AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He was thirty-six years old. An intelligent, well-respected surgeon who was up for a new job at a larger hospital on the mainland. He’d interviewed for the medical director of surgery position just last week. His wild days — and he had had a few doozies before and during med school — were long over. It was unacceptable to wake up like this. Without a clue about what he’d done in the past ten to twelve hours. He had responsibilities that didn’t allow him to be off his game because of a hangover, for one, or sidetracked by a one-night stand, for another.
Responsibilities and a golf date.
Shit, shit, shit.
A golf date with, among others, Dr. Ramon Tennyson, one of the key decision makers for the medical director job. Not to mention, a good friend of his mother. His dear, well-meaning mother, who had introduced Sawyer to Dr. Tennyson and had informed him of the job opening in the first place. What would she think if he blew it today?
He wasn’t going to blow it today even if it killed him. Which, gauging the pain in his head, it might.
Panicked, he raised his wrist so he could see his watch. It was 6:57 a.m. He’d be in no damn condition to hit the golf course in an hour if he didn’t get the hell up, take an ice-cold shower, and down enough coffee to chase away any lingering tequila from his blood. He ran his hand over his face, trying to wipe away the haziness.
Mariah rolled toward him, making a sexy, sleepy sound, and he held his breath. The corners of her tempting lips curved upward, but she didn’t open her eyes. The sheet was twisted around her waist. She wore a shiny dark red Forty-Niners jersey, and the mesh material ignited Sawyer’s imagination. He could sort of make out her breasts beneath the fabric. Full breasts with rosy nipples that he wished like hell he remembered. His pulse picked up and throbbed in his now alert cock.
He eased himself out of bed as gently as possible. He looked down to verify that Mariah slumbered on, and he couldn’t help noticing the blankets had shifted when he’d gotten up, revealing a dainty, translucent pair of skimpy panties with pink flowers on them … with Mariah’s slender body inside of them.
Swallowing hard, he ignored his headache and glanced around for his underwear and a bathroom. He spotted his tuxedo pants strewn on the floor and picked them up. No boxer briefs.
The first door he tried was a closet, but the next one was indeed the facilities, and lo and behold, there were his wrinkled, white tuxedo shirt and the plain white tee he’d worn underneath.
Still no underwear.
The mirror reflected a sorry-ass sight — his normally sloppy hair veering toward horror-movie awful, his chin and cheeks darkened with the stubbled growth of the last twenty-four hours. His brown eyes were drawn and bloodshot with dark shadows below. He ought to grab a shower — an ice-cold one for multiple reasons — before he faced up to Mariah, but it felt like an imposition on this woman he barely knew.
Barely knew.
The sick feeling in his gut intensified, and it had nothing to do with alcohol.
He wasn’t the type of guy who did one-night stands anymore. Had never been particularly big on them, though his past wasn’t perfect. But now… He shook his head. He was old enough to know better, about both the alcohol and the woman.
He owed her an apology. Evidently she’d been on board with whatever had happened between them, but that didn’t mean he was okay with it. With his decisions.
Sawyer had always been capable of going with the flow even when faced with the unexpected. It was that inherent ability that had him deciding screw the underwear and pulling on his pants commando. The T-shirt was next. He wadded the tux shirt into a tight ball in his fist.
After settling for splashing some cold water on his face with one hand — and stifling a few choice swear words at the shock of it — he dried off, straightened, and opened the bathroom door to face up to the alluring redhead in the bed. He’d wake her up and say he was sorry for acting like a hormone-crazed college kid, keeping his distance the whole time, and then smile and get the hell out. Except…
Damn it all.
In yet another unproud moment, he couldn’t get his legs to cooperate. Couldn’t bring himself to take the five strides to the bedside and rouse her. The door to escape the bedroom was closer, and without deliberation, he went through it and walked out of her apartment.
2
Sawyer Culver was a looker, no question about it.
Mariah awoke with his beautiful face in her mind — and a gut feeling that he was no longer next to her in bed. Bummer. Maybe if she didn’t actually look, she could pretend he was still there. She rolled to her side away from where he’d slept, keeping her eyes closed. Her leg veered backward to his spot a little bit, just to be sure.
Yep, gone.
For now.
She remembered the first time she’d met him, four or five years ago, when her brother had taken her to dinner to meet his then-girlfriend’s family. It was tough to forget meeting a man who looked like Sawyer with his just-scruffy-enough-to-make-a-woman’s-jaw-drop good looks with eyes that were intelligent enough that one could easily buy in to his respected-surgeon role as well.
The whisper in her head that sounded simply likeyessswhenever she interacted with him had only begun this weekend as she’d had the opportunity to talk to him more, get to know the man behind the growl-worthy exterior. All it had taken for Mariah to fall for him was a few hours of discovering the contradictions that were Sawyer: the rough-edged appearance with the charming yet sincere personality; the touch of guardedness on the outside that gave way to a man who cared hard for the people he loved; the very competent, ever-professional surgeon who turned out to be humble and down-to-earth on the inside.
Mariah had dated lookers before — God knew as a self-proclaimed flirt she’d pretty much dated every type of guy — but after a handful of drop-dead beautiful men, she’d tended to steer clear of them because they were mostly shallow and self-centered, some of them, more than other types, with an unbearable side serving of asshole. Though good looks were nice to gaze at and be seen with, at age twenty-nine, she was more concerned about the soul behind the exterior.
Sawyer had a beautiful soul. One that spoke to her, in spite of the potentially embarrassing, fully innocent night they’d spent together. That they’d slept in the same bed all night and hadn’t so much as kissed … for some reason, she found that kind of endearing. A tiny bit disappointing, yes, but truthfully, she’d been too tipsy last night to properly appreciate sex with Sawyer Culver. When it happened — and it would if she had her way — she wanted to be fully alert and able to savor every second of it, every inch of him.
When he’d disappeared to the bathroom as she’d made a second pot of coffee — shortly after midnight, she remembered — she’d been perplexed at first when he hadn’t come back. The sight that had met her when she’d gone looking for him, however, was still burned into her mind’s eye, and if she had any say in it, it always would be. Sawyer, who’d drunk a lot more than her, thanks to her brother’s rowdy firefighter friends and the nature of the male ego, had apparently stripped his clothes off and climbed into her bed. She’d found him stretched out on his stomach on top of the unmade bed, his perfect ass in plain, heart-stopping view. His face had been toward her, his tanned arms extended above his head to grasp her pillow, a position that did incredible justice to the muscles in his back and arms.
