Page 4 of On Thin Ice (Calgary Mounties #1)

Chapter Four

DID WE… WE DIDN’T… DID WE?

Adele

Light pours in through the window, seeping through my eyelids and stabbing me in the brain.

“Ugh,” I groan, rolling away from the light and burying my face in my pillow.

The arm slung over my waist flexes before drawing away, and I crack open one eye, coming face to face with Lincoln, who appears to be just waking up himself. With his eyes squeezed shut, he rubs both temples with one hand, his groan echoing mine.

My memory of last night is pretty hazy after we rejoined the wedding.

Ben had disappeared off to our room, I assumed.

And I’d moved on from champagne to cocktails.

I’d ended up drink for drink with Lincoln at one point, and given he’s got a good few inches on me and is a solid wall of muscle, it’s no surprise that I’ve now got the mother of all hangovers.

My vision slowly swims into focus, and I become aware of the fact that I’m completely naked. While lying next to Lincoln. Who is not my fiancé. Well, ex-fiancé now, I guess. But still…

“What the hell happened last night?” Lincoln moans, his words summing up my own confusion .

“Are you wearing clothes?” I ask, wincing when the sound of my own voice hits my brain like a jackhammer.

He lifts the blanket up, then drops it back down. “Nope. You?”

I shake my head, immediately regretting the action when the world tilts around me.

“Did we… We didn’t… Did we?” I can hear the mounting panic in his voice, and I try to search through the depths of my hazy memories for some idea of what happened after we left the wedding.

“I really want to say no, but…” I trail off as the image of Lincoln beneath me while I straddle his lap floats to the surface. “Oh, god.”

Pretty sure I moaned that a lot, too, while I was riding him, and he gripped my hips with those big, strong hands. Seems like, even drunk beyond belief, he’s just as good in bed as I suspected.

“Fuck,” he says, and I suspect that he’s now processing the same memories.

A wave of nausea hits me, and I roll out of bed, not bothering to throw any clothes on as I race towards the bathroom.

Once I’ve emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet, I sit on the bathmat and lean against the cold tiles on the wall, pulling my knees up to hug them close.

This is bad. So very, very bad.

I can’t have slept with Lincoln O’Malley. Especially just hours after breaking up with my fiancé, one of his oldest friends.

How the hell did this happen? Half the time, I can barely tolerate the man, with his endless charm and stupid, handsome face. And now… Now the memory of that handsome face burying itself between my legs is burning itself into my brain.

The things that man can do with his tongue .

I groan and press the heels of my palms into my eyes.

“Are you okay?” Lincoln asks, appearing in the doorway.

At least he’s wearing boxers now. I, however, am still completely naked.

“Nope,” I reply, yanking the towel off the rail above me and covering myself.

In the trash beside me, I spy three used condoms and feel conflicting emotions of relief and horror. Relief that we at least used protection… Horror that we went back for several rounds, from the look of it.

“We were meant to have a pillow-fort,” he mumbles, although I’m pretty sure he’s talking to himself.

“Well, we clearly didn’t get that far.”

Lincoln’s face turns pale, and he crosses to the sink in a single step, making it just in time before he throws up.

I’m not sure if it’s the alcohol, or the realization of just how badly we’ve fucked up that triggered it, but it’s good to see I’m not the only one with massive regret over what happened.

“This is all your fault,” I say while he splashes cold water on his face.

He slides down beside me. “How the hell do you figure that?”

“It was your idea for me to sleep here. I could have been lying on the floor of my parents’ room right now, crying my eyes out about my relationship exploding.”

He gapes at me. “You made a big point of how much you didn’t want to do that! I was just being polite and letting you crash in here. It wasn’t an invitation to fuck my brains out.”

“Excuse me. It was you who fucked my brains out, O’Malley.”

He glowers at me. “Semantics. And either way, we are severely fucked right now. ”

“You don’t say? Cause I thought I’d suggest another round,” I reply dryly.

His eyebrows fly up. “Really?”

“No!” I exclaim, glaring at him. “It’s bad enough we apparently went for it three times last night.” I wave my hand towards the trash and his face pales again. “We absolutely cannot do this again. We can’t even talk about this. Not to anyone.”

“Like I’m going to tell anyone. Kylie would absolutely lose her fucking mind, and Seth would have some pretty choice words… Not to mention…”

“Ben,” I finish for him.

The person who would be the most hurt by all of this.

“I can’t believe we did this,” he mutters.

I nod, pulling the towel tight around myself. “We are terrible, terrible people.”

“The absolute worst.”

The sound of someone pounding on the door of the main room makes us both jump and we exchange a panicked look.

“Linc! You in there?” Seth’s voice carries through the door, and Lincoln gets to his feet.

“Stay here. I’ll go get rid of him.” He pulls the bathroom door shut behind him.

A moment later, I hear the door open.

“Couldn’t put some clothes on before you answered the door?” Seth says.

“I’m a bit hungover. Lucky I even have boxers on at this point,” Lincoln replies.

A bit hungover is an understatement.

“We’re trying to find Adele. Do you know where she ended up? We just ran into Ben at breakfast, and he said they broke up and he hasn’t seen her since last night.”

Crap .

“Ah… Well, she slept on the couch here but I’m not sure where she is now.”

At least Lincoln is better at lying than I am. I would have one hundred percent denied seeing him at all and then be stuck trying to explain where the hell I’d slept last night. Although, given the mess we’re currently in, I probably should have just slept under a tree on the beach.

“Can you come help us look for her? Kylie is worried.”

“Sure. I’ll just get dressed. I’ll meet you in the lobby in a few minutes.” The main door closes, and a few seconds later, Lincoln reenters the bathroom. “So, I’m officially a shit human being and just lied to my best friend.”

“I’m going to have to climb out the window, aren’t I?”

He shakes his head. “Don’t think we need to go to that extreme. I’ll go start the search with Seth and you get your ass down to the beach in like ten minutes so we can ‘find’ you,” he replies, using air quotes.

Great, now we have to make an entire production out of this.

I’m never drinking again.

Ten minutes later, I’m sitting on one of the resort beach towels on the sand in my bridesmaid’s dress, questioning every single choice I’ve ever made in my life.

“Adele! There you are!” Kylie races towards me, with Will a few steps behind.

“Oh… Were you guys looking for me?”

God, I’m a terrible liar.

Thankfully, Kylie is too preoccupied to notice that I’m being sketchy. Will raises an eyebrow though, and I’m pretty sure he can tell something is off.

“What are you doing out here? We’ve been looking everywhere for you.” She sits down beside me and puts her arm around my shoulders.

Will takes a seat on my other side and squeezes my hand. “We heard about the breakup.”

I swallow hard. “Yeah.”

I wish that was the worst of my problems right now.

Seth and Lincoln appear from behind the garden bed beside us, and Seth pushes his hand through his hair while he runs his eyes over me.

“Oh good, we’ve found you.”

Lincoln remains silent, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

We really need to get better at hiding that something happened. I can’t even look at him properly right now, but every time I look away, I panic that that is weird, too.

“Yep. You found me.”

“Are you okay?” Kylie asks.

“No.” At least that isn’t a lie.

But it’s not the breakup that has me twisted into knots right now. It’s the six-foot two blond god of a man standing next to her husband, who is doing his best to look like he didn’t have me screaming his name several hours earlier.

“Come on. I’ll take you back to our room. Will can go and get your stuff from your room so you can get dressed. You can stay with us tonight,” Kylie says, switching to fix it mode.

“I don’t need to crash with you guys. I’ll sort something out. But yeah - if Will could get my stuff, that would be great. I’d like to have a shower.”

We get to our feet, and I allow Kylie to lead me back to the honeymoon suite.

Lincoln makes some lame excuse about wanting to go for a run and disappears.

Given how hungover he is, I’m surprised the others buy that, but I’m relieved that I don’t have to try to work out how not to act weird around him for at least the next hour.

Will arrives twenty minutes later with my suitcases. “I grabbed everything, but I saw Ben as I was finishing, and he just said he’s leaving today. I think you should probably talk to him first, but at least you have somewhere to sleep tonight. Gotta be better than the couch in Lincoln’s room.”

The last thing I want to do right now is talk to Ben. After ripping his heart apart because I was too much of a coward to end the relationship months ago, I’m probably the last person he wants to see, anyway.

And I can’t look at him without remembering all the things I did with his friend last night.

Definitely never, ever drinking again.