Page 12 of Drunk on Love

“Oh, you should feel very lucky,” she said.

He laughed, and bent down to kiss her.

Afterward, when she could breathe again, she suddenly remembered something.

“Yesterday was Sunday,” she said when he got back in bed from going to the bathroom. “That means today is Monday. What time is it?” Her phone was in her jacket pocket, which was wherever she’d abandoned it after he’d pushed it off her.

He pulled himself out of bed again and found his jeans on the floor.

“Seven thirty,” he said.

She sighed in relief. This had been fantastic, but if thisinterlude had caused her to be late to work this morning, she’d be pissed at herself.

“Oh good,” she said. “I have plenty of time.” She swung her legs out of the bed and looked around for her bra. He picked it up from the foot of the bed and handed it to her, and she put it on, then pulled her dress back on.

“Didn’t you just say you had plenty of time?” he asked her. “Why are you rushing to get dressed?”

She grabbed her underwear from the bed.

“I meant I have plenty of time if I leave now. I still have to walk home, and once I get back, I have to get ready for work.”

He shook his head and pulled his jeans on.

“No, you don’t,” he said. “I’ll drive you.”

She hadn’t expected him to offer that—he knew she lived nearby. Or maybe he didn’t remember?

“I can walk,” she said. “I’m only six blocks away.”

He grabbed his shirt off the floor and put it on.

“I know,” he said. “But my car’s right downstairs. I can drive you, it’s no problem. If too many people around here know you for you to kiss me outside a bar after dark, how much worse will it be for you to do the walk of shame at seven thirty a.m. on a Monday morning?”

She laughed. She hadn’t heard that phrase in a long time. And the man had a point.

He stopped, midway through buckling his belt.

“Unless you don’t want me to drive you?”

He was far more thoughtful than she would have assumed at first glance. Both offering to drive her, and then pulling back when she’d hesitated, showed a lot more perception than she would have given him credit for.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’d love a ride home.”

He nodded.

“Great. I’ll be ready in a second.”

It was kind of funny, how polite and almost formal they were with each other, after last night... and this morning. Both of them making carefully worded requests and acceptances that made them sound like the strangers to each other they really were, even when they did make reference to the reason she was here right now, and not in her house, six blocks away. It made sense, after all. They barely knew each other. She didn’t even know his last name. They’d spent, what, three hours talking before they’d tumbled into bed together?

She grinned to herself. It had turned out pretty well, though.

She retrieved her jacket and bag from the front hallway and then went into the bathroom to wash her face and do something to her hair so it didn’t look like she’d been having sex all night. She found a few bobby pins in the crevices of her bag and managed to twist her hair up into a more or less presentable topknot.

When she came out of the bathroom, Luke looked at her with just a hint of that admiration from the night before.

“Ready?” he asked.

She nodded, and slid her feet into the shoes she’d kicked off by the door.