she groaned.
That had been a weirdly detailed dream. Very real. Almost as if she could smell the strange black creatures’ ozone scent and hear the man’s sexy voice as he had bent over her. Prodding her. Asking if she was okay.
Eyelids flashing open, Indi darted her gaze about the room. She was lying on the floor? Not a familiar floor, either. She didn’t have hardwood in her home. And...what had she hit her head on?
Rolling to her side, she realized she still wore the ball gown. The beaded leaves on the bodice crunched as her body turned on the wood floor. Above her stretched a flat piece of wood, supported by a table leg...
“Why am I lying under a table? Oh...”
It hurt her brain to talk. Had someone taken it out, rolled it across the ground like a pétanque ball, then shoved it back in through her ear? Mercy, what a bender. Champagne hangovers were the worst!
But this didn’t look like her friend Janet’s floor. And Janet had moved to New York two months ago.
Where was she? And how had she gotten here?
“When I got up this morning I couldn’t figure why you were under the table,” a male voice suddenly said.
A pair of bare feet, with a slouch of blue jeans hanging over them, stopped but a foot from her face. Indi placed both palms on the floor before her and craned her head up as far as she could manage, but her neck ached, so her line of sight only stretched as far as his crotch. Not a terrible sight to wake up to. Just...unexpected.
She dropped and rolled to her back.
“You insisted on crawling under there after I deposited you on the couch last night,” he said. He bent to display two mugs. “Coffee?”
Heartbeat suddenly racing, Indi inhaled deeply a few times to calm her panic. But really, she should be panicking. “Where am I? Who are you? I, uh...”
“My name’s Ryland James. I don’t know your name. You were buttered when I found you last night.”
Buttered? Hell yes, she’d been so drunk.
“When you found me? What the hell? What did you...?” She winced. No, she was still dressed. Which didn’t mean much. If the man had had his way with her while she was inebriated...
“You stumbled onto a strange scene,” he said, sitting on the black leather sofa and setting one coffee cup on the floor near her shoulder. “I wanted to bring you home, make sure you were safe, but I didn’t know where you lived. And...after a bunch of wild-and-craziness you passed out. For the night.”
She closed her eyes and slapped a palm to her chest. Wild and crazy? Seriously? She’d let that bastard Todd get to her that much? And now she was lying on the floor in a strange man’s home.
The coffee smelled deceptively good. But from experience, she knew if she drank any she’d get sick. Hangovers were never kind to her.
She spoke her fears. “I need to get out of here.”
“I can drive you home if you’ll give me your address.”
“I don’t think I should do that. I can hail a cab.”
“Suit yourself. I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay after...”
Indi skimmed her fingers over her chest and throat. Something hurt. She winced at the slight pain and felt the rough line of skin along her collarbone. Had she been cut?
“It should heal more quickly than you expect,” the man, Ryland, said. “I tried to get you out of there, but you were, well...”
Buttered.
“Sorry. Some guy broke up with you?”
She’d told him that? What had happened last night?
“He dumped me at the ball. And I was feeling so pretty.” She sniffed, feeling all the emotions well in her gut again. Oh, she couldn’t do the ugly cry in front of this handsome stranger!
Turning and crawling out from under the table, she managed to bump the coffee cup and topple it. It soaked into her skirt.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
A strong hand helped her to stand by grabbing her upper arm. And when she swayed near his chest, Indi smelled fresh, outdoorsy aftershave on him. Or maybe it was his innate scent. Like wild captured yet never tamed. The man was handsome. Long dark hair, trimmed mustache and a beard that was short and hinted at the dark hairs that might grow on his chest. And so many muscles in the biceps she clung to.
Indi had never been one to let opportunity pass, but...
She also wasn’t stupid.
“Thank you for, uh...” She wandered to the door, tugging up her wet skirt and realizing a long piece of it dragged behind. The outer tulle layer had torn, and the hem was blackened with dirt. One of the chiffon poppies dangled from a thread.
“Oh, God, you must think I’m the worst case. I was...upset. And yes, he broke my heart. I have this tendency to get attached, too—” What was she doing? She didn’t need to detail her pitiful emotional failings to a stranger. “I needed a good cry and...”
She turned, thinking Ryland looked like the man she’d seen in her dreams. He had been. She’d never forget such a handsome face. And those brown eyes pierced her with intensity. “Last night.” Peering intently at him, she asked, “Did you change?”
“Did I, uh, what?” He set the mug on the table and approached her.
Indi backed up until her shoulders hit the door. She slumped. Her head was spinning and she predicted the hangover would play revenge on her soon. And she did not want the guy to witness that.
“Change,” she muttered, though she wasn’t sure why she’d asked him that. How could a person change? Yet she had seen something odd last night. Maybe? “Were there flying creatures?”
He bent before her, and long brown hair spilled over his chest and the T-shirt that he wore inside out to expose the seams. Earth-brown eyes studied her for a pitiful moment. “I think you might still be a little drunk, Princess Pussycat.”
“Princess...” She reached for the top of her head and felt the cat ears sitting up there, but at a tilt. “I’m not drunk. Not anymore. And my name is...”
She should leave. Right now. Before things got weird.
Indi turned and grabbed the doorknob, hoping the door wasn’t locked and that he didn’t have plans to toss her in a dirt pit in his basement. It opened. She exhaled and dashed across the threshold.
“I hope you feel better!” he called after her. “And I hope the guy who did that to you gets his just. No woman deserves to be treated so poorly.”
Indi paused at the top of a stairway that led down to the building’s entry. She lifted her skirts and imagined she must look a nightmare to him. A kind man who had only wanted to ensure that she was safe last night.
“My name’s Indigo,” she said, then took the stairs, hands firmly clutching both railings for support.
By some strange luck that she was not accustomed to, a cab was parked curbside. Indi climbed into the back seat, gave the driver her address in the eighth arrondissement, then flopped down, hugging the seat as if it were a life raft. Shoving her hand in her skirt pocket, she was relieved her phone was still in there. She checked her texts. There were none.
Had she expected to hear from Todd after his night with Melanie?
Oh, that she could even think of him again. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
She needed to talk to Janet. To spill all the details of her horrible, terrible, no-good very humiliating night. She’d call her when she got home.
Ten