Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (49 page)

Not only was she wearing her clothes from last night, but her semi-damp hair had dried into a rat’s nest of brown curls, her eyes felt gritty with smudged mascara, and her mouth probably smelled like a wild animal had peed in it. She hadn’t gone to bed without brushing her teeth since the last time she drank whiskey.

That time, Naomi and Mick had rolled her up in a sleeping bag and sat on her until she swore not to go hiking up a mountain in the middle of the night. Her sister and brother had been afraid she’d wander off a cliff in the dark, and tumble to her death.

Now Maddie wished she’d done something as relatively harmless as wander off a cliff. Instead, she’d had a drunken sexcapade with one of her oldest friends. She and Jamison had
done it
. And not just done it once or twice, but
four times
, over and over again, continuing to bang like bunnies long after Maddie should have sobered up and had the sense to make a run for her own tent.

But she hadn’t been able to sober up last night, she’d been too drunk on orgasms and the feel of Jamison’s strong body leveraged over her in the dark, driving that amazing love-rod between her thighs.

You just called Jamison’s penis a love-rod. What is
wrong
with you!?

Maddie cringed at the volume employed by her inner voice.

Didn’t it know her head was already pounding?

She wasn’t hideously hung over, though she probably should be considering how much whiskey she’d drunk last night, but the backs of her eyes throbbed and her temples felt bruised. She needed water, coffee, and aspirin, in that order, and she needed them stat.

Maddie crept quietly into her own campsite, relieved to see all four tents zipped up tight. She was congratulating herself on not getting caught by anyone who might carry the sordid tale of her walk of shame back to her family—and plotting a trip to the showers with fresh clothes and her toiletry bag—when slow deliberate clapping started up from her far left.

Maddie spun to see Piper and Dawn beaming at her from camp chairs settled around the fire pit where they sat with steaming mugs of coffee and cinnamon rolls laid out on folding tables beside them.

“Bravo!” Piper exclaimed, her clapping picking up speed. She reminded Maddie of a supporting character in the final scene of one of those underdog sports movies, the ones where the plucky young athlete triumphs against all the odds and renews everyone’s faith in miracles. “We’re so proud.”

“So proud!” Dawn seconded, wiping an imaginary tear from her eye. “We always knew you could do it!”

“Oh hush,” Maddie said, motioning for them to cool it before the entire camp woke up and heard them talking. She glanced around, making sure their nearest neighbors were still asleep before hurrying over to Piper and Dawn. “You got any more coffee where that came from?”

“I filled my thermos; it’s in my tent,” Piper said, standing and motioning for Maddie to take one of the empty seats. “I’ll get you some—on the condition that you don’t start debriefing until I get back.”

“Debriefing what?” Maddie settled into the chair, her best “who me?” expression on her face.

“Don’t play dumb, Whitehouse.” Piper narrowed her eyes at Maddie. “You’ll debrief or you won’t get any coffee, or the yummy aspirin I was going to offer you.”

Maddie sighed. “Throw in a bottle of water and you’ve got a deal.”

Piper chuckled—an evil chuckle, born of taking pleasure in other people’s walks of shame—before hurrying over to her tent.

“You don’t have to debrief,” Dawn said softly. “I mean, you obviously already debriefed Jamison, but…”

“Har, har,” Maddie whispered.

Dawn grinned. “But you don’t have to kiss and tell. If you want to keep your steamy sex adventures with Jamison the Smolder God to yourself, we’ll understand.”

“Who said I was with Jamison?” Maddie’s cheeks heated as she prayed she and Jamison had been as quiet in the tent as she thought they’d been.

“Shelly saw you run off to go skinny dipping with him,” Dawn said, sending a wave of relief coursing through Maddie. “We connected the dots from there. We decided not to interfere since Shelley said Jamison was sober, and you obviously had a thing for him before we even got here.”

Maddie’s shoulders relaxed. Thank. God. If they’d heard her moaning clear on the other side of the campground, she would have had to hitch a ride out of here before breakfast. No way could she look any of these strangers in the eye if they’d heard her orgasm. She wasn’t even sure she’d be able to look Jamison in the eye—despite the fact that she’d stared straight into his soul while she’d come last night.

But that had been last night. This morning was this morning, and things looked different in the light of day, without any Jack Daniels to soften the edges or blur the lines.

“But you’d better get the aspirin from Piper before you decide not to share,” Dawn added in a whisper as Piper emerged from her tent. “Otherwise, she’ll withhold your pain reliever. She believes torture is a valid interrogation technique.”

“One or two?” Piper asked, juggling a palm full of pills, a gently sweating water bottle, and a steaming thermos-top full of coffee that smelled utterly delicious.

“Two please.” Maddie held out her hand, sighing with relief as two white pills rolled onto her palm. She took the water bottle Piper offered and swallowed, feeling better almost immediately, though she knew the medicine took time to work.

“And you can have your coffee, too,” Piper said, holding the thermos top just out of reach. “As soon as you tell us if Mr. Sexy is as good in the sack as he obviously thinks he is.”

Maddie blushed, but she wanted that coffee in a major way. “Better,” she said, blushing harder as Piper cursed and Dawn giggled.

“More details.” Piper handed over Maddie’s coffee before settling into the chair next to her. “You have to tell me everything because there is no way I’m getting laid while we’re here.”

“What about the two lawyers?” Maddie asked, hoping she could get the conversation onto less treacherous ground. She wasn’t ready to talk about Jamison. The night still seemed surreal, both too good to be true, and too scary to dwell on for more than a few seconds at a time.

What if Jamison never talked to her again? What if their one-night stand ruined their friendship? What if it didn’t ruin their friendship, but Jamison simply never wanted to get his cock anywhere near her ever again?

Maddie wasn’t sure she could handle that final possibility, either. Last night had been the best sex of her life, bar none. The thought of never feeling Jamison moving inside her, never having his strong arms braced on either side of her head as he thrust into her with sensuous rolls of his hips that stoked the fire within her to ridiculous heights, was soul crushing. It was like finding out Santa wasn’t real and her husband gay at the same time.

Thank goodness, in reality, there had been over twenty years between those two nightmarish events.

“The two lawyers have a bet going,” Piper said, her tone souring. “They’ve got a thousand dollars riding on which of them can get me in the sack first. I heard them talking about it last night, when they stupidly assumed I was too tipsy to be paying attention.”

“They obviously didn’t realize that you are never too tipsy to pay attention,” Maddie said. “Or to hold a grudge.”

“That’s right. A mean grudge,” Piper agreed. “One that will ensure my vagina goes home lonely and full of cobwebs tomorrow afternoon.”

“Maybe you’ll meet someone else,” Dawn said hopefully. “There are still a few guys who haven’t been claimed.”

“Not good ones.” Piper sniffed. “My vagina is lonely, not desperate. Shelley may be okay with bumping uglies with a guy who looks like Harry Potter, but I have standards.”

“Shush!” Dawn’s blue eyes widened as she shot a glance toward Shelley’s tent. “They’re in there together, you know. I heard them making out last night.”

Piper winced. “Do you think she heard me?” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to be hateful, I’m just jealous that everyone is getting kisses except me.”

“I didn’t get any kisses,” Dawn said, twining a lock of her silky black hair around her finger, making Maddie jealous that she didn’t have hair that would behave when exposed to the elements. “I spent the whole night talking with Helen like we were at a damn PTA meeting. I think I’ve forgotten how to meet men.”

“You haven’t forgotten,” Maddie said. “There just aren’t that many guys here. There are at least five more girls than boys, did you notice?”

“I did.” Piper’s perfectly plucked brows drew together. “And I think the company is guilty of false advertising. Weren’t there supposed to be an equal number of men and women? That’s what it said on the brochure, right?”

“Totally.” Maddie nodded, affecting more outrage than she actually felt, sensing an opportunity to shift Piper’s focus. “I think we should write a letter to leave in the feedback box.”

“Or head over to the host tent and lodge an official complaint,” Piper said, obviously warming to the idea. “I may even ask for a partial refund. Not only are there an uneven number of men and women, but the hosts are completely wimping out on the no social media rule. Those two guys at our table were on their phones every other bite of hot dog. I thought cell phones were only supposed to be used for emergencies while on this trip.”

“They are,” Dawn confirmed. “Guess those guys didn’t get the memo.”

Maddie took a sip of her coffee, sighing with pleasure. Extra creamy, just the way she liked it. She snuggled deeper into her chair, smugly congratulating herself on dodging the tell-all bullet.

But she should have known better—Piper was easily riled up, but she wasn’t so easily distracted.

“But official complaints can wait a few minutes,” Piper said, turning her sharp gaze back to Maddie. “Or however long it’s going to take you to quit messing around and spill the details.”

Maddie took a gulp of coffee, taking her time to swallow, knowing she was trapped, but still hoping for a miracle—for a tree to fall on her tent or someone’s shoe to catch fire or one of Piper’s children to call with a non-life-threatening emergency.

She didn’t really expect the miracle to be delivered, however. Although Maddie still believed there was more good in the world than evil, she’d lost faith in miracles the day Serge dropped his bombshell and left their island home with his lover a few hours later, leaving her alone to cry in a puddle of shirts that still smelled of his cologne.

To say that she was surprised when Jamison jogged up the gravel path that meandered through the campground with his hair standing up on one side, wearing nothing but a wrinkled white undershirt, a pair of cargo shorts slung low on his narrow hips, and a concerned expression, was an understatement.

She was dumbfounded, so shocked she didn’t think to bring her hand to her face to wipe away the mascara gunk until Jamison was standing on the other side of the fire, staring down at her with a strange, angry-concerned look.

As soon as their eyes met, a jolt of electricity leapt between them and all the memories of last night came rushing back, making Maddie’s cheeks heat and her body ache in places that felt more pleasantly well-used than they had in years. Until this moment, a part of her had remained unconvinced last night had really happened, but now there was no denying it.

It had happened and now she was going to have to deal with the aftermath of her whiskey-fueled antics.

“Can we talk?” Jamison asked, the muscle in his jaw leaping.

“Um, yeah, sure.” Maddie nearly spilled her coffee in her hurry to set it on the folding table beside her and get out of her friends’ earshot before Jamison confessed that last night had been a mistake he wouldn’t be repeating. It was going to be hard enough to hear it, let alone have witnesses to her shame.

Piper and Dawn exchanged loaded looks, but Maddie didn’t make eye contact as she moved past them. She led Jamison further down the path, past the bathrooms and on toward the park exit, wiping the black from beneath her eyes as she walked, doing her best to ignore her shaking hands and the strangled feeling tightening her throat. She had no one to blame for this but herself. She had been drunk last night, but not that drunk. She’d known what she was doing when she’d stripped naked and run into the ocean. She had deliberately seduced one of her best friends and now she deserved whatever was coming to her.

When she and Jamison were far enough from the campground that the only sounds were the chirping of morning birds and the gentle rustle of the wind ruffling the leaves, Maddie balled her hands into fists, lifted her chin, and turned to face Jamison, determined not to let him see how much it was going to hurt when he said that last night had been a mistake.

“So what’s going on?” Jamison asked, crossing his arms, his posture every bit as defensive as her own. “Why did you leave without saying good-bye?”

Maddie frowned at the unexpected question. “What?”

“Are you mad? Do you think I…took advantage, or something?” Jamison asked, the muscle in his jaw twitching again. “Because I swear I thought you were sober enough to know what you wanted. I wouldn’t have done anything if I didn’t think—”

“No, no.” Maddie shook her head, embarrassment making her cheeks heat. “You didn’t take advantage. I-I knew what I was doing.”

“Then are you pissed that I didn’t bring you back to your tent last night? Is that it?” Jamison asked. “Or were you just planning to spend the night with me and then run off this morning and pretend like nothing happened?”

Maddie opened her mouth to speak, but Jamison pressed on before she had the chance.

“Because that’s not going to work, Maddie.” He stepped closer, pinning her with a gaze every bit as intense and focused as the attention he’d devoted to her body last night. “What happened between us isn’t the kind of thing you walk away from, and you know it.”

Maddie’s eyes opened wider. This wasn’t what she’d been anticipating. So far from it, in fact, that she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“I’ve slept with my share of women and I know you said you had your glory days in Paris, or whatever, but…” Jamison trailed off, running a hand through his mussed hair as he let out a long breath. “Shit, I’m fucking nervous, and I’m never nervous. That says something right there, right?”