Page 101 of The Single Dad Project

Oh sweet Lamb of Life, whathappenedlast night?

She ground her thumb and finger against her forehead. First things first. Carefully, pushing off the wall, she edged toward the bathroom. Nature and her modesty called, and it was a toss-up on who she answered first. But considering she’d woken up as naked as the day she’d come into this earth, the whole modesty thing might be a case of locking the barn door after the horse got its freak on.

Twenty minutes later she emerged from the bathroom, freshly showered, wrapped in the hotel-provided robe and with a headache downgraded fromOh God, Why Have Thou Forsaken MetoJesus Wept. In other words, she might just live. Might. Immediately, she glanced to the bed, and the figure there hadn’t moved.

A flash of panic stabbed her in the chest, momentarily overtaking the tiny hammers in her temples. Oh hell. Were they dead? Had she fucked him to death? She didn’t know whether to be proud or scared over the possibility...

Locating her glasses had become priority number one now that she was clean, and her mouth didn’t taste like the place roadkill went to die. Moments later, and after much patting and skimming with her hands, she found her blue-rimmed glasses on the small table and slid them on. She sighed as her world came into focus. Nothing made her feel more vulnerable than not being able to clearly see past a few feet in front of her.

Swallowing a groan, she shuffled closer to the bed, rounding it, hand outstretched as if approaching a dangerous animal set on snapping off her fingers. She’d never been one to back down from a challenge or a dare. No, she’d always been the one to charge forward. Showing fear meant exposing your throat and making you vulnerable. And there she went with more animal analogies. Still, it fit. Being weak in her family, in her job, had never been an option. Not for her anyway.

Yet, here she stood, only inches from the person she, in all likelihood, smashed genitals with, and she hesitated, fingers trembling.

It’s a cover, woman. A simple cover. You’ve wrestled three fingers of scotch from your mother after Kayla broke off her engagement. You can handle a stranger in your bed. Besides, the person underneath has probably seen you naked, and maybe even twisted you like a pretzel in all kinds of positions you might’ve enjoyed. A glimpse at his or her face shouldn’t be an issue.

As far as pep talks went, it was one of her better ones. And it must’ve worked because she gritted her teeth, marched the few steps separating her from the bed, snagged the corner of the cover and yanked it back.

Horror slammed into her, and her racing pulse added another cacophonous note in her head.

“No,” she whispered, fisting the lapels of her robe together. “It... We...No.”

She couldn’t force anything else out past her constricted throat. Not words and barely breath.

That face. Half of it might be pressed into the pillow but she knew that face.

The closely cut dark blond hair. The sharp, angular cheekbones. The thick fringe of long lashes. The narrow, patrician nose. The dusting of hair along his jaw and surrounding his mouth. And yeah, that mouth...

Her belly flipped like a gold-medal gymnast as she forcefully dragged her gaze from those damn near obscenely full lips to the closed eyes. She knew they were a startling shade of turquoise, and a person could imagine themselves swimming in the warm, gorgeous waters of the Maldives when staring into them.

Okay, fine. It was her. She wasa person.

But noticing their beauty and peering into them while she orgasmed were two totally different things.

One, he was her friend and employee.

Two, he was her sister’s ex-boyfriend.

Oh no. This had Brooklyn’s Biggest Mistake Evah scrawled all over it. In neon graffiti.

“Patrick,” she called his name. When he didn’t stir, she cleared her throat and tried again, louder this time. “Patrick.”

Nothing.

His back rose and fell, so he wasn’t dead. Imagine explainingthatto Kat Owens, her business partner and best friend.I took our employees to Vegas for a pre-Christmas retreat and apparently fucked one of them to death.Thank God for small favors she could now avoid that particular conversation.

“Patrick.” She shifted closer and nudged his shoulder—his bare shoulder.

Wow, did the man house a furnace in that big body? His skin burned hot to the touch. Deliberately, she kept her gaze on his shoulder and above. Because if she’d woken up naked...Oh boy. Was it a blessing or a curse that she couldn’t remember what all lay stretched out beneath those blankets that seemed an even starker white against all that golden, taut skin...?

Don’t even go there, sister.

“Patrick, wake up,” she ordered, shoving him a little harder.

A low moan emanated from him, a small frown wrinkling his forehead. One second passed. Then two. And another. Finally, those ridiculously long, dense lashes fluttered and lifted. And a sliver of blurry turquoise appeared. His lids lowered again, and she swallowed an impatient sigh, moving closer to shove him again. But instead, he flipped over onto his back, exposing a wide expanse of mouthwatering muscles, skin and...nipples.

Girl, stop staring at that man’s nipples!

So her scrutiny dipped to a corrugated ladder of muscles lining either side of his torso and a flat belly that, once upon a time, she would’ve traded her younger sister for. Well, to be fair, she would’ve given Kayla away for free as long as they signed an NDA and a No Return disclosure, but that was neither here nor there.

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