Chapter 5 A Circle of Silver

Kristo

Fuck.

That was the first thought when I opened my eyes. It was hard to peel them apart, as though somebody had sealed them with superglue while I'd been sleeping. As soon as the light from the window began filtering through my vision, I slammed them shut again. Nope. That was way too much.

I lifted my head from the pillow and rubbed my temples, eyes still shut. Shit. How long had it been since I'd last had a hangover? I couldn't remember. I stretched my mind back over the night before and tried to put the pieces together, but the last thing I remembered was leading that woman out of the party and heading back to my room. Beyond that, nothing. I knew the party had gone all right before that, but nothing was sticking out to me.

That's when I heard a snuffle and felt a shift in the weight of someone in the bed next to me, and my heart dropped. I had assumed that even hella-drunk me would have figured out I should kick out my hookup at the end of our night together. There was nothing worse than having to explain to a woman why I wasn't going to take her out for breakfast while the two of us were both busy fighting off a hangover.

I turned slowly, opened my eyes again, and found myself looking at the woman I'd taken out of the party last night, her dress cast aside on the floor next to her along with her shoes and panties. Her hair was a mess, and she had makeup smudged beneath her eyes, but even still, she looked cute.

I slowly clambered out of bed, heading to grab a glass of water to take the edge off the worst of this. I couldn't help grinning when I saw a couple of bottles of champagne cast around the room, empty. The door out to the balcony was thrown open, and I could see a pair of shoes and my suit pants discarded out there. Well, at least the two of us had some fun last night, even if I felt as though I'd been wrecked waking up this morning.

I grabbed a glass of water and looked at myself in the enormous mirror in the bathroom. I could have used a little less detail, if I was being honest, because I didn't look my best. My hair was a mess, my face was crumpled from the pillow, and I had a couple of lipstick stains on my neck and shoulders that I had a feeling were going to be pretty stubborn in coming off.

Still. I wasn't exactly going to complain about the reminder that she'd been all over me, even if I couldn't remember the details. I traced my fingers over the pink marks on my skin, cocking an eyebrow as I imagined her putting them there, and then I saw something glinting in the mirror. I pulled my hand away and looked down at my fingers. A ring glinting on my finger.

"What the fuck?" I murmured to myself, squinting down at the circle of silver on the fourth finger of my left hand. I didn't remember going to sleep with that on. Hell, I didn't remember doing anything that would have landed me a ring like this one. Sometimes, fancy galas like the one we'd both been at would hand out ridiculous freebies, but I would have gotten this at the start of the night, and the only thing I remembered noticing was her.

I downed the glass of water and tried not to think about the ring as I headed back through to the bedroom. I was sure it was nothing to get hung up on. It had just been a fun night with a hot girl, and now I needed to scrub the worst of this hangover out from under my skin and get home. Any other day and I would have taken off already. But when I went back into the bedroom and saw that she had tossed the covers back in her sleep, flipping over on to her front and drawing a line down from the top of her spine to her ass that I wanted to trace my fingers along, I decided to stay. I wasn't feeling that bad. I reached out to touch her as I sat down on the bed, but before my hand could find her body, I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks.

On her hand, the one that was flung out over the spot I had just climbed out of, was a ring. Same kind as mine. I was sure she hadn't been wearing it the night before. If she had, I'd liked it so much, I had decided to grab one for myself as well. The silver shone in the morning sunlight, glimmering like the sequins on her dress below me, and I stared at it for a long, long moment. No. No way. No way could this be what I thought this was.

I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should just get out of there and pretend whatever had happened the night before was best left in the past. But I had to know. The curiosity was killing me. I laid a hand on her back, gently at first, and shook her lightly. She groaned and pulled the pillow over her head.

"Hey, wake up," I demanded. I wished I could remember her name, but nothing came to mind. In my head, she had just been assigned "the hot one," but that wouldn't do in the light of day.

She groaned again and turned over, reaching down to pull the covers up over herself. Her hand moved, and the ring caught the light again. Panic moved through my system. I had to know what was going on. I shook her again, this time impatient.

"Hey, I need you to wake up," I told her again. It was hard not to get distracted by her body. I wasn't sure whether it was memories or imaginings of it that flashed through my brain as I saw her outline squirm beneath the sheets. But I knew I needed to stay focused, pull my shit together and get this under control.

"Wake up." I spoke louder this time, and finally, she peeled open her eyes and looked at me, clearly feeling as rough as I did.

"What the fuck?" she demanded, pushing herself up off the bed and then instantly letting herself sink back down again as the hangover hit. "Holy shit, how much did we drink last night?"

"A lot," I filled in the gaps, pulling the pillow up behind her so she could sit up. This was urgent.