A Wife for a Westmoreland - Brenda Jackson [7]
He slowly lifted his head from the pillow, thinking he needed to take some more pain pills, and dropped it back down when he remembered he might have taken one too many last night. Megan would clobber him for taking more than he should have, but at least he’d slept through the night.
Or had he?
He sniffed the air and the scent of a woman’s perfume and of sex was still prevalent in his nostrils. Why? And why were clips of making love to a woman in this very bed going through his brain? It was the best dream he’d had in years. Usually a dream of making love to a woman couldn’t touch the reality, but with the one he’d had last night, he would beg to differ. He could understand dreaming about making love to a woman because it had been a while for him. Getting the horse business off the ground with his brother Zane, his cousin Jason and their newfound relatives, those Westmorelands living in Georgia, Montana and Texas, had taken up a lot of his time lately. But his dream had felt so real. That was one hell of an illusion.
Nevertheless, he thought, stretching his body then wishing he hadn’t when he felt another pain, it had been well worth the experience.
He reached down to rub his aching thigh, when his hand came in contact with a lacy piece of material. He brought up his hand and blinked when he saw the pair of lace bikini panties that carried the feminine scent he had awakened to.
Pulling himself up in bed, he studied the underthings he held in his hand. Whose were they? Where had they come from? He sniffed the air. The feminine scent was not only in the panties but all over his bed as well. And the indention on the pillow beside him clearly indicated another head had been there.
Monumental panic set in. Who the hell had he made love to last night? Since now there was no doubt in his mind he’d made love to someone. All that pleasure hadn’t been a figment of his imagination, but the real thing. But who had been the woman?
He closed his eyes and tried to come up with a face and couldn’t. It had to have been someone he knew; otherwise, who would have come to his house and gotten into his bed? He had messed around with some pretty brazen women in his lifetime, but none would have dared.
Hell, evidently one had.
He opened his eyes and stared at the wall, trying to recall everything he could about yesterday and last night. He remembered the fall off Sugar Foot’s back; there was no way he could forget that. He even remembered Zane and Jason rushing him to the emergency room and how he’d gotten bandaged up and then sent home.
He definitely recalled how his brother and cousin kept saying over and over, “We told you so.” He remembered that after he’d gotten into bed, Megan had stopped by on her way to the hospital where she worked as an anesthesiologist.
He recalled when she’d given him his pain medicine with instructions of when to take it. The pain had come back sometime after dark and he’d taken some of the pills.
Hell, how much of the stuff had he taken? He distinctly recalled the E.R. physician’s warning that the painkillers were pretty potent stuff and had to be taken when instructed. So much for that.
Okay, so he had taken more pain medicine than he was supposed to. But still, what gave some woman the right to enter his home and take advantage of him? He thought of several women who it could have been; anyone who might have heard about his fall and decided to come over and play nursemaid. Only Ashira would have been bold enough to do that. Had he slept with her last night? Hell, he sure hoped not. She might try to pull something and he wasn’t in the market of being any baby’s daddy any time soon. Besides, what he’d shared with his mystery woman had been different from anything he’d ever shared with Ashira. It had been more profound with one hell of a lasting effect.
He then remembered something vital. The woman he’d slept with had been a virgin—although it was hard to believe he could