Excerpt of Lick by Kylie Scott

I woke up on the bathroom floor. Everything hurt. My mouth
felt like garbage and tasted worse. What the hell had
happened last night? The last thing I remembered was the
countdown to midnight and the thrill of turning twenty-one,
legal at last. I’d been dancing with Lauren and talking to
some guy. Then BANG!

Tequila.

A whole line of shot glasses with lemon and salt on the
side.

Everything I’d heard about Vegas was true. Bad things
happened here, terrible things. I just wanted to crawl into
a ball and die. Sweet baby, Jesus, what had I been thinking
to drink so much? I groaned and even that made my head
pound. This pain had not been part of the plan.

“You okay?” a voice enquired, male, deep, and nice. Really
nice. A shiver went through me despite my pain. My poor
broken body stirred in the strangest of places.

“Are you going to be sick again?” he asked.

Oh, no.

I opened my eyes and sat up, pushing my greasy blonde hair
aside. His blurry face loomed closer. I slapped a hand over
my mouth because my breath had to be hideous.

“Hi,” I mumbled.

Slowly, he swam into focus. He was built and beautiful and
strangely familiar. Impossible. I’d never met anyone like
him.

He looked to be in his mid-to-late twenties—a man, not a
boy. He had long dark hair falling past his shoulders and
sideburns. His eyes were the darkest blue. They couldn’t be
real. Frankly, those eyes were overkill. I’d have swooned
perfectly fine without them. Even with the tired red tinge
they were a thing of beauty. Tattoos covered the entirety of
one arm and half his bare chest. A black bird had been inked
into the side of his neck, the tip of its wing reaching up
behind his ear. I still had on the pretty, dirty white dress
Lauren had talked me into. It had been a daring choice for
me on account of the way it barely contained my abundance of
boobage. But this beautiful man easily had me beat for skin
on show. He wore just a pair of jeans, some scuffed black
boots, a couple of small silver earrings, and a loose white
bandage on his forearm.

Those jeans … he wore them well. They sat invitingly low on
his hips and fit in all the right ways. Even my monster
hangover couldn’t detract from the view.

“Aspirin?” he asked.

And I was ogling him. My gaze darted to his face and he gave
me a sly, knowing smile. Wonderful. “Yes. Please.”

He grabbed a battered black leather jacket off the floor,
the one I’d apparently been using as a pillow. Thank God I
hadn’t puked on it. Clearly, this beautiful half naked man
had seen me in all my glory, hurling multiple times. I could
have drowned in the shame.

One by one he emptied the contents of his pockets out onto
the cold white tiles. A credit card, guitar picks, a phone
and a string of condoms. The condoms gave me pause but I was
soon distracted by what emerged next. A multitude of paper
scraps tumbled out onto the floor. All had names and numbers
scrawled across them. This guy was Mr Popularity. Hey, I
could definitely see why. But why on earth was he here with
me?

Finally, he produced a small bottle of pain-killers. Sweet
relief. I loved him, whoever he was and whatever he’d seen.

“You need water,” he said, and got busy filling a glass from
the sink behind him.

The bathroom was tiny. We both barely fit. Given Lauren’s
and my money situation, the hotel had been the best we could
afford. She’d been determined to celebrate my birthday in
style. My goal had been a bit different. Despite the
presence of my hot new friend, I was pretty sure I’d failed.
The pertinent parts of my anatomy felt fine. I’d heard
things hurt after the first couple of times. They sure as
hell had after the first. But my vagina might have been the
only part of my body not giving me grief.

Still, I took a quick peek down the front of my dress. The
corner of a foil package could still be seen, tucked into
the side of my bra. Because if it was sitting there,
strapped to me, no way would I be caught unprepared. The
condom remained whole and hearty. How disappointing. Or
maybe not. Finally plucking up the courage to get back on
the horse, so to speak, and then not remembering it would
have been horrible.

The man handed me the glass of water and placed two pills
into my hand. He then sat back on his haunches to watch me.
He had an intensity to him that I was in no condition to
deal with.

“Thanks,” I said, then swallowed the aspirin. Noisy rumbles
rose from my belly. Nice, very ladylike.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. His glorious mouth
twitched into a smile as if we shared a private joke between
us.

The joke being me.