Unique woke up to the sound of a jackhammer in the distance. The pounding in her head seemed to intensify as the machine buzzed along, forcing her to open her eyes and move her body. Two things that she had been avoiding for the better part of an hour.
During that time, she was able to make out a few undeniable facts.
One: this wasn't her room. The pillowcases in her room were softer and smelled like expensive linen.
Two: she drank way too much at the wedding. She recalled wandering into another wedding party at some point and everything got fuzzy beyond that point.
Three: the general ache in her hips, waist, and thighs told her that her night had been... interesting, to say the least.
And the last, and perhaps most important thing...the man lying next to her was a complete stranger.
Next to was a mild way of putting it. They were spooning, and she was definitely the little spoon. His "little soldier" pressed against her behind assured her of that. Unique rubbed her thighs together, trying to discern if the fabric wrapped tightly around her body was a sheet or her dress.
Please be my dress, please be my dress, please be my dress, she prayed silently.
No such luck.
Okay, it'd been a while since she'd found herself in this kind of situation but she was still up on her morning after a one-night-stand etiquette. First, there is NO GOOD WAY to extricate yourself from the situation when you're the little spoon. None! Just the act of sitting up will alert your partner that you are on your way out and most people will feel it impolite to simply lie there and pretend to be too drunk to wake up.
Unique stretched slowly, waking her bed partner. He rolled over and did the same, extending his limbs like a cat and taking a deep breath. Everything was going along well until she looked up at her outstretched hands.
"What the fuck!"
Unique sat up on the bed and stared at the shiny titanium shackle that had been secured snuggly around her wrist. She wasn't sure whether she should be freaked out about being shackled to a stranger or happy that, whatever happened last night, he obviously had no intentions of "getting away" with his crime.
"Oh shit," Rayyan said, pulling on the chain that tethered them together. He examined it closely. It looked like a regular set of handcuffs except that there were diamonds laid into the closure and the chain that bound both cuffs was long and elaborately crafted. It was like the world's most expensive sex toy.
"Did we?" Unique tried hard to remember but couldn't be sure about anything that she recalled.
Rayyan looked down at his naked chest and hesitantly lifted the covers.
"Looks like," he nodded.
"No, not that. we obviously did THAT. I mean, did WE chain ourselves together? I mean this isn't part of some elaborate elkes lodge initiation ceremony is it?"
"No," he shook his head. He didn't remember buying it, but it looked like the kind of thing he would buy.
"Okay, well, we should find the key," Unique tried to remain calm.
"Yeah," he agreed, coming closer to her. His proximity made Unique more aware that they were both almost completely naked. It was a little late to be feeling shy, but she grabbed the sheet and wrapped it around her body anyway.
Rayyan stood up, yanking Unique's arm up with him as he stretched. She looked up and got her first real look at this stranger. He was tall with dark brown, wavy hair, that made soft curls on the crown of his head. He was muscular, but they were obviously gym muscles. They were too evenly developed to be the result of hard work or daily labor. Thankfully, he was wearing briefs, but Unique noticed that he wasn't lacking in that department either. His skin was almost blemished free, save a few tattoos along his chest and back and a few fresh scratches that she had obviously given him.
"Sorry about that?" Unique pointed to the faint red lines along his shoulders and upper arms.
"What?" He looked down at her and then at what she was pointing to. "Oh, that? No problem."
Rayyan tried hard not to smile too broadly. It had been a while since any woman had tried to mark him. He wasn't the kind of guy who liked to let people know what he did in his private life.
"Okay! Keys," he started looking around the room, checking under the furniture and behind anything that wasn't bolted down. It wasn't unlike him to hide the key behind a picture frame or in a potted plant. He checked them all, with Unique in tow, double checking behind him. She didn't seem to be too freaked out about their current situation. Always a good sign.
"This is yours, I think," Rayyan handed her the cell phone he found between the cushions of the sofa.
"Oh thanks. I still have a little juice left," Unique unlocked the phone to find that her wallpaper had been changed to a picture of the smiling pair in front of a fountain.
"Looks like we did it up right," Rayyan observed from 9ver her shoulder.
Once again Unique was aware of how intimate they were behaving even though she couldn't remember his name.
"Looks like," she agreed. "I'm Unique, by the way."
"Oh yeah," he smiled shyly. "Rayyan. Nice to meet you."
"I think we did more than meet. Any idea how we got naked with these things on?" Unique shook her elegantly manacled hand.
"If that dress is anything too by," Rayyan pointed to Uniques discarded gown. The entire left side had been ripped open at the seams.
"Oh no!" The panicked look on Unique's face was comical. "I put that on my credit card. I was going to return it today."
Rayyan suppresses a chuckle as he bent down to scoop up his cell phone from the floor.
"Just send me the bill. I'll pay for it. I was probably the one who ripped it open in the first place."
"That was $600!"
Rayyan chuckled softly.
"Whoever charged you $600 for that dress ripped you off."
"Hey!" Unique put her hand on her hip, prepared to give Rayyan a piece of her mind. Waking up naked and chained to a stranger was one thing, but taking crap from a stranger about her gown was another.
Just as Unique opened her mouth to let him have it her phone rang in her hand. Seeing it was Rabia she answered without hesitation.
"Hey, you! Aren't you supposed to be on your honeymoon by now?"
"We're at the airport now. It was crazy last night. I just got your messages. Is everything okay?" Rabia was Unique's oldest friend and her wedding was the only reason why she came to Las Vegas. The wedding was a three-day affair in which all of the gaudiness of Rabia's Pakistani roots and all of the excess that made Vegas famous, collided in a dizzying display.
"Of course it is. I just drank a little too much last night. I was probably just drunk dialing," Unique admitted.
"Okay," the tension eased out of Rabia voice. "By the way, who was the guy in all of those pictures you sent me?"
Unique looked up to see Rayyan scrolling through his phone in horror.
"Who? Him? I'll tell you all about it when you get back. No spoilers! Enjoy yourself. Bye-bye," Unique hung up the phone and took a step closer to Rayyan to see what he was looking at.
There were at least two dozen pictures of them, beginning on the lobby of the hotel where Unique had been staying, and ending with them shirtless, pressed chest to chest and sharing a kiss.
"If you didn't know any better you'd think that we were a couple," Unique said.
"Unfortunately that's exactly what people are thinking," Rayyan snapped.
"Why would they think that?"
"Because that's what we told them."
Rayyan opened up his messages and showed her the stream of congratulation texts that he'd received overnight.
"How did?" unique didn't finish the question. Instead, she went through her own phone and read her outgoing messages.
"Meet my new man," Rayyan read aloud.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" Unique beat herself in the head.
"Let me guess. You've got a man?" Rayyan rolled his eyes.
"No! I have an ex with an anger management problem who I am supposed to be hiding from."
"Smart girl! At least you know to hide," Rayyan said with a smirk.
"Is this the moment to be smug? You're no better off than I am. And where are the goddamned keys!" Unique threw herself on the sofa in frustration.
"You're right," Rayyan's face visibly paled as he continued to flip through screens on his phone. "I'm not better than you. I'm much, much, worse."
He handed the phone to Unique and scrubbed his face with his hand.
"Bad-boy gaming genius weds mysterious lady in a surprise Vegas ceremony," said the headline.
"MARRIED!" Unique jumped up from her seat. "That can;t be right. If we were married there'd be pictures, a dress, a certificate. SOMETHING! It's just speculation."
Unique nodded to herself and looked up at Rayyan with pleading eyes. He closed his eyes and stretched his arms out around him, forcing her to lift her arm as well. He waved them around for a moment as if feeling for something solid in a pitch black room.
"Ah, I got it," he said, opening a drawer in the desk along the wall. Inside was a folder from the Happy Forever Wedding Chapel".
"Oh no!" Unique moaned.
"Maybe we got lucky and we were too drunk to write our names correctly."
"They're not supposed to allow drunk people to get married at all. I'm pretty sure that's illegal," Unique said, scooting over so that Rayyan could sit beside her.
"I don't have a lot of drunk habits. It takes a while for me to seem drunk."
Rayyan slid the temporary wedding certificate out of the folder and examined it for any errors.
"It all seems legit...honey," he teased, throwing an arm around Unique's shoulders.