Oh…my…God.
My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head, especially when I noticed that although his shoulder-length hair was damp, as though he’d recently showered, he was still dressed in his clothes from last night. His more-than-slightly rumpled clothes from last night…
“Paige, is that Dawson?” Ryleigh asked. “Why is he in your room?”
“Uh…” I sputtered, my mind completely obliterated.
“And what does he mean by ‘last night’? Did you guys—”
“Gotta go, Ry, call you later.” I hit the end button before she could say another word, and then, in case she called back, turned the thing completely off. When I looked up at Dawson, he was full-on grinning, but he wasn’t looking at me. No, his eyes were focused farther down, on my—
“Shit,” I said, yanking the sheet up to cover my naked body, and a low rumble of laughter left his throat.
“A little late for modesty, don’t you think?” he asked, picking up one of the steaming coffee cups and coming forward to the side of the bed.
“You can’t sit,” I said, pointing at the door. “You’re not staying.”
“No? You gonna get up and make me leave?” He waggled his brows and then planted himself on the bed, holding the cup out for me to grab.
“I don’t want that. I want to know what the hell you’re doing in here and how you got a key.”
Dawson spread himself out across the end of the bed and leaned his head against his fist. “I’m sure the answer to the first will come back to you soon enough, and as for the second—you gave it to me.”
I gave him my key? What the hell was this fuckery?
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I didn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Wouldn’t you? You don’t seem to know yourself very well, Pita. Perhaps I should remind you.” He leaned forward and tilted his head to the side, coming straight for my lips.
He is not about to kiss me. There’s no way.
But he wasn’t stopping, and I had to let go of the hold I had on the sheet to hold out my hand and stop him from coming any farther.
“Explain what the hell is going on, or by God, I’ll use that plastic pastry knife on the appendage of yours you’re so fond of.”
A surprised laugh left Dawson’s throat, but it soon died out and a furrow formed on his brow. “You’re serious?” he asked.
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
He did another once-over, and I kept my body rigid and ready to attack if he tried any funny moves again. He noticed, and when his gaze met mine again, there was an expression there that seemed almost…sad.
Sad? That couldn’t be right. Melancholy was not an emotion Dawson had ever experienced in his life.
“I see,” Dawson said, and just as quickly as the look had come, it passed. “Well. What do you want to know?”
“What happened last night, for starters.”
“Okay.” He took a long sip of his coffee. “Let’s just say I took you up on your offer.”
“My offer? To…what? Make horrible decisions caused by an excessive amount of gold-flecked demon juice that was forced into my veins by a manwhoring narcissist and then black out?”
He nodded. “That would be the one.”
“That explains so much,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. Then I asked the question I didn’t actually want to know the answer to. “You didn’t…I mean, we didn’t…did we? Tell me fast.”
“Really?” His expression turned to one of a wounded puppy. “You’re killing my ego here, Paige.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
Dawson sighed and pushed off the bed, getting to his feet. Then his jacket came off, landing on the bed with a soft swish. Followed by him unbuttoning his shirt…
I held up my hand. “Stop right there. I didn’t say I wanted to get it on with you. I’m asking if we did. I appreciate the strip show, but you can keep your clothes on and Channing your Tatum some other time. Preferably in front of someone else.”
“You know as well as I do that you’ll want proof.” His shirt fell open, and he let it slide off his broad shoulders and fall to the floor. “So, I’m going to give it to you.”
I gulped, my eyes huge as I took in every sculpted inch of him. Jesus, you never knew what someone was hiding underneath. He hadn’t had abs like that nine years ago, had he? Sure, he’d been in shape, but…wow. No wonder the guy got around. I would too if my abs were cut from fucking granite.
“I don’t recall you being quite so silent last night,” he said, and after I forced my eyes away—before I started drooling—I scowled at him.
“Getting naked doesn’t prove anything,” I said, trying to sound dismissive, though the reaction my body was having to his hadn’t escaped my notice. My skin felt like it was on fire, my pulse had kicked up, and there was no way I could deny the dull throb between my thighs that was growing stronger with every passing second. I also couldn’t deny that my body felt thoroughly used, which only ever happened after a marathon fuck sesh, and when Dawson turned around to show me his back, there was no doubt left in my mind as to what had happened last night.
There were bright red lines that went from the top of his neck all the way down—someone’s nails had gotten to him in a desperate way in the last few hours, and I had a horrible feeling that someone was…
Me.
Me.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
“Oh noooooo.” I moaned, my head dropping into my free hand. What the hell had I been thinking? I’d slept with my one-time best friend turned frenemy, or whatever he was, and I couldn’t even remember it? That wasn’t just horrifying—that was embarrassing. “How could you let us do that?” I said, peeking through my fingers to make sure Dawson was putting his shirt back on. He was. Thank baby Jesus.
“You said, and I quote, ‘You leave without giving me at least three orgasms tonight, and I’ll make sure the claw marks down your back are permanent.’ I know a threat when I hear one, so I decided it’d be best to…exceed expectations. Several times.”
When I gaped at him, Dawson’s lips turned up into a crooked grin.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he said.
With a whimper, I thrust my cup into his hand and then burrowed under the covers. “This is not happening.”
“Come on, love, it was bound to. Even your girls placed bets on us.”
Ugh. I knew that part to be true. I’d been on the receiving end of relentless teasing and harassment from Quinn, Shayne, and Ryleigh for years. They were all convinced that one day I’d end up with Dirty Dick Dawson, and nothing I said could persuade them otherwise. At least they’d never find out about this—
Shiiiiiit. Ryleigh had heard him coming into my room, and no doubt she would tell the girls, and then they would know we—
“Damn you, Dick,” I yelled, covering my head with a pillow so that I could somehow drown out the reality of what had happened, but the stupid thing smelled just like him. I sat up and threw it at his head.
“Oh, I’m back to Dick this morning?”
“What do you think?”
“Most women wouldn’t think that was so terrible. In fact, they’d probably demand an encore.”
“Not in a million fucking years.”
He responded by tugging the sheet down so it fell to my hips. “You think sleeping with me is the worst thing you could do?”
“I can’t imagine anything worse,” I said, yanking the cover back over me.
“There’s always something worse.”
I propped myself up on my elbow and my eyes turned to slits. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”
Dawson opened his mouth, shut it, and then shook his head. “Nothing. You should drink your coffee, Paige.”
“No. What did you mean by that? Did I do something worse?”
“Like…?”
“Did I go back to my parents’ party and hog-tie everyone?”
“Yo
u know how to do that?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. We obviously didn’t pull a Hangover moment and steal a tiger or vandalize our hotel room, and nobody got hitched, so I can’t imagine what could possibly be worse.”
Dawson hesitated. “That’s not…exactly…true.”
“You’re telling me there’s a tiger hiding in my bathtub?”
“Ehhh, not that one.”
I glanced around the immaculate room and pursed my lips. “Dawson.”
“Yes, Paige?”
“Are you trying to tell me you married a prostitute last night?”
He gave me a funny look. “I don’t think she’d call herself that.”
“Did we run into someone who needed a green card or something?”
“Christ, Pita—”
“Oh my God, is that it? Was I the best man or the maid of honor?”
Dawson gripped the back of his neck and threw a hand out in my direction. “It’s you, you pain in the ass.”
I lurched back like I’d been slapped, and then sat there, blinking. The laughter I expected to accompany his joke never came, but as the ridiculousness of what he’d just said sank in, I started to giggle, softly at first, and then full-blown laughter that had me doubling over.
“You think this is funny?” he said, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline.
I couldn’t wipe the tears that fell from laughing so hard fast enough from my face as I struggled to catch my breath, but still I couldn’t stop the fit. And the whole time, Dawson just kept watching me, his stance wide and arms crossed over his chest. He looked at me like he was waiting for some hint that I remembered what had really happened last night, and when his expression didn’t change, when he didn’t yell out “Gotcha!” or “Yes, there’s really a tiger in the bathroom,” my giggles slowed to a stop.
He tilted his head to the side ever so slightly. “You finished?”
No. What he’d said couldn’t be true. He’s lying, I thought, even as that small asshole of an inner voice whispered, Dawson’s not a liar.
I swallowed. “That’s…impossible,” I managed.
“Can’t be impossible if it’s true. And Paige…I’m not lying. Not even close.”
The silence between us lay thick, almost suffocating, as my brain worked a mile a minute trying to come up with a rational explanation for what happened last night that didn’t include me ending up with a ring on my finger.
Oh God. A ring.
I whipped out my left hand from under the sheet and blew out a relieved sigh when there wasn’t a piece of jewelry anywhere to be seen.
See? There was the proof. I’d never get married in the first place, but even on the 0.0000000001 percent chance I did, I certainly would not be saying any vows without a big-ass rock on my finger.
Holding up my hand, I said, “Nice try, Dick, but no dice. Thanks for letting me do some bodily damage to your back last night, but you can kindly see yourself out now.”
“You wouldn’t let me buy a ring because, and this is another direct quote, ‘If it’s not from Tiffany’s, it’s not going on my finger,’ and since they were closed last night, you settled for an IOU.”
“I said Tiffany’s specifically?”
He nodded. “You did.”
“And I settled for an IOU? Honey, I don’t settle, and certainly not when we’re talking jewelry.”
He cupped his hands like a megaphone and leaned forward. “You. Did. Last. Night.”
“Gee, I guess we’d better go shopping, then,” I said.
Dawson gave a curt nod, as if to say thanks for finally seeing things my way, and then he pulled a bottle of water and a packet of ibuprofen out of the bakery bag and handed them to me. “Tiffany’s opened at ten, so as soon as you’re ready, we can go. There’s a couple nearby, one at the—”
“Stop,” I said, waving my hand in white-flag surrender. “Just stop. I don’t want to hear any more about some fake—”
He turned back to the desk, grabbed a sheet of paper from next to the bag, and then tossed it in my direction.
I barely glanced at it after reading the words “Marriage Certificate,” and turned it around to face him. “All this tells me is that you’re psychotic and woke up early this morning to go buy a fake certificate of marriage to convince me that I made an incredibly dumb decision while under the influence.”
“Well, I’d show you the video, but I’m afraid it needs a bit of editing before we’ll get our copy.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Riiiight. Of course. Because it takes so much time to Photoshop my head onto some Vegas bride’s body as proof.”
Dawson shook his head. “I knew you’d be a hard sell, but it was easier to talk you into getting married than to remind you that you are.”
“I’m beginning to think you roofied me last night.”
“Not funny.”
“Lighten up, Dick.”
When he continued to frown, I decided to humor him—but I needed some damn clothes on first.
Throwing off the sheet, I scooted to the end of the bed and pushed myself to a standing position, and when the woozy hangover didn’t cause me to fall over, I went over to get my suitcase.
“Okay,” I said. “So, say we did get married. Give me all the juicy details.”
When Dawson didn’t immediately respond, I glanced over my shoulder to see his jaw slack and his gaze directly on my bare derriere. Well, then.
“Dawson,” I said again, and his eyes snapped up to mine. “Details.”
“Huh? Oh…” He cleared his throat while I threw my suitcase on the bed and unzipped it. “Well, uh… Sorry, what did you want to know?”
I took out my favorite pair of ripped jeans and an oversized off-the-shoulder sweater, and reached for my red pumps before my aching feet had me grabbing my combat boots instead.
“You can start by telling me where this supposed wedding took place.”
“It’s on the marriage certificate. The Little White Wedding Chapel a few blocks down,” he said, as he watched me get dressed. A few minutes ago I might’ve felt a little powerful that he hadn’t taken his eyes off me yet, but now? All I could think of was that I wanted to drown him in a vat of Goldschläger.
“Yes, but that doesn’t tell me anything. Was it a glamorous suite with a built-in waterfall, or some staid, churchlike setting, or, heaven forbid, one of those over-the-top Elvis rooms—”
“It was a drive-thru.”
My hand stilled on the button of my pants. “What did you say?”
“You couldn’t be bothered with getting out of the car, and you thought a drive-thru sounded like fun, so we decided to go through the Tunnel of Love instead.”
Surely I was hearing things, because it sounded like he said— “The Tunnel of Love? It sounds like we got fake-married at a fucking amusement park.”
He shrugged. “It’s world famous. And we didn’t get fake anything.”
“That’s the best you can come up with? That we got fake-married in a car…a car. Like that thing you drive. An automobile. A motor vehicle. A rust bucket with wheels.” I had to still be sleeping. That was the only plausible explanation for this. “Let me guess. This ‘car’ was actually a taxi.”
“Try a limo. And we didn’t get fake-married, Paige, we got—”
“Married for real. Yeah, yeah.” I put the edge of an elastic band in my mouth as I gathered my tangled mess of hair into a loose bun, and after I wrapped the band around twice, I opened my mouth to keep denying Dawson’s words, but then there it was—the flashes of Dawson, still in his midnight-blue suit, sans jacket, standing next to me in the sunroof in the back of a limo, repeating vows back to a woman with bright purple hair, pink lipstick, and a funny name.
What the hell was that?
You know that intense feeling of dread you get in the pit of your stomach when you know something’s not quite right, and you want to ask because you will go nuts if you don’t know the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but at the same ti
me you also don’t want to know because you’d rather stay oblivious, since the knowledge could rip your whole damn world wide apart?
Yeah. I was right about there.
I sucked in a lungful of air, and when I exhaled, I said, “Um. There wasn’t a…Sally something Tit…ball…was there?” Please let me be hallucinating. Please let there have been some absinthe last night to account for this fuckery. I promise I’ll never drink gold devil dust again.
Dawson snatched the certificate off the bed and read from the top. “‘This is to certify that the undersigned, Justice Sally Sue Titball…’”
My eyes widened. “No. No, no, no…”
“‘…did on the fourth day of November join in lawful wedlock Richard James Dawson of Los Angeles, California and Paige Iris Traynor-Ashcroft of Los Angeles, California…’”
“Oh God. Nooo—”
“‘…with their mutual consent, in the presence of…’”
“Mutual consent?”
“‘…and signed by Justice Sally Sue Titball in Clark County, state of Nevada.’”
“Fuuuuuuck, make it stop.”
Dawson lowered the paper. “Coming back to you now, isn’t it?”
“This isn’t happening,” I said, putting the heels of my hands over my eyes. Collapsing onto the edge of the bed, I hunched over, my elbows resting on my thighs as I attempted to block out what I knew was the truth. “I couldn’t be stupid enough to marry you. I just couldn’t.”
“There, there,” Dawson said, coming around the bed to sit beside me. His hand settled on my back and made what I assumed he meant to be soothing circles, but it only made me think of what I’d done to his back, and moved out of his reach. “Oh, cheer up, love. It could be worse.”
“I thought this was the worse scenario you were talking about.”
“Nah. You could be married to someone you hate.”
I glared at him. “I do hate you.”
“By worse I meant more along the lines of some-stranger-after-you-for-your-money-and-you-didn’t-sign-a-prenup kind of worse, not ‘I married my friend,’ which isn’t really that terrible in the grand scheme of things.”
P.I.T.A. (L.A. Liaisons Book 3) Page 4
