words came out sleepy, and he glanced at her, taking his eyes off the road for a moment. She was striving to keep her eyes open.
“You’re doing a good deed by staying at the lodge. Hunter Palmer was your friend and you’ll be helping sick people.”
“It’s my good deed for the decade,” he disavowed. “I’m as low and slimy as you think.”
If she was calling even him nice, she must really be tired or wasted or both.
Six
When they got to the lodge, Ryan pulled into the garage and got Kelly upstairs to the guest suite next to the master bedroom.
Once there, she sat on the bed and looked around. “This room is so pretty. I hope I can do as good a job with the rooms I’m decorating.”
“I’m sure you will,” he reassured her.
“Do you think so?” she asked hopefully.
He nodded.
There was not much else he could say. The room they were in looked fine to him. Maybe it was because he came from money and took it all for granted, but he’d never been too interested in the aesthetics of his surroundings.
He regarded Kelly. “Are you okay getting undressed and into bed by yourself?”
She flopped back onto the bed so that she was lying in it. “Of course.”
He sighed, then reached out and grasped her hands to pull her back to a sitting position. “Okay, sweetness, let’s really get you ready for bed.”
With her cooperation, he got her shoes off, tugged off her skirt and breathed a sigh of relief when it turned out she was wearing a strapless bra beneath her halter top.
Undressing her was pure torture. He was just glad she was too tired and inebriated to turn up the heat on him even more.
“I’m just like my mother,” she said as he tossed her clothes onto a nearby chair.
He stopped because her comment came out of nowhere. “What?”
She looked forlorn. “I’m being undressed by a man I met in a bar.”
He wanted to point out that they’d known each other before tonight and that he had no intention of taking her to bed—he just wanted to put her in one.
“No matter how hard I try,” she said sorrowfully, “I can never escape my mother’s past.”
Now that he could relate to. Hell, he’d been trying to escape his legacy for more years than he could count.
Aloud, he said, trying to offer some solace, “You’re not the only one.”
He pulled back the bedcovers and she slid her legs underneath them. Without delay, he tugged the covers up, hiding her tantalizing body from view.
She sank back against the pillows and closed her eyes, and he expelled a breath.
In a moment, however, her eyes opened again. “You forgot to take off my bra.”
He clenched his jaw. “I didn’t forget.” He mentally ran through explanations. “There are no pajamas here for you to wear, so you’ll have to sleep in your bra.”
The logic wasn’t great, but he hoped in her current foggy state, she’d let it pass.
“Hmm,” she said, and in the next second, sat up and reached behind her.
Her luscious breasts sprang free.
He couldn’t help himself. He took it all in hungrily.
Her breasts were round and firm and capped with tight, dusky pink nipples.
Kelly dropped the bra to the side and lay back down, pulling up the covers as she did so.
“I’ve never had a man look at them like that before,” she murmured, her eyes drifting closed. “But then, I’ve never been to bed with a man before, either.” After a moment, she added more faintly, “Well, one guy. Once or twice. But he didn’t stay the night.”
His mind churned with questions, but her peaceful expression told him she’d fallen asleep.
She had dropped quite a few bombshells on him tonight, but damned if she hadn’t left the biggest for last.
Kelly woke with a headache.
She moaned and pressed her head into the pillow.
Some of the events of the night before came back and she reflected that she’d drunk more at the White Fir than she’d ever put back at one go in her life.
Making a note to herself that those apple martinis were potent stuff, she finally opened her eyes and looked around.
It took a moment to register she was in the already-furnished guest suite at the lodge.
Her heart seized and she bolted to a sitting position … then moaned again and cupped her forehead.
Ryan had driven her back to the lodge.
With dread, she peered under the covers, and discovered she was naked except for her panties.
She groaned, remembering how she had bared her breasts to Ryan, and how he had fixed his searing gaze on them.
How was she ever going to look him in the eye again? Last night made the kiss they’d shared in one of the lodge’s bedrooms seem insignificant in comparison. She had bigger problems to think about now—starting with needing to get to work.
She checked the bedside alarm clock. It was seven. Enough time, she thought with relief, for her to get out of here, home to change and then to work at Distressed Success.
Her mind skittered across the fact that she wasn’t sure she remembered everything she’d said and done last night. What if she’d forgotten something significant?
She winced, then willed herself out of bed and got in the shower. Fortunately, the adjoining bathroom was stocked with towels and toiletries, and the shower helped clear her head.
Afterward, stepping back into the bedroom, she threw on the previous evening’s clothes because she had nothing else to wear. She left her panties off, however, and stuffed them in her purse.
She reflected that she really was turning into her mother if she was walking around without underwear.
She shook off the thought as she towel dried her hair. Last night was an aberration. She was going to go home and resume life as usual.
But first she had to get out of here without a confrontation with Ryan.
When she was done fixing her hair and straightening up the bedroom, she slung her purse over her shoulder, took a deep breath and headed toward the door.
Outside in the hallway, she found herself tiptoeing without meaning to.
She told herself that she didn’t want to awaken Ryan if he was still asleep. It was only after seven in the morning. Closer to eight, really, but who was around to quibble with her?
She stole down the stairs, then crept toward the front entrance.
“Good morning.”
She jumped and turned.
Ryan stood there, an amused expression on his face. He was holding a cup of coffee, and looked relaxed and showered.
“Er—good morning.”
He was dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, and looked not only clean, but refreshed. It wasn’t fair, she reflected, that he should look so put together, while she felt rumpled and tawdry.
“You weren’t leaving without saying goodbye, were you?” Then without waiting for an answer, he added, “Coffee?”
She regarded