It Wasn't Me - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,18

there aren’t any condoms?”

He picked the box up and once again went through it. “Not a one.”

Chuckling, he tossed what was left in his hand onto the bed, pulled his backpack off, and placed it on the bed, too.

“Let’s go explore,” he said, beautiful eyes coming to me.

I swallowed, but never once thought to tell him no.

Chapter 6

We are all someone’s asshole.

-Jonah to Piper

Jonah

I woke with my head pounding, my heart hammering a mile a minute and the knowledge that I wasn’t alone in my bed.

The first indication that everything was not right was the female moaning coming from behind me.

The second was the way that female kept saying “oh, fuck me” over and over again.

The third was that there was a heavy weight on my left ring finger that felt conspicuously like there was something on it. And it burned.

Burned in a really familiar way, just not necessarily in that particular spot.

“Jonah,” a familiar voice said from the bed beside me. “My ass burns.”

I blinked, peeled open one eye, and stared at the ceiling.

“I’m not sure,” I rasped, “that that particular comment needed to be shared with me.”

“Well,” Piper said, sounding worried. “If I can’t tell my husband that, who can I tell?”

I froze, feeling my stomach revolt, but not because I was upset at the news, but because I’d obviously done some drinking last night. I also wasn’t a young man anymore. It took me a while to recover from an entire night of drinking.

“Husband?” I asked, sitting up in the bed and feeling the sheet slip down my completely unclothed body.

“Mmmhmmm,” she said, sounding funny. “Husband.”

I looked over at the woman in my bed and felt my dick come to life.

God, she was absolutely beautiful.

Her hair was a tangled mess of curls that went every which way but together in one direction. It was spread out all over the silky red sheets that we were both lying on. She had the sheet that was also partially covering me pulled up over her naked chest, and that was it.

She was naked underneath.

I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but she was.

“Did we…”

God, I hoped we didn’t.

I really, really wanted to remember the first time with her.

“No,” she instantly denied. “At least I don’t think so.”

I looked at her practically naked body laid out in front of me and felt something inside me release.

“You don’t have to look so relieved.” She rolled her eyes.

“I’m not relieved that we didn’t have sex…kind of. I’m relieved that we didn’t have sex and that I didn’t totally forget it. Because that would have been a tragedy,” I explained.

Her lips twitched, then she lifted her hand and showed it to me.

My eyes zoomed in on her ring finger where a red, obviously brand-new tattoo lay. It was of a crown with a ‘Q’ creatively hidden in the scrollwork.

I looked down at my own finger and felt my chest tighten.

“Shit,” I said softly. “I knew that feeling was familiar.”

Because on my hand was also a crown, though mine was fit for a king, and not a queen.

“I got up to go to the bathroom, rolled over on my backside to scoot out of the bed, and felt my ass protest,” she went on.

I frowned.

“What?”

She rolled over onto her belly and shifted the sheets so I could see what she was talking about.

It was a tattoo.

Another one.

It was on her left ass cheek and said, ‘Mrs. Crew.’

I bit my lip to keep from blurting what I thought about the tattoo.

“Go ahead.” She dropped her head into the pillow. “Say it.”

“I like it,” I told her bluntly.

She snickered. Then burst out into full-blown laughter.

“I kind of did, too!” She shook her head. “I mean, the scrollwork on it is epic.”

Then the reality set in. “Umm, do you know what happened last night?”

She shook her head.

“I can remember up until I was on drink number four when we got to that casino. Then I think no sleep, paired with my medication, paired with my alcohol, means not so good things for my memory.” She groaned.

That didn’t explain my lack of memory.

“I’ve been drinking since I was a twelve-year-old kid. I haven’t had this bad of a hangover since I was nineteen and trying to prove to my CO that I could out drink him,” I explained.

There was a long pause, then she said, “Did you win?”

I grinned and fell backward onto my back, then rolled until I was facing her.

“Yes,” I answered. “But I regretted it for