Only when he glared back at the woman, whose screams were not helping his situation, did everything completely fall into place.
“Cupcake?”
The woman stopped looking frantically around and stared at him, then her gaze dropped to what she was wearing. His puffy shirt. Her already-pale face turned ashen, and for a moment she looked as if she might pass out. Then her wide-eyed stare returned to him, roaming down over his body. Her eyes stopped and grew even rounder when she reached his crotch.
He looked down also, and saw that he wore nothing but chaps. And his Old Chap was lying against his thigh for the whole world to see. Or at least for Cupcake to see. Amazingly, her gray pallor turned pink almost instantaneously.
But with her reaction, a sheepish averting of her eyes and the realization that he wasn’t back on Captain Morgan’s Floating Ship of Bloodletting and Doom, he actually chuckled. Being in a sex swing with his Happy Jack swinging in the breeze was not the worst thing he’d ever experienced.
Especially when it was having such an interesting effect on Cupcake, who still averted her eyes—mostly. He noticed she took quick glances every now and then. Which was making old Happy Jack all the happier.
“I don’t suppose you could help get me down?” he finally asked when it became clear that Cupcake had no intention of saying anything first.
She hesitated, shooting another quick glance at him, this one directed at his face. Mostly.
“Presumably you are the one who trussed me up here. So shouldn’t you be the one to get me down?” he said pragmatically.
“I did not—truss—you up there.”
He gave her an amused look.
“Well, I have to admit I don’t remember. Unfortunately. But since I’m wearing no pants . . .” He glanced down at himself. “Well, virtually no pants. And you are wearing my shirt, I’m thinking something happened between us.”
She cast a look down at herself, too, then crossed her arms over her ample chest as if that would somehow nullify the fact that that was his shirt . . . ruffles, lace, and all.
“Some help,” he prompted again.
She hesitated a moment longer, then dropped her arms and let out a sigh. Apparently she saw no other way around helping him, for which he was thankful. His shoulders and arm were killing him. Still, she only took a few steps closer to him, clearly trying to decide what would be the best strategy to get him down.
“You’re not going to be able to avoid getting up close and personal,” he said with a grin, then spread his legs so she could move between them and reach the cuffs.
Her cheeks grew redder, but rather than move between his legs, she placed a hand on his leather-clad knee and shoved it toward the other one, closing his legs. She still had to press up against his outer thigh and side of his chest to reach the lock.
“Or you can do it that way,” he said wryly. It was on the tip of his tongue to point out that one of her very full, very perky breasts was still right there in his face, but decided against it.
He didn’t know Cupcake well, but he knew her well enough to know she’d just leave him hanging if she got pissed off.
“How long have I been up here?” he asked, trying not to think about how amazingly tempting that breast was—so close to his face. His mouth.
“I have no idea,” she said absently, focused on undoing the lock. “Don’t even know where we are or who those other people are, for that matter.”
“Other people?” He tried to look around, but his position made it impossible. The deeper meaning of her words hit him and his gaze shifted to her face. “Wait, you mean you don’t remember either?”
Her fingers faltered and her face grew redder, if that were possible. “No.”
He was silent for a moment. “Shit. Not again.”
This time her hands dropped completely from the cuff and she gaped at him, her eyes huge and startlingly blue.
“What do you mean, ‘not again?’”
He gave her a pained look. “Well, this memory loss thing . . . it happened another time, too.”
WAS HE FREAKING kidding? He’d had this happen before? Because Josie Lynn could absolutely assure him this had never happened to her before. Waking up in some sort of sex room? Wearing only a men’s shirt? With other scantily clad people passed out around her? Yeah. This had never happened. Ever. Frankly, she couldn’t recommend it.
And of course it would be the sexy pirate she would wake up with . . . well, sort of with. She was wearing his shirt, so clearly she’d been with him for a least part of the time that she couldn’t remember. Very possibly really been with him.
She shot a quick glance past him to the couple only a few feet away. Had she also been with that guy? At least she recognized the pirate, but this other guy . . . oh dear God. And the woman. Then she realized another woman lay on the floor, still unconscious. Or at least she hoped the woman was unconscious.
She had to be. Josie Lynn didn’t want to contemplate other alternatives. Nor did she want to think about what they had all done in this room together. What if they’d had an orgy . . . ?
Oh, this could be really bad.
“Okay, you kind of look like you might pass out again,” the pirate said, drawing his attention away from the others. “So could you get me down before you do that?”
Josie Lynn gave him a dirty look. “I love the concern.”
“I assure you, I’m very concerned,” he told her. “But I’m also a little concerned that I have no feeling in my hands, too.”
Begrudgingly, Josie Lynn supposed that was an understandable reason to be worried and set back to getting him unlocked. This time, maybe because she just wanted some answers, then out of here and away from all of these people, she managed to unfasten the locks without too much struggle.
“Thanks,” he said, wincing as he lowered his arms and flexed his fingers.
“So you said this has happened before?” she said, ignoring his gratitude. “How many forgotten orgies have you had, exactly?”
The pirate stopped rotating his shoulder and looked at her. “Whoa now, who said anything about orgies? Why would you think we had an orgy?”
She lifted her hands and looked around the room, ending her tour on him and his lack of attire.
He shrugged. “Okay, I can see where you would conclude something sexual happened last night, but if we all did have a forgotten orgy, it would be my first.”
“So what happened again?”
“I think someone must have drugged us.”
“Drugged us?”
How could he stand there, his penis hanging out for all the world to see, and calmly tell her that he thought they’d been drugged?
“And do you and your friends get drugged often?”
“No,” he said with the same nonchalance. “But it did happen once before.”
Josie Lynn stared at him, trying to stay calm. “And do you know who did it?”
“The first time?”
She nodded slowly, starting to wonder if he could possibly be serious, or if maybe he was just nuts.
“Yeah, we know who did it the first time,” he said, again amazing her with his matter-of-factness. “But I highly doubt he’d do it again. It was an accident.”
Okay, yeah, nuts seemed like the most likely explanation here, but before she got the chance to tell him that, the other man, who thankfully had clothes on, called to him.
So this other guy knew the pirate. And, she realized as she looked closer at both the man and woman, they were handcuffed together.
Of course they were handcuffed together. Yeah, this was effin’ nuts.
LIZETTE WAS HAVING a rather pleasant dream of riding in a hot air balloon over the French countryside after the Parisian World’s Fair back in 1889, when she had the sensation of being tugged, accompanied by an irritating rattling. She wanted to suggest to whoever was creating the ruckus to please cease, but she was alone in the balloon.