Her Song

7 - She Sleigh's Me

**Van**

Dying. I was fucking dying.

Gasping for breath as Rich stood with his foot on my chest as he played the guitar solo I wrote I found it impossible to move. Was that my guitar? And was that Hope Clarke-Connelly hanging off his side in a leather mini-skirt?

WTF?

I struggled to crawl out from beneath my brother's stiletto heeled boot but I was pinned to the ground. The sound of a motorcycle drew my attention and I turned my head to see Bas Alexander straddling a Harley in nothing but a leather man-thong as if he was the star attraction in a Magic Mike show. Lucy and Kim gyrated beside him in sequined bikinis and go-go boots.

The feather boa around Rich's neck brushed over my nose and mouth and I fought back the urge to sneeze. How the hell had I wound up us the ritual sacrifice in one of my brother's more fucked up stage shows?

Sweat was pouring down my brow as I struggled to free myself – the inevitable had finally arrived. Rich was going to kill me. Feather's settled over my nose and as I opened my mouth to gasp for breath they settled into my nose. With the last of my strength I turned my head and gasped for air. Something sharp grazed my cheek and suddenly my eyes were blinking open to the sight of weak early morning sunlight forcing its way through the kind of lurid race-car drapes I would have loved as a five year old.

A dream. It was all a dream. A really fucked up dream, but still a dream.

I sucked in a breath – or attempted to because the heavy weight on my chest hadn't dissipated with my return to consciousness. And come to think of it the soft tickling hadn't left the side of my face either.

I turned my head and was confronted by the sight of two enormous cats planted firmly on my chest. One was blinking down at me with amber eyes as it held a paw extended toward the skull dangling from my ear. All I could see of the other cat was its sleek black back and the soft and sinuous tail that swept back and forth over my face. Both were purring at ear splitting volume.

It all made sense now. Kind of.

The sound of a sweet little snuffly grunt of a snore let me know that the cats and I were not alone. Reluctantly I broke eye contact with the cat – reluctantly because it seemed that eye contact was the only thing that had made him pause in his attack on my earing – and turned my gaze to take in my companion. It had been a long time since I'd awoken in an unknown bed. It wasn't a sensation I'd missed.

I exhaled in relief – or would have if not for the two black monsters on my chest – when I recognised Kim beneath the tangle of blonde bed-head. Of course it was a relief. There had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for my presence in Kim's bed. I frantically shuffled through my scattered memories of the previous night in the hopes of finding it.

Fuck. I really hoped I could find a reasonable explanation. Rich was the brother who got black out drunk and boned his friends – or he would have been if he actually had any female friends – not me. What the fuck had I been drinking?

I really needed to fucking breathe.

Fighting my way free of the duvet I removed first one and then the other cat from my chest. Both blinked at me resentfully before stalking to the end of the bed where they glared at with the kind of malicious intent only a cat could convey.

Slowly, painfully slowly, my memories of the night before filtered into my sleep and alcohol befuddled brain.

What fresh madness had led me to a hip bar on the Saturday night when an entire cosmetics department of women held a Christmas party?