Full Tilt (Full Tilt #1)(11)

“Sorry, Kacey, this is going to hurt,” I muttered and hit the button on my blender, filling my small apartment with a god-awful buzzing.

The massively hungover Kacey Dawson stirred, groaned, and finally sat up, pushing her tousled hair out of her eyes. She looked around blearily, not seeing me in the kitchen behind her, watching her.

I didn’t know it then—I couldn’t have—but in that moment, the rest of my life, or what was left of it, began.





Someone was cutting down a tree. Fuck that, a whole forest.

What kind of sick bastard…?

I lifted my head, blinking hard. The whirring sound stopped and my hazy gaze was drawn to the coffee table and its array of colorful glass paperweights. They were pretty—beautiful even—but my appreciation was lost as they refracted the sunlight straight into my eyeballs.

Shifting my gaze, I saw a glass filled with water, two aspirin tablets beside it. I sat up ever-so-slowly and a hideous orange and green knitted afghan fell off my shoulders. I glanced down at myself. Still 100% dressed. Even my boots.

Dignity intact. Score one for me.

But the thought didn’t bring me any comfort. Here I was again, waking up in strange surroundings after a night of drinking I didn’t remember. On a couch this time, but it could’ve been a trash-strewn alley. Or the proverbial ditch mothers are always warning their kids they’d turn up in if they weren’t careful. I wasn’t careful. I was never careful.

It hurt too much to move or look around. It hurt to blink. I focused my attention on swallowing the aspirin down, chasing them with water. My mouth felt as dry and dusty as the Nevada desert. I would have chugged the whole glass if I thought my stomach could handle it, but I had my doubts. I took a few deep breaths and waited until the churning feeling in my gut subsided, then glanced around at my immediate surroundings.

A small apartment, sparsely decorated with plain, mismatched furniture. On the other side of the coffee table and its glass knick-knacks was an old Laz-y-Boy chair facing a flat screen TV. The walls were bare but for two framed degrees from universities I couldn’t read from the couch and a half-dozen photos. The front windows showed a view of a busy Vegas street. Nothing about the place made any kind of impression on me. Nor was it familiar.

“Well, I’m not chained up and the door is three feet away,” I muttered to myself, and raised the water glass for another drink.

“True, on both counts.”

I coughed the water all over my chest, and looked around. “The hell…?”

A guy stood in the tiny kitchen behind me. His dark hair was wet, fresh from a shower and his sharp brown eyes regarded me with dry bemusement. He was tall, super cute and totally not my type. I liked the thick, loose curls of his hair, but he was too clean-cut for me. My men were tatted and pierced and came with an exit strategy in their back pocket after I slept with them. The guy in the kitchen looked liked he made breakfast for any woman who stayed over, and instead of kicking them out, told them to ‘make themselves at home.’

Nice Guy, all caps.

But god, he had a sweet face. A face I could have sworn I’d seen before. I searched the boozy depths of my memory for when and where…

“I’m your limo driver,” he said. “I took you and your band to the Pony Club last night?”

“Oh, right,” I said. “That’s it.”

The guy came around to the front of the kitchen counter, facing the living room, and leaned against it, arms crossed. “Jonah Fletcher.”

“What?” My brain thudded behind my eyes in time to my pulse.

“My name,” he said slowly, “is Jonah Fletcher. In case you were wondering on whose couch you were sitting.”

“Oh, sorry,” I replied, my cheeks burning. “I was just…listening to my headache. I’m Kacey Dawson. Though you probably already knew that.”

Jonah’s eyes widened slightly in to bemusement, and I shook my head—a movement I regretted instantly. “I don’t mean because I’m famous or anything, I mean because of your job. My name’s probably on some paperwork… Eh, forget it.”

I held my aching head in my hands and tried to recall something from last night. A vague sense of Something Not Very Good happening added to the misery of my hangover.

I peered up at Jonah Fletcher. “So uh…last night. Did we…?”

He arched one eyebrow at me, perfectly. The other didn’t even move. “Did we…what?”

I huffed. “Do I have to spell it out?”

The stiff, sharp expression on his face softened slightly. “We didn’t. You were passed out.” He cocked his head. “You don’t remember anything?”

“Not much.”

“Happens a lot?”

I snorted. “I can’t see how that’s your business.”

“And yet, last night it became my business.” He shrugged. “Seems like a dangerous habit, is all. Not all guys are as nice as me.”

“That has yet to be determined,” I muttered and glanced around. “This is your place? Why not take me back to the Summerlin house?”

“Oh, believe me, I tried. Bringing you here isn’t exactly work protocol. I could lose my job.”

“What happened?” I asked, mostly because I should, not because I wanted to know.