’t pick you up there, bring you here and then forget.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “I knew I couldn’t have been that out of it.”
How could he find anything about this situation funny? “You came home and crawled into bed with me. In this room.”
“I drank something pretty strong and didn’t notice you.” He turned his deep brown eyes on her face. “That is, I didn’t notice you at first…”
His smile became suggestive and secretive. Alana took a step back, clutching the bedspread, feeling a massive blush coming on even while thinking, Oh, great, not just a womanizer, a blacking-out alcoholic womanizer. Her sister never did anything by halves. “I took a sleeping pill and didn’t wake up until this morning. Just now. Not before. Slept all night. All of it.”
He grinned at her confusion. “You don’t remember…anything?”
“Of course not. I was asleep.”
“Hmm, I better fill you in, then, because I remember a whole lot of what happened around 3:00 a.m. You were lying there, and I—”
“No. Don’t.” She waved furiously, stop stop stop, then had to grab the bedspread covering her before it fell.
“Huh?” His face was pure innocence. “You don’t want to know? I should think that would be pretty important.”
“I…” Enter massive blush. “I know that you were…I mean, you were definitely…there, but…”
“But?”
“I, er, thought I was dreaming.”
One eyebrow went up over a mischievous eye. “Sweet dream?”
“Not in the slightest.” Her voice shook; her blush deepened.
“Hmm, that’s not how I remember it. You practically lifted off the—”
“We are not going to discuss this.”
“No?” He raised his hand like a schoolboy with a question, rumpled and sexy in her childhood bed. “I need to say something.”
Argh. “Go ahead.”
“I was drunk, you were drugged, we both have excuses. Let’s just start over.” He patted the sheets next to him. “Come back to bed.”
“What?” She could not believe she’d actually heard him say that. “You know I’m Melanie’s sister and you want me back in bed?”
“Geez.” He clutched his head and glared. “Melanie told me you were strung like a piano wire. Could you not shriek quite so loud—”
“I’ll shriek as damn loudly as I want to. I knew you’d be like this. Like all the others. That’s why I came.”
“That’s why you came? I thought my technique had something to do with that.”
She was not amused. At all. His wink did nothing to her. At all. Even though it was atrociously sexy. “I arrived here to protect her. And you, you jump into bed with me and do God knows what. And by the way, piano wires are strung tight so they can play at their best.”
“If you say so.”
“Now please get out of my room so I can—”
“Your room? Melanie set this room up for me. She had no idea you were coming, or if she did, she didn’t tell me.”
“Oh, well, no. She didn’t know.” Alana frowned. Something about this made no sense. “But…why aren’t you in the master bedroom with her?”
His eyebrows raised
