What had she done?
Panic kicked her heart rate into a gallop, and she couldn’t draw a full breath. She couldn’t face him in the light of day. What would she say? Thanks? And what about their friendship? Would he wake up expecting more than that from her?
I’ve waited too long to have you under me.
Oh, she couldn’t do this.
Frantic to escape, she gathered her bathroom things as quietly as possible. She’d already repacked her clothes in anticipation of her departure tomorrow morning, and her bag still lay on the floor, right where Cam had tripped over it. Her dress spilled off the corner of the bed and pooled to the floor like a splash of satin blood. She didn’t bother putting it back on, but stuffed it in her bag and found a pair of cotton shorts, a support tank, and a comfy over-sized T-shirt. Nor did she bother with a brush, opting instead to tie her hair up in a sloppy bun. She grabbed her gun and holster from the bedside table. A pair of flip-flops, her key card, and she was out the door with her bag slung over her shoulder.
She needed space. And time. And to be completely sober. Maybe then she’d be capable of processing this one night stand like a mature, rational adult.
Because right now, she sure as fuck didn’t feel the least bit rational.
…
Sunlight splashed over the bed, warm and cheery—and completely fucking merciless in its brightness. It stabbed through Cam’s eyelids like two flaming stakes, jolting him from a dead sleep. Groaning, he stuffed his head under a pillow with every intention of going back to dreamland until his brain stopped pounding. But now that he was semi-conscious, he couldn’t shake the niggling sense that something was…off. He eased the pillow away from his face and blinked a couple times at the light. What brilliant designer decided it was a good idea to line two of the four walls in the room with floor-to-ceiling windows anyway? Especially when one such wall faced directly east. Were people not allowed to sleep past dawn in Key West?
Okay, so it wasn’t exactly dawn. The alarm clock on the bedside table said it was a little after ten. But anything before noon was ungodly early after a night like last night.
Although, in truth, he didn’t feel half bad. Besides the expected hangover headache and some tightness in his lower back, he was pretty damn happy. He lay sprawled across the bed on his belly, the sheet in a twisted knot around his legs and hips. All of the pillows scattered the floor, save for the one he’d burrowed underneath when the blasted sunshine woke him—
Wait. The other half of the bed was empty.
Eva.
Cam bolted upright and hissed as his head made it known in no uncertain terms that it despised him at the moment. He disengaged his legs from the sheet and sat up on the edge of the mattress, cradling his forehead in his palms until some of the throbbing subsided. After several long minutes, he cautiously lifted his gaze to scan the room.
Her dress was gone. So was the duffel bag that he’d tripped over the night before.
“No.” He scrambled to his feet, crossed the room, and pulled open the closet, a small part of him hoping maybe she’d stashed the bag out of the way before a morning coffee run.
Nope. Empty.
Bathroom, too.
The only thing she’d left behind was a thong hanging from the desk lamp.
“Goddammit!” Anger mixed liberally with despair into a nasty slurry in his stomach. He shoved the closet door shut hard enough to rattle it in its frame, than banged the flat of his hand against it because slamming it hadn’t been satisfying enough.
She’d up and left without waking him or leaving a note. And he bet when he got back to his room and checked his phone, there would be no call or text from her, either. She might as well have shoved a knife in his back before she took off. Would have hurt a helluva lot less.
The locking mechanism on the front door whirred and Cam spun toward it, his heart doing a fleetingly hopeful jig behind his ribs. So maybe Eva had gone out for coffee or—
The door swung open. And while the maid standing on the other side shared Eva’s caramel complexion and dark hair, coloring was the only resemblance between them. Small and curvy, the maid had a weathered, been there, done that look to her and she wore her graying hair in a tail tight enough to give her an automatic face-lift. She froze when she spotted him, the master key card dropping from her hand. It was on one of those retractable chains and whipped back to the clip on her apron with a ziiip sound that was unnaturally loud in the awkward silence.
And there he stood, his tackle on display for anyone walking by in the hallway. “Uh…”