I wake up with my arm wrapped around someone.

Shit.

Unless I got so blackout drunk I forgot something, I’m single right now. So if I’m in bed with someone, I must have met someone in the bar and gone home with them. Idiot.

I hold very still and listen to her steady breathing. The feel of the sheets, the slight chemical cleaner smell…. I’m in a hotel room. In a hotel bed. With whom?

And, more important, how do I get out of it?

I cast my thoughts back to the night before. We drove down to Boston, right? To … celebrate Beck’s birthday.

Oh my God, did I pick up someone and abandon Beck at the bar?

How much did I have to drink? I was … I was mad, I realize. I was mad about something. I had a lot to drink.

So much that I stumbled back to a hotel room with someone I don’t know?

And then—because I am, after all, a guy—I have a fleeting thought: I hope that at least she’s really hot.

Which is ridiculous and completely does not matter. I have to beat it out of here and go find Beck. And Bri and Levi.

I take a deep breath and prepare to extricate myself. My arm is rising and falling with her every breath; she’s still asleep, thank God. I open my eyes, already edging away—and find myself looking at a very familiar head of chestnut-brown curls. As I slowly lift my arm from around her waist, I catch the sweet, wild-berry scent of her hair.

Rebecca.

Beck.

She sighs in her sleep, wiggles a little so that her ass—naked—snuggles against my cock, which is also naked, and is starting to wake up and notice how good Beck smells, how tasty the curve of her shoulder looks.

I’m naked in bed with Beck. Blind panic sets in. I pull back from her in horror, and fall off the bed with a thud.

Smooth.

I wince and sit up to look at her. She stirs slightly but still doesn’t wake, and I let out a sigh of relief.

This can't be happening. Or ... maybe it’s not what I thought. The details of the previous night are still locked somewhere in the recesses of my mind, obscured by a haze of way too much alcohol.

If I was that drunk last night, she must have been twice as bad; it was her birthday celebration, after all. Maybe she got sick and threw up. Maybe she cried about her asshole ex.

Maybe I just stayed with her to make sure she was okay. Maybe nothing happened.

But no. We’re naked. Something definitely happened—and the fragments of last night that are trickling into my mind are telling me it was pretty spectacular.

My clothes are on the floor next to the bed. I pull my boxers on, then tiptoe into the bathroom with the rest of my clothes in my arms, still trying to make sense of this. I’m not supposed to be in Beck’s room—in Beck’s bed. I have a room a couple floors down, across the hall from Levi.

And unless I want him to figure out what happened with me and Beck, I’d better get down there before he wakes up and sees that I never made it back last night. He’s my friend, but he’s just as protective of her as everyone else. He’ll kill me.

I look nervously at the bathroom door. I have to get dressed and creep out of here, get down to my room without being seen. Brianna’s in the room next to Beck’s, and if she catches me here, she’ll run straight to Levi.

I’m not up for dying today. I have to get into my own bed before anyone else realizes what happened.

What did happen?

But I know damn well what happened; I was drunk, but not blackout drunk, and I’m getting more flashes of how it went down.

Her long legs wrapped around my waist. Her mouth hot against mine. Her hair tumbling across her flushed face as she rose above me, limned from behind by the light from the windows. The whispers, the way she touched me, the way I wanted to touch her—and did. Her hair spread across the pillow as she closed her eyes and cried out—

I push the images away and force myself not to think about it anymore. I’m hard as a rock, damn it.

Not. Thinking. About. It.

How did I let this happen? I’m her best friend. I’m supposed to watch out for her and make sure she doesn't do anything stupid.

Well, she did something stupid: me.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I pull my clothes on quietly and creep out of the bathroom. I look longingly at the door to the hallway. I could head right out and bolt for the elevator—no, the stairs. I’d have to pass Brianna’s door to get to the elevator, and with my luck, she’d be looking out the peephole or something. I need some space before anyone finds out about this. I have to figure out what I’m going to do.

What we’re going to do. Beck is my best friend—my oldest friend, the closest friend I have. Like a sister.

Yeah, no, clearly not like a sister.

Can our friendship even survive this? What if she wants nothing to do with me anymore? What if she blames me for taking advantage of her?

Did I take advantage of her? I don’t think I did. I wouldn’t have. We both had a lot to drink—with my last drink being that lemon-drop body shot. The one I slurped off my very good friend Beck’s toned, supple stomach.

Not. Thinking. About. It.

This is very, very bad.

I hear a faint sigh from the bed, and the sheets rustle. I look at the door again and wish with all my heart that I was a different kind of guy. But I’m not. I’m Garrett Crawford, and I might not be exactly teeming with great qualities, but I take responsibility for the things I do.

Besides, this is Beck. She’s not some girl I can just date and then move on. She’s my best friend, my confidante, my family.…

And I spent the night having the most amazing sex of my life with her.

Now I have to deal with it.