Then, he was stepping back and my head was spinning for a whole new reason. Something bright passed across his eyes, then disappeared behind the polite compassion I'd seen before.

“Have a good night, Miss.” He gave me a half-smile. “And pleasant dreams.”

He waited until I was safely inside the building before he got back into the cab, but the cab didn't pull away until after I looked out the window of my apartment. How sweet! He’d waited to make sure I'd gotten inside safely. I sighed and smiled. If I had any luck, I'd have very pleasant dreams indeed.

Chapter 5

If I dreamt of my hot savior, I didn't remember. I did, however, remember with annoying clarity the events of the previous night. It seemed that I'd had enough alcohol to behave like an idiot and to have a massive, splitting headache, but not enough to make my memory too hazy. That sucked. If I had to suffer through the indignity of knowing I'd nearly fallen in the bar, been the cause of a fight and had then thrown myself at a total stranger, shouldn't I have at least gotten a reprieve on the hangover?

I groaned as I forced one eye open. My curtains were drawn so the only light in the bedroom was my alarm clock, which was currently telling me that I'd slept at least three hours past my normal weekend wake up time of nine o'clock. It was times like this that I was glad I lived alone. There would be no one to shame me into attempting to function at the moment.

I crawled out of bed and headed the few steps across the hall to my bathroom, pausing every second step or so to wait until everything stopped spinning before moving on. I downed a couple painkillers, drank a few wary sips of water and then slowly made my way back to bed. As I crawled under the covers, I noticed I'd managed to shower and put on pajamas last night, which was more than I'd expected. Granted, the pajamas were on backwards, but at least I was clothed.

I debated the merits of fixing my pajamas but fell back asleep before I could make a decision. When I woke up again, the clock said it was a little past two. I knew I should probably eat something, but the idea of food didn't seem like a good thing at the moment. Based on my very few previous experiences with being hung over, I knew I'd probably feel up to something later tonight, but even the thought of eating right now was enough to make me gag. I'd made it through this whole thing without throwing up and I fully intended to keep it that way.

I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep. Mindy would want a report of how things had gone, but I really didn't want to get into that right now. All I wanted was to sleep the rest of the weekend away and then bury myself in work come Monday.

No, I realized, that wasn't the only thing I wanted. A pair of dark gray eyes danced behind my closed lids and they were quickly followed by those lips. I made a sound and pulled my blanket up against my face. That mouth. I could still feel it against mine, the way his lips had moved, how his tongue had explored every inch of my mouth.

I'd kissed exactly five people in my entire life. Ronald, of course, but there had been four others. Jason Keller had given me my first kiss when I was eight and he'd been the older man at ten. I'd played Spin the Bottle the summer between eighth and ninth grade and my former boyfriend Timmy had stolen a kiss then. He'd moved away a few weeks later. My junior year of high school, I'd gone to a party and gotten drunk for the first time. Apparently, Adelle and I had kissed during a game of Truth and Dare. I wasn't sure that counted since I had little more than a fuzzy impression of it. And then there'd been Vincent Ryan, my high school crush, who'd given me a kiss after senior prom.

Not a single kiss had even come close to the one I'd had with my knight in shining armor. I tried telling myself it was just because I really didn't have any good comparisons. After all, aside from Ronald, the other kisses had been when I was young and inexperienced. I snorted at the thought of myself as experienced now, then winced at the pain in my head.

Youth had nothing to do with it. Ronald was an adult and I'd loved kissing him. He'd made me shiver with delight, but I'd never felt my knees turn to jelly when we'd kissed. It had been like that in bed too, I admitted for the first time. I didn't have anyone else to compare him to, but I knew there hadn't been the same kind of fire between us that other people had. Sure, I enjoyed having sex with him and he'd been a fairly considerate lover, but I'd never dreamed about him. Fantasized about him. I'd never felt the need to touch myself because I couldn't stop thinking about his hands on my body.

Not like the hands I'd had on me last night.

“Fuck,” I mumbled.

I knew it probably wasn't a good idea, but I couldn't stop myself thinking about him. From the first moment I'd looked into his eyes, I'd felt desire heating me up. Then we'd kissed and it had been like fireworks or lightning or something else that had a burst of energy and light so strong that it was dangerous. I'd wanted to feel his hands on my bare skin. Running up my back. Cupping my breasts. His fingers between my legs, touching me.

I sighed and flopped onto my back. The sudden movement wasn't a good idea, but it at least broke my train of thought for a moment. I closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep, but my savior came creeping back in, bringing with him vague fantasies of his body and mine, writhing together in pleasure.

I grabbed an extra pillow and pressed it against my face, letting out a cry of frustration. I had thin walls and the last thing I needed was one of my neighbors thinking I was in trouble and calling the cops.

Why couldn't I stop thinking about him? I wanted to sleep away my hangover, forget about that disaster of a date and move on, but every time I tried to clear my mind enough to drift off, he came popping back in. What was it about him? Sure, he was hot, but so were a lot of people. I mean, Mr. Finkle, the biology teacher, had a certain bookish hotness to him, but he wasn't the one plaguing my thoughts. And it wasn't my ex-fiancé either.

I caught my breath as I realized I’d passed a milestone. For the past two weeks, every thought of Ronald had brought with it pain and longing. Every time I'd used the words 'ex' and 'former,' it had been like a part of me being ripped out. Just now, when I'd thought about him, however, there'd only been a twinge and a pang of regret. Something had changed. Halle-fuckin-luiah.

Had it been my decision to go on the blind date, signaling that I was trying to move on? That was possible, I supposed, but even when things had been going well at the beginning with Steven, I hadn't been able to truly see myself with someone other than Ronald. Was it possible that it had been my white knight? The fact that he'd rescued me, protected me? He'd done what Ronald had promised to do. And then there'd been the desire I'd felt for him, something so strong that I couldn't entirely blame it on the alcohol.

That, I knew, had been the moment I'd first realized I could be with someone else. Without even telling me his name, the stranger had not only rescued me from Steven, but had started to free me from my past.

I groaned in frustration. It so wasn't fair.

My phone rang, the sound cutting through my head in a burst of bright, musical pain. I grabbed for it, not even bothering to look at the caller ID before answering.

“Hey there!” Mindy's bubbly voice came from the other end. “I got tired of waiting for a report on how last night went. I'm hoping this means it went well and you didn't call me because you were too tired from all that hot, sweaty sex.”

I scoffed, a bitter that sound that burst out of me in a huff. “Yeah, not so much.” I sighed and pushed myself into a sitting position. My head throbbed, but the bed didn't spin, so that was absolutely an improvement.