Page 21 of Moon's Promise

“Careful … you’ll hurt her,” Lana warned.

“Psst … Larissa has enough pain meds in her system to Riverdance.”

“It’s okay. She didn’t hurt me.” Tired, Larissa sought to stop the budding argument.

“Fine, then.” Lana threw Priscilla an exasperated glare at her gloating smile. “How do you not know who you had sex with?”

Larissa explained how she had seen the couple having sex. Then, from there, finding herself in the dark bedroom. “I didn’t know what to do when he asked me to take his boots off. He thought I was a girl named Ember.”

“I would have told him to take them off himself,” Priscilla said matter-of-factly.

“I would have left,” Lana reasoned.

“Of course, you would have. I was embarrassed by what I saw the other couple doing that I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought I could get out of there, and he would just think it was Ember.”

“Go on,” Priscilla encouraged raptly. “When did the touchy-feely stuff start?”

Larissa felt herself blushing. “I took his boots off. Then he thought I was a girl called Ember. She must live there, too. Anyway, his feet were freezing cold, so I massaged them to get them warmed. They were freezing.”

“You said all that already.”

“I bet you warmed them right up,” Priscilla joked, then had to arch her head away when Lana swung the pillow toward her.

Larissa jerked it away from her to put it behind her back then continued. “After that … I was going to leave—”

“But you didn’t.”

Her shoulders slumped. “No, I didn’t. He must have figured out I wasn’t Ember and thought I was mad at him because he had called by that name, so he started calling me Echo. Moon must have wanted to make it up to her really badly, because he started kissing me, and I mean really, really kissing me.”

Opening her eyes wide, Larissa tried to explain with nonexistent words just how much effort Moon had put into kissing her.

Lana arched an eyebrow at her. “We get it, Larissa.”

“Sorry…” If Larissa could stand, she would kick herself. She had as gotten carried away describing it as she had when it happened. Mentally smacking herself for being insensitive, she went back to recalling the night before. “Then, the next thing I knew, we were having sex … When it was over, he wanted me to turn the light on. I threw my clothes on instead, terrified he was going to turn the lights on himself and would find out I wasn’t Ember or Echo. I would have died of humiliation. Thankfully, I was able to slip out before he did and ran back to the bathroom. I was still in the bathroom when Winter knocked on the door.”

“Moon has no idea who he actually had sex with?”

“I don’t think so.” Lana put her hands up, as if she were going to give a lecture, then let them drop to her lap.

“At least tell me he used protection.”

“We did.”

“That’s a plus,” Priscilla said cheerfully. “I bet it was Moon. When I saw him at the bar, he seemed the type of guy who could sweep a woman off her feet.”

“From what Larissa said, he’s sweeping more than a couple.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking.” Larissa stared up at the ceiling. “I hadn’t even been drinking.”

“He had been, though,” Lana reminded her. “Was he drunk?”

“No, it was pitch black in the room, but he didn’t sound or talk like someone intoxicated, which is why it never occurred me it could be Moon. He didn’t have any trouble getting my clothes off, or his, either. I can’t believe I had sex with him. I’ve never had a one-night stand.” Larissa started crying again. “I’m sick with myself. Have either of you had a one-night stand?”

“Almost,” Lana said soothingly, trying to comfort her.

“Almost?” Priscilla made a comical face. “I haven’t, but you either have or haven’t. So, which is it?”

Expecting Lana to shut Priscilla down again, she stopped crying when Lana started laughing.

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