Page 25 of The Moment You Know

Paige could feel the tentacles of panic starting to wrap around her, making her entire body stiffen and escalating her heart rate, which in turn, caused her head to feel like someone was hitting it with a hammer. Focusing on her breathing exercises again, she told herself she wasn’t a defenseless young girl, that Carter was dead, and there had to be a reasonable explanation for why she was in bed with someone in a strange room.

Had she picked up a random guy at the bar and ended up in bed with him? If she had, that would explain pretty much everything.

But if she had, why was she wearing the ugliest nightgown ever? It had been a lot of years since she’d had sex, but she knew that this nightgown would be a non-starter.

Mindful of her head, she shifted her body a little to try and get a gander at the person behind her and that’s when she saw what looked like an IV catheter inserted into her hand. Somewhat shocked, she followed the clear tubing over to an IV pole and up to a half-filled bag of fluid.

Wait a hot minute. Was she in the hospital? Even more confused than she had been a few minutes ago (not to mention more worried, because the alternative was that she was somewhere getting an organ harvested for the black market), she looked around the room some more, as if she needed more proof than being hooked up to an IV. Her vision was hindered a little by the dim lighting, but she was able to see the bare walls, a white curtain dividing the room, and what was obviously a hospital bed she was lying on; the metal side rails were a dead giveaway.

She was in the hospital and it wasn’t a dream.

All for a hangover? That seemed excessive.

She started to feel a little fuzzy again, but she tried to fight it, remembering that there was someone in bed with her she needed to meet, since she had no idea who it was. She shifted a little more and the person behind her pulled her back against him in an even tighter embrace, as if reflexively. In the process, her boob got a healthy squeeze as well, drawing her gaze down to the hand, only to blink at the Tag Heuer watch on the man’s wrist.

Oh, my God … she knew that watch.

“David?” she asked tentatively.

There was movement behind her again, only this time it felt like it was the ‘waking up’ variety. Her assumption was confirmed shortly after when a throat was cleared, followed by a sleep-roughened voice, that said, “I’m here.”

She knew that voice, would know it until the day she died, but it simply made no sense that David was curled up with her like a lover. How? Why? What the fuck had she done last night?

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Is this real?”

“Yes, it’s real,” he told her, then repeated his question. “How are you feeling?”

Where to start? “My head hurts like hell and for some reason, we’re in bed together. And … you’re feeling me up.”

The utter confusion in her voice made David pause. It seemed, that unlike her earlier remembrance of him, this time it was rooted in the present, although she had no idea why he was with her. Which meant that as well as what happened at the restaurant, she also didn’t remember what had happened in the past few hours. It was like her ‘amnesia’ had grown, which didn’t seem like a good thing.

“I’m not—” he broke off and looked down, realizing that he totally was feeling her up. At some point, his hand had migrated from between her tits, to outright grabbing one. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

He let go of her like his hand was on fire. Then gently, so as to not jostle her too much, he began to separate the rest of his body from hers; to his near horror, he had a decent chub in progress.

Once they were no longer attached, he moved to the chair by her bed, where he proceeded to explain their sleeping situation. “We were in bed together because you wanted me to hold you.”

She didn’t remember instigating that, but then decided it didn’t matter and almost immediately forgot about it. She was getting her first really good look at him and saw he was the pirate David from her dreams, with long hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Which obviously meant that those dreams hadn’t been dreams at all and he’d been with her for hours. “Why are you here with me?”

“You don’t remember anything?” he asked. While he was glad to see she seemed more coherent, it was upsetting that she still didn’t have full recall.

“I remember being at work,” she said slowly, then tried to think forward from there. “Oh.” The word came out on a shocked breath as the first piece came to her with what felt like zero effort. “I saw you. At …” She could picture the inside of a building, with marble floors, but the name eluded her.

“Bender’s,” he supplied.

“That’s right,” she murmured, as her eyes widened. “You were with Ashley.”

“Yes.”

“She and I got into a fight.”

He nodded his confirmation, wishing like hell they didn’t have to re-live it; the first time had been bad enough.

Paige rubbed her forehead as another piece fell into place. “I called her a cunt, didn’t I?”

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