Page 11 of The Worst Man

Five

Iflung my arm across my face in an attempt to shield my eyes from the harsh sunlight streaming in from the window on the other side of the room. My head pounded like a mighty herd of buffalo were stampeding through it and my tongue felt like I’d stuffed my mouth with cotton wool before I’d fallen into bed. I groaned and rolled onto my side, away from the glaring rays of the morning sun trying to burn a hole through the front of my skull.

And then my eyes flew open.

“What the fuck?!” I threw back the covers and jumped out of bed.

“Good morning,” Hank said, his voice sounding scratchy and … sexy as hell as his bloodshot eyes scanned me appreciatively from head to toe.

Which was the precise moment I realized that I was standing in front of him completely naked. Panicked, I scrambled around the room for something to cover myself with, but came up blank. Last night I’d had on jeans and a button down oxford shirt but they were nowhere to be found this morning. Throwing my left arm over my boobs, I leaned over and snatched the duvet off the bed with my right, pulling it up to my chin.

Unfortunately, while that meant I was now covered up, it also meant that Hank was now naked. And oh so beautiful it made my eyes hurt. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment as I also realized that his cock was hard as a steel rod pointing straight to the heavens.

“You see something you like?” he asked, his voice laced with humor and a type of confidence I’d never have.

I shook my head back and forth and slapped my palm to my eyes. Unfortunately, this made the blanket sag and droop, so I had to quickly readjust it. Slamming my eyes shut, I fastened tightened the bulky down comforter around my sternum and tucked its end tight against my body to keep it in firmly place.

“What are you doing in my room?” I shrieked, and my head protested the effort.

I must have winced, because Hank said, “Come here. I’ll rub your head and make you feel good.”

Make you feel good. Something about those words pulled at my memory. I could swear I’d heard them whispered in his sexy, seductive voice before. But that didn’t make sense. Hank and I hated each other. Aside from our temporary truce last night, we’d barely ever spoken a kind word to one another.

Last night.

My eyes went wide with distress and my head sprang quickly back and forth. “No! We didn’t.”

“I’m afraid we did.” The smile that had marked his features slowly dipped into a frown. “Wait, you don’t remember?”

“Of course I don’t remember!” I shrieked, causing a fresh wave of pain to lance through my skull. “Do you think I’d be standing here freaking the fuck out about waking up to you naked in my bed if I did?”

He stared at me for a beat and all the color leached from his face. “Oh shit.”

“What?” I cried, wobbling toward him as best I could in my tightly wrapped blanket burrito. “What’s that face for?” I flopped down onto the mattress as Hank folded his body into a cross-legged sitting position and settled a pillow over his lap.

“What do you remember?” he asked, his words slow and deliberate.

“What should I remember?” I shot back with a glare as I suddenly realized what it meant that we’d woken up together—naked. Mentally, I took rapid inventory of my body. My nipples were tender and chafing against the cotton, like someone had spent a significant amount of time biting and sucking on them until they’d grown into tight, hard peaks. My eyes dropped closed with regret. “I fucked you.”

Hank’s heavy breathing echoed loudly in the otherwise silent room. When he didn’t confirm my statement, I opened my eyes to find him staring at me with a look of supreme hurt on his face. “You didn’t just fuck me, Miranda. You married me first.” He notched his head meaningfully toward my hand and my gaze followed, landing on a plain gold wedding band circling my ring finger.

I stared at it for a second, waiting for the revulsion to hit. Strangely, it never came. Instead, something altogether different settled over me. Something that felt a lot like acceptance and, if I was being honest, a sense of belonging.

My conversation with Hank back at the bar the night before came flooding back to me. I’d confessed to giving my virginity to a man who’d tossed me aside like yesterday’s garbage, feeling completely horrible as I’d admitted to him how that experience had made me so distrustful of every other man in my life. And I also remembered Hank’s rage on my behalf even all these years later. The look of fury in his eyes when he’d demanded to know if I’d been raped.

And then my mind rushed forward to how we’d walked together up and down the strip, Hank’s arm wrapped around my shoulder as we’d bickered playfully about where we were going to go next. Meeting Beatrice and Gloria at a bar in the Tropicana and Hank arranging the limo to the chapel for their wedding, where he and I had bared witness to their own affirmations of love and unity.

And then Hanks lips on mine and the whispered confessions under the stars. How he told me he’d wanted me for a long time, and how I’d never realized it. How I’d admitted—if not to him, then at least to myself—that what I’d always assumed was hate was something altogether different.

And then my legs hitched up around his waist as he carried me inside to become his wife. His whispered “I do” as he placed the ring on my finger, both of our hands shaking but our voices firm. Him carrying me over the threshold, his eyes locked on mine as he lowered me down onto the bed and stripped the clothes from my body. His magnificent back bared to me as he walked across the room to hang them up in the closet. His full, kissable lips smiling down at me as he shook his head with what looked like wonder. Him whispering how he’d never imagined it could be like this between us as he kissed me senseless.

My fingers tangled in his hair as he licked and laved his way down my center to make love to my pussy with what felt a lot like adoration. The look on his face in those few seconds before he entered me, our fingers linked above my head. His voice when he said, “Whatever happens tomorrow, know that I want this. I want you.”

My panic receded, leaving a strange, eerie calmness in its wake.

Whatever happens tomorrow, know that I want this. I want you.

My eyes lifted from the ring on my finger and latched onto his uncertain ones. “So what happens next?”

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