Misadventures of a Curvy Girl (Misadventures #18)(24)

“You don’t have to thank me,” I say. “This wasn’t me doing you a favor. And I hope,” I add, in a mix of courage and insecurity, “that it wasn’t you doing me a favor.”

He turns his head and gives me a sharp look. “It wasn’t.”

“Then why even bring thank you into it?”

He lets out a long breath, and when he turns his head to look at the ceiling again, his expression is unreadable. “Because tonight is the first night in five years I’ve even been able to pretend I could fall asleep during a storm.”

It’s a strange thing to say—even stranger given I haven’t seen him react to the thunder at all—but before I can ask anything more, he says, “Go to sleep, Ireland.”

I want to argue, want to fight off the wave of drowsiness pulling at me and ask him more about it, but it turns out Ben must know me better than I know myself, because I open my mouth to tell him he can’t boss me around, and before I know it, I’m asleep.





It’s still storming and dark when I wake up, and it’s disorienting, like I’ve slid into another world where rain and darkness are the defaults and I’ll never see sunlight again.

Even more disorienting is the hard warmth enveloping me, the breath ruffling my hair, the huge hand cupping my pussy—but it’s disorienting in the best kind of way, like waking up to find a dream is real after all.

Although the dream isn’t perfect—when my eyes adjust to the dark and my mind unfogs, I realize the other side of the bed is empty save for a three-legged dog tucked into a circle.

Ben is gone.

“He always leaves,” Caleb says sleepily from behind me. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh,” I murmur, not knowing what else to say. What else do I have a right to say, really? I don’t know Ben, and I barely know Caleb any better. I’m just a stranger in a strange bed listening to the rain.

So it shouldn’t sting as much as it does that Ben isn’t next to me.

This is all going to be over in the morning anyway. What does it matter?

But it does matter, it does bother me, and even though I want to be all sophisticated and casual about the fact that I just had the best sex of my life with the hottest men I’ve ever seen, I can’t be.

This is just an inaugural adventure, I try to soothe myself. There will be lots more. You’re the new Ireland, remember? There will be so many other hot men in your future.

The problem, I realize as I drift back into sleep, is that I don’t want there to be any other men. I want these ones. I want Caleb and Ben.

After just one night.

God, I’m screwed.





It’s the silence that wakes me for the final time, or maybe it’s Greta’s high-pitched whine as she paces on Caleb’s side of the bed and tries to get his attention.

Maybe it’s the strange light oozing in through the window. It’s lighter than it was when I woke up earlier but darker than daylight should be and pitched in a color that makes me uneasy. I sit up, realizing what the silence is—no distant hum of the air conditioning or the refrigerator, no background hiss of plugged-in appliances. The power is out.

“Caleb?” I nudge Caleb’s massive bulk, which is now prone and sprawled, although he’s still kept an arm wrapped around my waist even in his sleep. “Caleb, wake up.”

He opens his eyes right as the sirens start.

“Shit,” he mutters, sitting up and wiping at his face. “Shit. We gotta get downstairs.”

Greta whines in agreement, but I look again through the window and see nothing of alarm, really. A sky coffered with dark clouds, with a distant clear band on the horizon. “Do we have to?” I stretch. “It doesn’t look so bad, and at home, I usually just ignore the sirens.”

Caleb looks at me as if I’m some kind of lunatic. “We don’t ignore them out here. We’re going downstairs.”

With a sigh, I roll out of bed, making a face at my jeans still damp and crumpled on the floor. I go to my room across the hall and pull on a pair of shorts and a tank top, and when I come back out, both Caleb and Ben are pacing the small landing at the top of the stairs. They’re both still shirtless, with jeans clinging to narrow, fit hips, and I mentally curse the sirens. I want to take them back to bed.

“Downstairs,” Ben says shortly, and when I don’t move fast enough for him, he takes my hand and leads me down the steps. Caleb scoops Greta into his arms and follows, and our little parade climbs down a set of rickety stairs to a stone-walled basement by the light of a small flashlight Ben holds in his other hand.

Caleb sits down on a threadbare rug with Greta in his lap, holding her while she trembles, and Ben hauls out a dusty storage container and produces some candles and a lighter. Soon we’re in a circle of flickering light, and in my sleepy state, I can almost imagine it’s still nighttime. That morning hasn’t come, and with it all the consequences of my adventure last night and all the decisions that now have to be made.

Except morning has come, and the soreness between my legs reminds me very much of the consequences and decisions. I fucked two men, came more times than I would have thought humanly possible, and now I have to figure out how to extricate myself with the most dignity possible.

Well, after the storm is over, I suppose. Then the dignity and such. For now, I’m content to watch the candlelight on Caleb’s big hands as he tenderly pets his terrified dog. To listen to Ben move around the basement gathering up various items—a weather radio and batteries and a bottle of water and bowl for Greta—and to the wind shaking the house above us. Even in the basement, I can hear the distant wail of the sirens.