Excerpt from SMOOTH TALKIN' STRANGER    

Serena Hamilton awoke with a pounding headache that didn’t bother her nearly as much as it should have--probably because her body felt so damned good. Her toes were still curling, her nerve endings still humming in contentment. She thought of that scene in Gone with the Wind: Scarlet in bed the morning after Rhett had carried her up the stairs. Good God. Steve had always been talented at bringing her pleasure, but last night he'd been spectacular. He'd picked up a trick or two since the last time...

The last time.

The words stabbed into her with painful precision. The last time. The last time had, in fact, been the last time. Her body stopped humming, her toes uncurled, and her headache threatened to crack open her skull.

No, no, no. It had all been a dream. An incredibly lovely dream. But it had all felt so blessedly real and warm and tactile--not her hands touching her body, but someone else's, not her body pressed against a soft pillow, but pressed against firm muscles and toned limbs. The power of the mind to transform desires into such realistic fantasy was absolutely amazing. But none of her previous dreams had ever been as overpowering.

Slowly she opened her eyes. The sunlight streamed in through a bare window. Who'd removed her frilly curtains? Who'd left the window naked, without personality, without beauty? Furthermore, who'd changed the size and shape of the window?

With a slow dawning, her fuzzy brain began to gain clarity, and she realized the window wasn't hers. Nor was the wall. God help her. This room wasn't hers either.

Her heart kicked painfully against her ribs. Her throat knotted up, and she couldn't have swallowed even if her mouth hadn't felt as though someone had stuffed cotton into it. Her stomach roiled. She thought she might bring up the frozen strawberry margaritas and cheese-laden nachos she'd feasted on late last night.

Cautiously she shifted her gaze until it slammed into the man sitting in a chair beside the bed. A man whose image hovered at the edges of recognition.

His elbows were planted on jean-clad thighs, his large hands wrapped around a black mug, his deep brown eyes studying her. His denim shirt, only half buttoned, barely revealed a light covering of hair on his chest. At least he was dressed.

Unfortunately, she wasn't. The horror of that realization hit her hard. Inhaling sharply, she clutched the sheet against her chest as though that action could somehow undo the improbable scenario screaming through her mind. She felt as though her thought processes were stumbling along creating a children's book like the ones she'd read to Riker when he was a baby.

Naked.

Naked in bed.

Naked in bed with a stranger.

A handsome stranger at that, in a dark, elemental sort of way. Locks of his black hair fell forward, not in any sort of style, more like something that simply didn't want to be controlled. He didn't look as though he'd shaved in a couple of days. Five o'clock shadow that more closely resembled forty-eight hour shadow.

Her first impression was that he wasn't the type she'd want to meet in a deserted alley. All right. Obviously that hadn't been her first impression. Since she was lying in his bed, she had to assume that her first impression had been something else entirely different--an attraction that she'd been unable to deny.

"I wasn't sure how you liked your coffee," he said in a deep rumble that implied he knew different things about her, her preferences in other areas, aspects to her that she might wish he didn't know.

He cocked his head slightly to the side, and she slid her gaze to four black mugs setting on the nightstand. She briefly wondered if this man was aware that bright colors existed and could do a great deal to improve one's mood first thing in the morning. She preferred yellows and oranges. Sunshine colors her son called them.

"Black. With milk. With sugar. With milk and sugar. If you're into cream or you're a tea drinker, you're out of luck."

She thought she detected actual regret in his words. "Milk and sugar," she rasped, as though someone had replaced her vocal chords with fine sandpaper.

She struggled to position herself against the headboard without revealing any additional flesh. To his credit, he never dipped his eyes but held hers steadily while he extended the mug toward her. With shaking hands, she took it, careful not to touch him, this man whom she feared she might have touched far too much and way too intimately.

While concentrating on taking a sip of coffee, she heard a slight rattling. Shifting her gaze, she saw him shake the small bottle, spilling a couple of tablets into his cupped hand.

"Figured you could use this, too," he said. "Figure you might have a headache brewing."

Oh, it's not brewing. It's brewed.

Hesitantly, she reached out, hoping he'd understand that she simply wanted him to dump the pain killer on her palm, didn't want to actually touch him. Apparently, he did, because he held his hand over hers and turned it slightly until the tablets tumbled off. She shoved them into her mouth, chased them down with the coffee, and couldn't hold back the grimace this time.

"Tea drinker, huh?"

She almost smiled at his astute observation.

"English breakfast," she said quietly, thinking it ludicrous that she was hesitant to reveal her morning habits when obviously she'd revealed a good deal more than that before this morning.

When she lifted her gaze back to him, he was again hunched forward, holding his mug with both hands, watching her, apparently no more willing than she was to discuss why his bed was as rumpled as it was.

"Do you remember much about last night?" he asked.

All right. She was wrong on that point. He was willing to discuss it...

 

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