Heat surged through Lily until her skin tingled, and it wasn’t only from the spotlights blazing down. Her head spun from Ethan’s touch, from his kiss, his passion—and, okay, a little from the alcohol.
Before she swooned right off the stage, she dragged her lips away from his. The heat behind the look he gave her seemed to reflect her own thought: that was definitely the best kiss she’d ever had. And the Peggy’s Pub crowd clearly approved because their cheers swirled around them. It sounded like they wanted an encore. And so did she.
He grabbed her hand, pulling her down the stairs and off the stage. Caught up in the moment, she stumbled after him. As they weaved through the throng, people got to their feet like their performance deserved a standing ovation. Palms patted her and Ethan’s back in congratulations because, of course, they’d won the karaoke competition.
Unable to keep from touching each other for long, they paused by the jukebox for another kiss. She sighed as his mouth worked its way down her neck. He pressed her against the flashing console, and her legs wrapped around his hips. As he wedged himself between her thighs, it started playing “Push It” by Salt-N-Pepa.
Adoring fans shoved them playfully, urging them to “Get a room.” But Lily knew what they really meant: “Stop denying what you’ve felt for each other from the start, what has been unavoidable all along.”
Stumbling past the bar, they gave Peggy a wave. The owner’s mouth hung agape, probably shocked by their resounding karaoke victory. The three-hundred-dollar prize was theirs.
“Keep the change!” Ethan yelled as he leaned against the door. It opened under his weight, and he dragged Lily into the parking lot.
The fresh air gripped her as firmly as Ethan’s hands. It cleared her mind a little. Instead of continuing to ride the high of their big win, every cell in her body homed in on the man in her arms. She needed him closer. Now.
She pulled his body against hers. The motion sent them stumbling back until they connected with a wall. He grinded her against it so hard she could almost feel it move.
An alarm started blaring somewhere, as though their passion was practically criminal. When the sound continued to echo through the parking lot, she realized the wall behind her was actually a Jeep with its alarm going off.
She grabbed Ethan’s hand and led him in the general direction of the lodge. They laughed and stumbled all the way, pausing only to grope, caress, explore. When they arrived at the door to his room, she jammed a hand into his back pocket and pulled out his key card. It took a few attempts to sweep it in front of the pad.
The light flashed green, and the lock clicked. She shoved the door open and headed inside. Tugging on his belt, she unfastened it as she backed up to the bed. His lips remained glued to hers as they staggered through the dark room. His fingers fumbled at the hem of her shirt, pushing it higher, exposing her breasts.
Is this really happening? Are we going to do this? Maybe it was the alcohol. Or Step Twenty: Reach Out and Take What You Want. Or the fact that she wanted him so bad it hurt.
Her head swirled, but not with drunkenness. It swirled with excitement, with Ethan’s scent and the lyrics he’d sung to her.
She opened her eyes and pulled away. His face glowed red from the neon sign lit up outside the window. She may have been waffling with uncertainty about her future, but the one thing she felt certain about was her desire for him.
As she yanked him in for another kiss, she backed up to his bed. Her next step came down on something round. Her foot rolled out from under her, and she crashed onto the mattress, dragging Ethan down on top of her.
Something hard dug into her shoulder blade, and she moaned. She arched her back, pressing her breasts against him. Misinterpreting, he groaned and nuzzled her neck.
She pushed against his chest. “Wait. Something’s wrong.”
“How can you say that? It hasn’t felt this right in … Well, it’s never felt this right for me.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet.” Her look softened before the poky thing rolled and jabbed her in the neck.
He pulled back an inch. “Then why the face?”
“Because I’m lying on something very painful.”
“Oh, sorry.”
He reached behind her and pulled out Molly’s spiky hedgehog toy. He frowned at it as though doing his taxes while drunk. Suddenly, he jerked away from her, running his eyes over his untidy bed. “Lily, I didn’t toss all this stuff out of my suitcase.”
She pushed herself into a sitting position. “Really? You have me in your bed and you’re worried about the mess? We seem to have different priorities.”
“I mean I didn’t do this.” He widened his eyes. “Someone must have broken in here.”
That overwhelming fog faded, and her thoughts crystalized. She reached over to the bedside lamp and hit the switch. It flickered on, highlighting a jumble of clothes, shoes, and toiletry items strewn across the bed. His suitcases lay upended, clothes heaped on the floor, along with the broken corner lamp and pieces of the alarm clock.
She scrambled off the bed. “Did they take anything?”
Ethan shoved aside a few things on the floor with a foot. “I don’t think so. There wasn’t much to steal. Especially because my wallet was already gone.” He froze and swung back to her. “We should check your room.”
She gasped. “Molly!”
Racing out the door, she stumbled down the hall to the next room. She swiped her card and pushed the door open, whistling softly. “Molly.”
Lily had left the bedside light on for the puppy, so she spotted her overturned suitcase and scattered belongings right away. It looked like a dog’s breakfast. They’d taken only a few steps inside when the door to the bathroom creaked open.
They froze as her knitted jumper came floating out across the floor. It caught on the door, and Molly slipped out from beneath it. Her tail wagged so hard it nearly knocked her off her feet.
Ethan swept her up, accepting her frantic kisses. “You okay, girl?” He kissed the top of her head. “That must have been frightening.”
“The junk in my suitcase is one thing, but they would have to be a monster to hurt a puppy.” She gave Molly a scratch under the chin.
The furball returned the affection by gnawing on her thumb.
“Looks like the lodge’s property got damaged too.” She pointed to the smashed painting on the floor and the gashes in the sofa cushion. “I guess we have no choice but to involve the sheriff.”
She pulled her phone out of her pocket, about to dial. Heavy footsteps thudded down the hallway, approaching her room. When she looked up, two men blocked the doorway.
They both wore a metal star above the left pocket of their tan shirts—one gold, one silver. The sheriff and his deputy.
“Well, that’s convenient,” she said.
The sheriff crooked a finger at them. “Can we talk to you guys out here for a minute?”
It didn’t sound like he was really asking. Lily’s knees wobbled a little, and she jammed her phone back into her pocket. However, Ethan hadn’t moved yet. He cast a quick eye over the room, looking more sober than she felt.
He tilted his head and whispered so only she could hear. “Be respectful and follow my lead.” Then he spun toward the door, staggering out into the hall with Molly still clutched in his arms. “What’s the problem, gentlemen?” he slurred.
So, the sheriff was there to talk to them, and Ethan’s plan was to act drunker than they were? But she trusted his judgment, so she stumbled out after him, pretending to trip on one of her shoes lying on the floor—okay, so she actually tripped. Maybe she didn’t have to pretend that hard after all.
The sheriff planted his hands on his hips and scanned the room. “Looks like you’ve been busy.”
“Just having a little fun!” Ethan added a little “woo-hoo!”
What? They weren’t even going to tell them the truth about the break-in? Feeling a little uncertain, Lily gave a fist-pump to corroborate his story.
The sheriff didn’t seem to be in the partying mood. “We got a call from Peggy’s Pub about a dine and dash.”
Ethan weaved his head back and forth in an exaggerated “no.” “We won the karaoke thing, so we don’t need to pay.”
“The winnings would have covered it if you’d actually won.”
Lily gaped at him, probably pulling off that whole too-drunk effect well. “W-we didn’t win?” She tried to recall the moments after the song ended, but all she could remember was Ethan’s kiss, his tongue, his hands. “But … But everyone cheered after the song was over.”
“I think that was mostly because it was finally over,” the deputy joked, but his stoic expression remained chiseled on his face.
The sheriff chuckled. “Or else they were screaming after your mic drop blasted everyone’s eardrums. Those were cries of pain, not encouragement.”
They couldn’t be serious. She remembered it all happening differently. “But the back-patting and congratulations … I thought that was because we’d won.”
The smile lines creasing the sheriff’s face made it clear that he was enjoying their shock. “They were probably shoving you away from them, trying to get you two under control. Apparently, you took out two tables loaded with drinks on your way out of the restaurant and busted the jukebox.”
“By the way,” the deputy said. “Peggy has added those charges onto your bill. Plus, a patron claimed you dented their Jeep. You’re just lucky it was a piece of junk and they don’t care to pursue anything.”
Ethan leaned like a tree in the wind before propping himself against the hallway wall. He squinted at the deputy through one eye. “Are you kidding? We killed that song.”
“Oh, you definitely killed it.”
“I’ll prove it to you!” he said, about twenty decibels too loud. “I HAD THE CHIME OF MY KNIFE, NO I NEAR da fear … the … wayward door …” He tapered off into mumbles like he’d fallen asleep standing.
A door further down the hall opened and someone popped their head out. Scowling, they searched for the source of the singing and spotted the sheriff and his deputy. They ducked back inside and shut the door.
Lily frowned. That earlier high was quickly turning into a low. She didn’t think she’d have to wait until morning to have a hangover. She let that feeling take over so she could match Ethan’s performance. Sinking to the floor, she laid down. When she closed her eyes, she instantly regretted it. The world behind her eyelids spun.
“Peggy has agreed not to take things any further, so long as you pay for your bill and the damages,” one of the men said—she wasn’t sure which. “So why don’t we get that sorted out right now and then we can talk about what happened to your room.”
Lily blinked up at the two officers standing over her. They were looking down at her, waiting for an answer. She supposed, because Ethan was still botching the words to “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” as he raised Molly over his head like Baby from Dirty Dancing.
Following Ethan’s lead, she just avoided answering. “You two have very fancy belts. I should get a belt like that with all those pockets … pockets … pockets. That’s a funny word, isn’t it? Am I even saying it right? Pock. Ets.”
Something suddenly pounced on her. A tail whacked her eye. Molly began licking her cheek, her nose, her eyeball. Giggling, she tried to pull the wiggly thing off.
“Officers! This is an unprovoked attack. Aren’t you going to do something? Arrest this sausage dog!”
Wrangling the pup, she held it up to face them as though her cuteness was a weapon. However, her plan backfired as Molly chose that moment to relieve herself. The stream arced through the air to land on the deputy’s black boot.
Lily’s face fell slack.
The deputy shook his boot off. “Looks like a carpet cleaning bill just got added to the list.”
The sheriff sighed. “We’re obviously not going to settle any of this tonight. Let’s bring them in until they sober up.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, but when she looked at Ethan, he didn’t argue.
“What about Molly?” she asked.
Since Lily was still on the floor, the deputy rolled her over onto her stomach. “Don’t worry. She can come with us for the night. I’ve got a comfy bed my bloodhound, Rosie, uses when she visits the sheriff’s office.”
With her face pressed against the ground, she felt him pull her arms back, and a second later, cold metal clamped around her wrists. One moment, she was snogging Ethan, and the next, she was kissing a musty, old carpet. She marveled at how quickly the night had taken a turn.
Once they were settled into the rear of the cruiser, the deputy went to grab Molly, along with her leash and some food for the night.
As they waited, there were a lot of things Lily wanted to say. However, the only thing that found its way out of her mouth was, “I can’t believe we lost. I remember us being … mind-blowing. Or else I’m drunker than I thought. It’s a good thing we didn’t …” She eyed Ethan. “You know …”
He snorted. “Or maybe it would’ve been better if we had. You might’ve remembered me as being more mind-blowing than I am.”