Page 9 of New Year's Faye

I gingerly opened one eye to assess the damage.

Light sensitivity, hammering headache, nauseous stomach, still dressed in my fabulous gown from last night while smelling like a gin factory.

I huffed out a soft groan.

Yep. All evidence indicates I partied like it was 1999.

I screwed my eye closed and reached blindly for the blanket, hauling it up and over my head. I curled my legs into my chest and slid my hands under my cheek only to jerk back when something sharp scrapped my jaw.

Rubbing one hand over the other I found the offensive item.

“What the fuck?” Jerking upright, I tossed the blanket off as I stared at the GIANT FREAKING ROCK on my ring finger.

“Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no!”

A moan came from the other side of the bed.

Squealing in fright, I rolled off the mattress to land with thump on the floor of the hotel room.

Springing back up, I snatched the only item within reach, brandishing it as I waited for the stranger to emerge from under the blankets.

“Who are you and why are you in my room?” I barked, waving my bright pink vibrator from side to side. “Show yourself!”

“Faye?” A horrifyingly familiar, deliciously sexy voice growled from under the blankets. “It’s me. Now be quiet and come back to bed unless you’re planning on ordering a shit-ton of room service and painkillers.”

The vibrator fell limply from my hands, my mouth opening and shutting as I struggled to process the reality of our current predicament.

“Sam?”

My boss pulled the blankets down, squinting up at me through bloodshot eyes. His dark brown hair stood at strange angles, while his white dress shirt lay open at his throat to reveal a swath of tan skin that remained sun-kissed despite it being mid-Winter.

A present from the sperm donor he’d never met, he’d once told me with a wry laugh before changing the subject.

“What?” He scrubbed a hand over his slightly green face. In the quiet of the room, I could hear his palm rasp against the scruff of his beard.

I swallowed, fighting a wave of nausea. “Are you, by any chance, wearing a wedding ring?”

Please say no. Please say no. Please say?—

He blinked twice then pulled his left arm from under the bedsheets, thrusting his hand forward.

“Oh,” he murmured, staring at the ring glinting in the warm morning light. “Shit.”

And with that, the floor rushed up to meet me.

“Spending New Year’sDay in a hospital with you wasn’t on my bingo card for this year,” Sam said dryly as he scrolled through his phone from his seat beside my hospital bed.

“Yeah well, people should learn to create bedside tables that don’t permanently injury you.” I lifted the icepack from my head. “Is it bad?”

He glanced up from his scroll, his dark brown eyes narrowing as he assessed my injury. He stood, leaning across the bed. His hand lifted as if to touch me, his eyes soft and assessing. My breath caught as he swept his knuckles over my cheek in a surprisingly tender move.

My heart felt shaky and unsettled. There was a new dynamic between us thanks to the rings on our fingers. But his care when I’d woken, bleeding and disorientated, his gentle, reassuring touches each time I’d been unsure were throwing me off balance.

I didn’t like that I liked it.

“Not at all,” Sam said finally, lying sweetly but outing himself with a poorly concealed wince.

The man had no poker face.

---