Sin (Vegas Nights 1)

The tap creaked as I turned it on to splash cold water on my face. I was awake anyway so all the damn water would do was make me focus a little more. I glanced back up into the mirror as I turned off the tap. My eyes were brighter and my cheeks were more flushed, making me look a bit more human than the pale figure I’d cut moments ago. It would do. I’d be able to creep through the bedroom to head downstairs and do some work.

There was always work that needed doing. Always an order or an email or a phone call. A check in or a resume or a marketing strategy. Accountants and bankers and deliveries. It was never ending, and while I was almost always thankful for that, right now, my motivation was nowhere to be found.

I didn’t fucking care.

I stared at myself in the mirror. I knew exactly why I didn’t care. I didn’t have to be a fucking Mensa member to figure it out.

The woman sleeping in my bed was the fucking reason.

Last night had started one way and finished another. It was supposed to be dinner and a fuck—night over. Instead it was fuck, food, sleep. I could see her sexy ass thong hanging off the shower door in the mirror behind me, for the love of God. Right there, clear as day, as obvious as a toothbrush but without the significance.

“Damn things must be dry,” I muttered, hitting the light switch before opening the door. There was no fabric to them, so they had to be. I just wasn’t going to touch them to find out. I didn’t care that much.

Not to mention there was the chance she was awake. I didn’t lock the door. I didn’t want to think of a scenario where I was gripping her fucking panties to check their dryness and she walked in.

I felt around the floor for the sweatpants I’d ditched last night. I found them half under my side of the bed and tugged them out.

Dahlia shrieked, the sharp noise slicing through the silent darkness.

I jumped off the bed I’d just perched on and reached for the lamp. I missed the switch by a mile, instead hitting the shade. It crashed back against the wall and down onto the floor. “Shit!” I grabbed it, hit the switch, and set it back on the nightstand. “What?”

She blinked at me, her lips parted, fear in her eyes. “Jesus,” she whispered, clutching the sheets to her chest. “You scared the life out of me.”

“Out of you? You screamed.”

“Because you scared me!” She rubbed her hand down her face, pausing at her lips that were now half-free of the lipstick she couldn’t get off. “What time is it?”

I turned the clock around and sat on the bed. “Five-thirty.”

“Why are you awake?”

I shrugged as I stood and tugged my pants over my ass. “I wake up early sometimes. Today is one of those days. Go back to sleep, okay?”

She narrowed her eyes, her gaze following me as I headed for the door. “What if I wake up early sometimes, too?”

And the sweet Dahlia of last night had disappeared. “You’re awake because I woke you up. You’re being awkward.”

“Maybe I am.”

I paused at the door, looking back with a slight smile on my face. “Go back to sleep. I’m just gonna work.”

She harrumphed, then leaned over the bed to switch off the light. The room flooded with darkness once more, and I shook my head as I left, closing the door behind me. I didn’t expect her to stay there for long. The way she’d looked at me said she knew I was lying—that I didn’t wake up for just no reason. And I hadn’t, of course. Memories that filtered their way into my dreams were the culprits of my early awakening.

Unfortunately for my subconscious, I wasn’t prepared to deal with the things it wanted me to.

I padded down the stairs silently. The early morning sun filtered in through the vast windows that illuminated the entryway. I made my way into the kitchen to escape the glare from the bright orange sunrise, thankful that the sunset was always the view from the vast windows that made up the back wall overlooking my backyard.

I set the coffee machine going and leaned back against the island. The silence of my house had never bothered me before, but this morning, knowing that someone else was asleep upstairs, it was eerie. It seemed to wrap around every wall and slipped through every doorway, hanging thick in the air. A shiver ran over my skin, making me shudder, and I grabbed my coffee cup from the machine when it was done.

Finished making it, I put it on the island and went to fetch my laptop. I didn’t want to work in my office. I had a feeling that Dahlia would come looking for me sooner rather than later, and her in my office would invite questions I wasn’t ready to answer.