Page 43 of What Happened Last Night

The inn was dark, because like the rest of the world, Will was asleep. The front door was locked by a lock box with a four-digit code. I knew the master code. I could get in, but Will would think I was an intruder. With the luck I was having tonight, he’d probably either brain me in the dark or call 911. Maybe both.

I could call him, but there was something pathetic about calling him from the front drive. I really, really wished I’d thought ahead.

Just do it, Luna. Whatever this is. Just go.

Refusing to think anymore, I opened the driver’s door. Pulling my jean jacket up over my head—it had been jean jacket weather when I left Portland, I swear—I sprinted up the driveway to the front door. Rain lashed me, soaking my back and my arms. My sneakers were instantly wet. Hunching and still holding my jacket up, I knocked on the front door.

After a pause, I knocked again. Damn it, I was getting soaked, and I’d have to use the master code—

A light blinked on behind the door’s frosted glass, and then the door swung open. Will stood there in a white tee, gray sweatpants, and bare feet, his hair mussed. I’d screwed this up royally if I thought I was going to keep my dignity, because I’d obviously gotten him out of bed.

“Luna?” he said, shocked.

I looked at him and the words tumbled out of my mouth. “I quit.”

A hand grabbed my arm and pulled me into the house, a little roughly. The door slammed behind me.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Will’s voice was low, coiled tight. He was angry.

I lowered my jacket. “I quit,” I said again, the words slicing through my heart. Then, to force it home, “I’m giving you my notice, Will. I’m done. I’m quitting.”

“The fuck you are.” He was definitely angry. I’d never heard him swear like this, and the scowl on his face in the dim light held quiet fury. “Stand here,” he commanded. “Do not fucking move.”

“Will—”

“Do not fucking move,” he repeated, and he stalked away from me. I stood dripping in the hall, staring at the familiar welcome rug, wondering who this Will was. I’d never seen him before.

A minute later, he came back carrying a bath towel. We kept those towels in the closet in the laundry at the back of the house, a fact I knew because this house belonged to my family. Will seemed to have made himself at home.

“Dry off,” he said curtly, handing me the towel. Then, “Give me this.” He took my jacket from my hand. When I had rubbed most of the water from my face, he said, “Take off your shoes.”

“I’m not staying.”

“The fuck you aren’t.” I hadn’t heard him say fuck so much before, but he couldn’t stop saying it now. The word was harsh coming from his mouth, and I shivered.

“What were you thinking, Luna?” he continued, still angry. “It’s the worst storm in years out there, and it’s the middle of the night. You drove in that?”

“It wasn’t storming when I left.” I sounded like a petulant middle schooler, but I couldn’t help it. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, I fucking heard,” Will said. He pointed to my feet. “You haven’t taken your shoes off. Do it.”

Holy hell, was I in an alternate universe? He’d never spoken to me like this. I took my shoes off, obeying without any more argument. My feet were soaked anyway, and there was no way I was leaving. “Happy now?” I said when I had stripped off my socks too, leaving my feet bare beneath the hems of my wet jeans.

Will’s gaze was fixed on me without flinching, without looking away. He apparently hadn’t shaved since he left town, because he had shadows on his jaw. It was crazily, stupidly hot, and I hated it. He’d never looked at me like that before.

“I swear to god,” he said finally in his low, angry tone, his gaze still on me, “if you had gotten in an accident and died, I would have found you, revived you, and killed you all over again. I fucking swear.”

“Stop saying fuck,” I shot back.

He took a step closer, into my space, still without lowering his gaze. “I’ll say fuck all I want, when my assistant shows up during my fucking vacation to ruin my fucking life. Because she doesn’t have a lick of fucking sense.”

A shiver moved through me again, and it was something deep and raw, pulled from some well within me. I shoved his chest—a mistake, because the heat through his shirt nearly scorched my palms. I was too mad to care.

“You’re an asshole!” I shouted at him. “You fooled around with me, and then you ditched me!”

“I was giving you space,” Will seethed. “What did you want me to do, Luna? Bend you over my desk and fuck you? Would that have been better?”

There was that word again, and now my body was thick with lust, instant and pure like white-hot fire. “Maybe that would have been better, if it was honest,” I shot back, shoving his pecs again. Will took a step back, letting me push him. “You made me feel trashy! You made me feel stupid!”

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