I woke up with a dreadful feeling of Oh my fresh hell, what have I done? It felt like someone was pounding a bass drum inside my head. My mouth felt like I’d swallowed a handful of cotton balls, and my eyes were gritty and dry from sleeping in my contacts.

But that wasn’t why I was currently having an internal mini meltdown. Oh no, that was all due to the long, heavy arm that was wrapped around my waist and attached to a hand that was holding on to my left boob like it was one of those squishy foam stress balls.

I slowly lifted the cover with an impending sense of dread at what I suspected I might find, letting out a whimper when I discovered that a strong and quite naked male body was currently wrapped around my equally naked one.

Worst of all, I knew exactly who all that gorgeous bare flesh belonged to. There were large spans of time from the night before that I couldn’t remember, but I did remember running into Caleb at The Black Sheep and joining him for a drink that turned into… way too many drinks.

I vaguely recalled the trip back to his apartment, but the one thing that stood out in my mind with perfect clarity was just how loudly I’d screamed each time I orgasmed. All four times. Embarrassingly enough, I was pretty sure I might have cried tears of relief and joy after the first one.

Now, instead of reveling in the knowledge that my girly bits were no longer broken, I was freaking the hell out that I’d slept with the enemy. Again.

Damn him and his seductive charm and swimmer’s body!

As quietly and smoothly as possible, I started to lift his arm to shift out of his hold. I managed to make it to the very edge of the bed when his arm banded around my stomach once more and I was yanked back into a part of him that was wide awake.

“Mmm. Morning.” His voice was deliciously thick and raspy with sleep, causing my body to shiver involuntarily.

“Uh… good morning?”

His fingertips started caressing the skin below my belly button as he asked, “Where were you sneaking off to?”

“The bathroom,” I lied quickly, needing to escape before I did something incredibly stupid, like have mind-blowing sex with him again. At my response, he let me go and allowed me to scoot away. Holding the sheet firmly across my breasts, I scanned the bedroom floor. “Uh, where are my clothes?”

He pushed up on an elbow and propped his head in his hands, completely comfortable with his nakedness. Not that he didn’t have the right to be—his body was the kind of perfection artists dreamed of sculpting, all hard, sinewy muscle beneath impeccable skin tanned a warm golden honey. His chest had the perfect amount of hair that I knew from experience felt amazing scraping across my nipples as he moved on top of me.

Focus, Daphne, you dirty whore!

“Pretty sure they’re still scattered around the living room.”

My head tipped in confusion. “What? Why?”

Even his eyebrows were sexy, which I noticed because the way they dipped into a frown drew my attention to them. “What do you mean why? Because that’s where I tore them off you before we went at each other on the couch.”

I rocked back on one foot. “We went at each other on the couch?”

Caleb’s frown deepened, and he sat up all the way. “You don’t remember?” he asked incredulously.

I threw one arm out at my side. “I was drunk!” I cried belligerently.

He shot from the bed, ripping his boxer briefs up his legs as fury radiated off him in waves. “You were drunk? Are you fucking kidding me?”

I tried to come off looking as indignant as possible considering all I was wearing was a fucking sheet. “I sucked down six mojitos! Of course I was drunk! You think I’d have actually come back here if I were sober?”

He mimicked my stance, slamming his hands down on his hips. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?” he shouted.

“It means you’re an asshole who didn’t even remember sleeping with me the first time, and if I wasn’t boozed the hell up, I never would have touched you!” I shouted in return, letting my anxiety get the best of me and converting it into anger. It was a horrible defense mechanism I’d picked up as a teenager when my mom started making me feel inadequate for being one dress size bigger than her. She’d always been more willowy where I’d been curvier, getting my body shape from my father’s side of my family, and she loved to point that out.

It was a nasty habit I needed to break. Starting tomorrow.

Caleb scoffed. “Oh really? Is that why you screamed ‘Hallelujah’ when you came? All. Four. Times?”

“You’re unbelievable!” I shrieked.

“I know!” he yelled. “You told me over and over and over last night!”

“Ugh!” I stomped my foot. “I hate you!”

“Yeah? Well you seem to love my dick!”

“Asshole!”

“Lush!”

One minute we were screaming at each other, and the very next we were making out like we were trying to suck the air out of each other’s lungs.

“Wait, no!” I stumbled backward, clutching the bedsheet. “This is crazy. We can’t do this.” God, I really want to do this!

My body and mind were at war with one another. I knew to my bones that Caleb McMannus was wrong for me in every. Single. Way. But I was drawn to him in a way I had absolutely no control over. The desire I felt whenever I so much as thought of him was foreign and terrifying. I’d loved Stefan deeply before he betrayed me, yet my body didn’t sing for his. My skin didn’t itch with the need to feel him against me the way it did for Caleb.

I barely knew the man, and what little I knew I didn’t really care for, but I still wanted him more than I wanted a pony when I was seven years old. And I’d really wanted that damn pony.

He grabbed my face and jerked me back, muttering, “We can. We should,” against my lips between searing kisses. “Christ, I can’t get enough of you. No matter who I’m with, I’m comparing them to you.”

My body froze colder than it had the previous year when Lola, Sophia, and I had done the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, wearing nothing but teeny tiny bikinis. Those words from his lips were the reminder I needed that he was a despicable man-whore who went around screwing whatever woman handed herself over to him, and I wanted nothing to do with him. I hated myself for being so easily seduced by the prick.

“God, you’re such a pig,” I seethed. Turning on my heels, I bolted into the living room. Sure enough, my clothes were scattered all around the floor.

He followed me, a look of bewilderment on his face. “What the hell did I do wrong now?”

Without a shred of insecurity, I quickly dropped the sheet and started pulling my clothes on, tangling the articles up in my haste to get dressed and get the hell out of there. “I can’t believe I slept with you. Twice!” My voice had reached an embarrassingly shrill volume as I struggled to untwist my bra and get it into place. “I should have known better. Please god, tell me you at least remembered to wear a condom.”

“Of course I wore a condom!”

I looked up at the ceiling, shouting, “Well, thank god for that! Who the hell knows where all your dick has been!”

His face turned red, and I vaguely noticed how he clenched his fists at his side. “You sure as fuck weren’t complaining when it was inside you a few hours ago.”

I slipped my dress over my head as a humorless laugh bubbled from my chest. “A mistake I have no intention of ever repeating.”

Caleb’s arms crossed over his chest, defining the muscles in his biceps. “You sure about that, honey?”

I righted my dress and flung my hair out of my eyes to glare at him. My palm twitched with the urge to slap the smug, condescending look off his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The bastard actually had the nerve to smirk. “It means you were the one to climb me like a fucking tree the second my front door clicked shut. You wrapped yourself around me so goddamn tight I was concerned you’d break my ribs.”

“Oh please,” I scoffed with a roll of my eyes to mask the fact that I was pretty sure he was telling the truth.

Somewhere in the background of our fight, a cell phone began to ring. I was too wrapped up in the scene unfolding around me to question whether it was his or mine.

“And you’re fucking lying to yourself if you think you aren’t going to come crawling back.”

“You’re disgusting!”

The phone stopped ringing only to start back up two seconds later.

“And you’re full of shit!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

The phone started going for a third time, causing Caleb to snap. He stomped over to the counter separating the kitchen from the living space and snatched his phone off the black granite countertop.

“What!” he barked through the line. He dropped his head a moment later and began rubbing between his eyes. His entire expression went from furious to browbeaten in a heartbeat. “Christ, Mom. Now’s not really a good time. Can’t you just—” He stopped and pulled in a deep breath. “Yeah. Fine… I said yes. Just give me an hour.”

He hung up and threw the phone at the couch across the room before turning his attention back to me. The way his entire demeanor had shifted in that handful of seconds had cooled my temper drastically. The pompous jackass from minutes before now seemed deflated.

“I have shit I have to handle, so I gotta go. But this isn’t over.” He stressed his point by stepping close and pointing directly at my face. Then he turned and rushed toward the bedroom. I took that as my opportunity and bolted out the door.

My body could be as pissed as it wanted, but whatever twisted shit I had going on with Caleb was most definitely over.

Whether he was willing to accept that or not.