It Happened One Night
Read It Happened One Night Online
Authors: Sharon Sala
Wedding night? What wedding night?
Proper Southerner Harley June Beaumont had come to Vegas to be her best friend's maid of honor, so how had she woken up the next morning in bed with the best-looking man she'd ever known? She had absolutely no memory of the night before, but the “Junie loves Sam” tattoo on her hip told her she'd had quite a time, and so did her handsome bedmate â who claimed to be her husband! She didn't even remember meeting firefighter Sam Clay, just dancing and drinking and having a good timeâa good time that stopped well short of a trip to the tattoo parlor, much less the altar.
With nothing to do but brazen things out in front of her very proper family, Harley embarked on married life with no expectation that it could possibly last. But Sam turned out to be the whole package, and pretty soon she found herself thinking that sometimes it's a good thing that what happens in Vegas
doesn't
stay there.
Sharon Sala
CHAPTER 1
H
arley June Beaumont had been awake for at least five minutes and still didn't have the guts to move, not even an eyelid. Her head was pounding, her stomach wanted to heave and the taste in her mouth was disgusting.
The last thing she remembered was being in Las Vegas, toasting her best friend Susan and her new husband, Mike, as they cut their wedding cake. There were a few vague images of a champagne glass that never seemed to empty, throwing streamers and rice, then dancing on a table and looking down at the bald spot on a waiter's head. After that, everything else was a blur.
What she did know was that she needed to go to
the bathroom, which meant getting out of bed, which meant she would have to move. And, because she hadn't wet the bed since the age of three, it also meant she was going to have to get up.
Opening her eyelids in minuscule increments, she took a slow, shallow breath. So far, so good. The room looked vaguely familiar. Oh yes, the Las Vegas Motel.
From where she was lying, she could see a sheer mauve dress that had been tossed casually on the back of a chair. One matching shoe was on the table beside it, the other nowhere in sight.
My maid of honor dress... I think.
With a groan, she began to inch toward the side of the bed, wincing as the movement increased the pounding in her temples. When she felt space, she stopped, convinced she had come to the edge. Now it was sit up or die. Her bladder won out. Unwilling to be found dead in a puddle of pee, she got up, consoling herself with the notion that she could always die later.
There was a large pile of bedclothes on the floor at the foot of the bed. She frowned as she sidestepped them, thinking to herself that was why she'd woken up cold, and was halfway to the bathroom before it dawned on her that she was naked. She glanced around the room, wondering where her nightgown had gone, then saw her bra draped over a lampshade and her panties hanging on the doorknob. She winced again.
At least she could be thankful her mother was not present to give her hell.
Harley June's mother, Marcie Lee Beaumont, was a direct descendant of General Robert E. Lee, and according to Marcie, genteel Southern ladies did not sleep in the altogether. But right now, Harley June was sick and a missing nightgown was the least of her worries.
The bathroom tiles were cold beneath her feet and she shivered as she hurried to the commode. As she lifted the lid to sit down, she gasped. There were flowers growing in the water in her toilet!
She leaned a little bit closer, then snorted lightly and fished Susan's bridal bouquet out of the commode before tossing it in the trash. Talk about a lost weekend. All she wanted was to get cleaned up, pack her things and catch the plane back home to Savannah. Later, when she could think without wanting to throw up, she might be willing to pursue the vagaries of her memory, but for now, survival depended on minimal thought and motion.
A couple of minutes later, she stepped into the shower, relishing the warm jets of water sluicing her face and body. Later, as she began to dry off, she glanced toward the full-length mirror on the back of the door and frowned. What little she could see of herself was just like she feltâwet and foggy. Impulsively, she gave the mirror a swipe with her towel, then as she started to turn, caught a glimpse of something
red on the left side of her hip. Frowning even more, she dried a larger spot on the mirror and then turned sideways, angling for a better view of her backside.
What came out of her throat was little more than a squeak and was nothing to describe the shock she was feeling at seeing something red and heart-shaped on the left side of her rear.
She stepped closer, peering intently into the mirror only to realize there were words inside the heart. Unable to believe her eyes, she began scrubbing at the spot and then winced and quickly stopped. It was tender! Dropping the towel, she traced the shape with her fingers as her mind accepted the only obvious conclusion.
“Oh. My. God. A tattoo. I have a tattoo.”
She moved closer, squinting at the heart. The words were backward in the mirror and it took her a few moments to spell them out and then reverse the order of letters.
Junie Loves Sam.
“Sam? Who, in the name of all that's holy, is Sam?”
The tone of her voice rose several decibels as reality hit. It didn't matter as much that she didn't know a Sam as it did that the name was on there.
“Sweet Lord... I have a man's name tattooed on my butt.”
She moaned and began rubbing harder at the tattoo,
praying that if she scrubbed it enough, it would come off, which of course, it didn't.
“This can't be happening,” she moaned, and at that moment, heard the distinct but horrifying sound of someone moving around in her bedroom.
Grabbing the towel she'd discarded, she yanked it up in front of her and started to lock the door when it began to open.
With heart thundering and a scream hovering on her lips, she gasped. Too stunned to cut loose with the scream, she found herself face-to-face with the biggest man she'd ever seen. His shoulders spanned the width of the doorway, his long, muscular legs were firmly planted as he ran a hand through his short, spiky hair. His eyes were a sleepy blue, his smile slightly crooked and apologetic and his hair was black as coal. His features were strong and regular, although his nose looked as if it had been broken at least once. But it was none of the above that brought the impending scream she'd been holding into fruition as quickly as the fact that he was naked.
Harley cut loose with the scream she'd been saving, then started to beg.
“Oh God...oh God...don't hurt me! Please don't hurt me! My purse is in there...somewhere. Take it! Take everything I've got, just please don't hurt me!”
The man smiled and glanced over his shoulder to the bed she'd recently vacated.
“Honey, you already gave me everything you had...and then some...last night.”
Harley yanked the towel a little further beneath her chin and glared.
“What are you talking about?”
He looked back at her and grinned.
Unaware that the pupils of her eyes had just doubled in size, she grabbed a hairbrush, aiming it at him like a gun.
“You're lying. You stay away from me, you pervert.”
He swooped her up into his arms and planted a slow, sexy kiss in the middle of her mouth. The moment their lips met, Harley knew it had happened before. Her lips had curved to fit his mouth as if they had a mind of their own, and even while her good sense told her to stop, there was a part of her that didn't ever want to let go. To her chagrin, the man was the first to pull back. He set her back down on her feet and then grabbed a fresh towel and began drying her backside as if he'd done it a thousand times before.
Harley spun out of his grasp, taking the towel with her.
“Who are you?” she asked.
His smile faltered, but only slightly as he gently tucked a damp strand of her hair behind her ear.
“I'm not a pervert, honey. I'm your husband...and you're my wife.”
“Wife? I'm not your wife! I'm not anyone's wife!” she shrieked, and then winced at the sound of her own shriek. Her headache was getting worse, not better.
He reached for her, gently fingering the gold band on the third finger of her left hand.
“How quickly she forgets,” he said softly. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the ring, then turned her hand palm-side up and kissed it too.
Something close to electricity coiled deep in her belly before settling between her legs. She took a slow breath, startled by the sudden lethargy of her limbs. But even the sexual tension between them did not blind her to the fact that there
was
a ring on her finger that had not been there the night before.
“Who?” she mumbled.
He looked at her and then shook his head.
“Junie, darlin'...please don't tell me you've already forgotten my name, too?”
Junie? She flashed on the tattoo on her hip. Junie Loves Sam.
“Sam?”
“That's my girl,” he said slowly, and took the towel out of her hands and dropped it on the floor between them.
Harley saw the want in his eyes and shuddered. At that moment, she couldn't have moved to save her life.
“No one calls me Junie.”
His blue eyes darkened. “I do,” he said, and picked her up.
“What are you going to do?”
“Make love to my wife.”
“I'm not...I can'tâ”
He covered her mouth with a kiss, stifling her answer, laid her down in the middle of the bed and then crawled in beside her, levering himself above her still-damp body.
“Yes, you are, and yes, you can,” Sam said. “And very nicely, if I say so myself.”
If there was a thought in Harley's mind about arguing, the enigmatic Sam's kisses wiped it away. And when she felt the weight of his body settling down on hers, she knew she'd been here before. God help her, but for everything wrong about what they had done, making love with Sam seemed so right.
* * *
It was ten minutes after 11:00 a.m. when Harley awoke again, only this time she was under no illusions as to where she was. Her headache was still present, and only a degree or so less intimidating than the man in whose arms she was lying.
Sam. He'd called himself Sam.
Fighting panic, she closed her eyes, refusing to contemplate how much she liked the weight of his arm across her belly, or the fact that for the first time since she'd left the comfort of her parents' home, she felt safe.
And the sex.
Dear Lord, they were combustible. Twice since he'd
taken her back to bed, she thought she would go up in flames. But that had to be lust, and according to her mother, decent Southern girls made their marriage beds based on good bloodlines and money, not lust.
She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and then began to worm her way out from under his arm. She needed to put space between her and this man, however devastating he might be. She wasn't sure how to go about it, but this marriage had to go away. This was Las Vegas. Surely a marriage could end as simply as it had begun.
Carefully, she inched her way out of his grasp and then, holding her breath, got out of bed. Once on her feet, she looked back at the man. Without thinking, she touched her tattoo and at the still-tender sensation, yanked her hand away in embarrassment. The tattoo was another problem altogether, although something told her it was going to be easier to get rid of the marriage than it would that red heart.
She kept staring, her gaze fixed on the sensuousness of his mouth and the shading of dark lashes on his cheeks. She had to admit he was gorgeous. She sighed. So he was handsome. That only meant liquor did not drown her good tasteâjust her good sense.
