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Bollocks.
She left me. I’d call her and tell her what an eejit she is, but her phone is dead. I leave a message anyway, hoping she’ll plug the damn thing in when she gets home.
I’d call my older brother to pick me up, but I’m supposed to be studying with Ciara and staying over at her house. My parents will skin me alive if they find out I’m in a pub instead. I swear—Mum doesn’t say the words—but I think she and Dad regret the day they signed my adoption papers.
Panic fills me when I also realize I don’t have enough money for a taxi. The outside lights of Carney’s Inn are haloed in a fog that rolled in from nowhere. I hoof it across the gravel road in hopes to score either a ride home from one of the housekeepers working late or a sofa to crash on in their library.
The temperature dropped while Ciara and I were downing pints and Jameson shots we had no business drinking. The sharp cold sends a shiver through me, and my teeth are good and chattering by the time I reach the front door of the inn.
An empty sitting room greets me, and with no one at the front desk, I sneak behind it and look for a key to a vacant room. This part of Waterford is fairly remote, and Carney’s still uses antiquated metal room keys.
All the hooks are bare except for one. Room number seven. Score. At this hour, no one will be checking in. The last flight from Cork landed hours ago. The roads to and from other towns north are so dark, no one dares driving them at night.
I sneak up the back staircase and slip into room seven. Confirming it’s empty, I lock the door behind me and remove my jacket, jeans, and shoes, then slip into the bed in just my T-shirt. I hadn’t worn a bra tonight. I’m small-chested anyway and often don’t bother.
As soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out…until I’m woken up by a man on top of me.
I try to scream, but his large hand covers my mouth. The lamp on the nightstand suddenly blares with a bright light that hurts eyes, and I have to squint to see.
“What are you doing in my room, honey?” The accented voice has a dull lilt to it. Like…
Like the man guarding the pub bathroom.
“You… Your room? I have the key.” Shoving back, I get a better look. It’s not the brother.
It’s the man from the bar who was getting busy in the loo with the Flanagan floozy. And he’s naked. “Where did you get the key from?” he asks as if he’snotnaked.
“From behind the desk.” I can’t help but stare, and oddly, I’m not afraid, so there’s something very wrong with me. My parents may be on to something.
“I left it there in case I got hammered.” He keeps talking like this is a perfectly normal exchange of information. “When I saw it was gone, I figured the desk clerk was off for the night and took it with him. My brother is in the adjoining room. He let me in.”
“How do I know it’s really your room?” I pull the sheet to my chin, trying to ignore his muscular bare chest.
“My bag’s in the closet. I tossed it in there when my brother, Griff, checked us in before we headed out for a meal at the pub.”
“You’re from New York?”
“Strange question to ask a naked man you don’t know lying beside you.” His accent, mixed with an American dialect I’ve heard before, sounds so sexy.
“I… I didn’t have a way to get home.” I slide out of the bed, stretching my T-shirt down over my bum, as far as the material allows.
The man lies back, comfortable with his nakedness. “Where’s that?”
“A few miles down the road.” I don’t know where to put my eyes. “Did you shag Lola Flanagan?”
“You were spying on me?” He sits up, alarm creeping into his smile.
“Don’t have to. She’s the only one who bangs men in the jacks.”
The man laughs. And that’s not just referencing his gender. He’s a mature man with golden-blond hair and wisps of gray at the temple. He’s possibly my dad’s age but so freaking gorgeous and sexy. I want to ask his name, but I also don’t want to know. He’s not asking for mine either.
“And no. I didn’t bang Lola. My brother came and got me, said there was an emergency.”
I chuckle into my hand, imagining his brother pulling him off Lola—all because I said she has an STD.
Poor Lola.
Not.
