an elephant had stomped on her head and someone had filled her mouth with sand. Searing white light bashed her closed eyelids, and a pulsing, distant thud of pain thumped in her temples. She feared opening her eyes. The light would no doubt make her hangover ten times worse. All she wanted to do was lie here, very still, and hope to fall back asleep.
Flashes of the night before came to her. Beer, Mark, laughing...then more beer. She’d drunk her misery away, yes, she had, but she’d also brought more misery to her brain, which right now wanted to crawl out of her skull to get away from this crushing migraine. Her stomach roiled, too, and she felt a wave of nausea overcome her. Not good.
She’d have to open her eyes sometime. She cracked one eye open, expecting to see the palm-tree-decorated comforter on her rental condo bed, but instead found herself lying beneath a gray-striped blanket on a large king-size bed in a room she didn’t recognize.
Laura sat up in alarm, the sheets falling from her body, and then realized she was wearing nothing but her bra and underwear. Laura covered her chest with her arms and realized with alarm she was sitting in Mark’s bed. In her underwear.
But where was Mark?
She listened frantically but heard nothing. Was she alone? What the hell had happened last night?
Frantically, she searched her memory of the night before. Beers on his deck. Lots of beers. Then... Oh, no. Tequila shots. Did that happen? Yes, she had a fuzzy memory of Mark slicing limes. Tequila was never good. She might as well just hit herself in the head with a rock. Why did she think tequila was a good idea? But then, nothing after that. Oh, Lord. What had she done? She couldn’t recall anything more.
God, she’d only ever blacked out once in her life in college. That was fourteen years ago. What the hell was wrong with her?
She heard the front door of the condo rattle open and swing shut. Mark? Was that Mark? Frantically she glanced around the room for her clothes. Where were they? And, more important, did Mark...take them off?
She heard a soft knock on the bedroom door. “Hello?” Mark called.
“Uh...yes?” Laura scrambled to pull the covers up to her chin. Granted, she was wearing a sturdy pair of cotton boy shorts and matching bra with more coverage than most bikinis, but still, she felt vulnerable and exposed.
“Morning, Drinking Beauty,” Mark teased. “I’ve got your clothes here. All laundered.” He backed into the room, not looking at the bed. Did he keep his head turned because he was being a gentleman?
He dropped them on the edge of the bed.
“Why did you wash my clothes?” she asked, stunned.
“You don’t remember?” he asked, back still turned.
“Remember what?”
Mark chuckled low. “Get dressed and come get coffee. Have I got a story to tell you.” He shut the bedroom door behind him, and Laura scrambled to get her clothes. What had she done? Had he...? Had they...? Did they have sex? Why couldn’t she remember?
She felt red flames of embarrassment lick her face. She wasn’t that kind of girl. But she had admitted to an affair. Had he thought she was easy? That she just jumped into bed with anybody? She didn’t, for the record.
Laura pulled on her shorts and her T-shirt, her head still throbbing and her tongue feeling like she’d spent the night sucking on sandpaper. She managed a quick glance in the mirror above his dresser and saw her hair in complete disarray. Her short dark bob stuck out in all directions and yet was completely flat on one side. Plus, a smudge of old mascara ringed her left eye. She looked awful.
Laura tried her best to tidy herself up, but she needed more than just water from the sink to really make a dent. She gave up easily, too hungover to do much about her frightening hair. The effort of putting on clothes exhausted her. Her stomach protested at every move, threatening to empty itself at every turn.
She opened the door, cautiously at first, and saw Mark, his back to her, making coffee in the kitchen. She shuffled out, unable to move faster, her head still in a vice.
“Hello?” Her voice came out as a croak, and Mark turned, a knowing grin on his face.
“Well, hello.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and she worried then and there that they’d done it. And she had no memory. Not one single memory of them having sex. She tried to focus on what she did remember, but it all just felt like one white-hot headache.
“Uh, what, uh...happened last night?”
The coffee machine hummed, and the strong smell of some dark brew wafted through the air. Morning sunlight filtered in through the vertical blinds of his patio, striking her head like laser beams.
“You had a lot to drink.” Mark wore cargo shorts, flip-flops and a tight T-shirt over his muscled chest. He looked amazingly put together, not a hair out of place and freshly shaved. He leaned back against the counter, crossing his muscled forearms across his chest, dark hair slightly ruffled and that cocksure smile on his face. How could he roll out of bed looking so...sexy?
“I know that.” Laura’s head pounded. She pressed her hands against her temples, almost hoping to squeeze the headache out of her head. Also, oddly, her nose felt sore, she realized. “But...what else?”
“Well. You at one point yelped, ran down the beach and shouted at the ocean, ‘I don’t need you, Dean!’”
“Oh, I didn’t.” She suddenly wished the ground would open up and swallow her.
“You did. Then you started throwing handfuls of sand into the ocean.” Mark’s grin got bigger. He uncrossed his arms. “And cursing. A lot.”
A dark memory tried to wiggle its way to the forefront of her brain. Yes, that sounded actually right. The feel of the wet sand in her hands. The rush of anger. The release of her fury. Yep. That seemed about right.
“Then you face-planted.” Mark hit the counter for emphasis, showing her how she’d landed as his palm smacked on the granite.
Oh, no. Well, that explains the sore nose.
“Right in the sand.” Mark was having trouble not laughing at this point. The corners of his mouth twitched, and his dark eyes never left her. “I mean monumental face-plant. And you just lay there for a minute. Groaning.”
“I didn’t.” Could this get any worse?
“You did. I tried to help you up, but you told me you were just going to lie there. Let the sea take you somewhere. That maybe it was all better this way.”
Laura flinched. “That sounds dramatic.”
“You were very determined to lie there in the sand.”
“I’m...I’m so embarrassed.” She smacked her own forehead, but that just made her headache worse. She peeked at Mark between two fingers. “Then what?” She almost didn’t want to know.
“Then you tried swimming out to the ocean, even though you were on sand, so it was really less like a butterfly stroke and more like a belly crawl.” Mark did his best imitation with just his arms as he struggled against air. If she’d done that, she must’ve looked ridiculous. “You did make it to the
