It’s a man.

A tall man.

A tall man with broad shoulders.

A tall man with broad shoulders that I recognize.

Lincoln.

Even drunk, I would know him anywhere. Hell, I’d even recognize his walk. Confidence practically paves the way for each step. It’s like he’s never doubted a single thing in his entire life and can’t imagine making a misstep.

I wonder what it would be like to be that sure of yourself. I also doubt I’ll ever know, but I add it to my mental list of goals, anyway.

It doesn’t occur to me to wonder what he’s doing up here until his footsteps stop. I slide along the wall and peek out the doorway because I can’t not look.

He faces a door at the end of the hall. My door.

Lincoln came up here for me.

I wait, barely breathing, because I need to know, and I’m afraid I’ll give myself away.

Yet he doesn’t do anything but stand there and stare at my door like he’s having an internal debate.

I know all about those internal debates. Right now, I’m trying to decide whether I can keep quiet for another minute, because part of me—a big part—wants Lincoln to know that I’m watching him. Another part of me tells the big part to shut up because I can’t be held responsible for what I would do to Lincoln if I he saw me right now. Probably climb him like a tree.

Finally, he reaches out, and my lungs freeze. He’s going to knock.

But instead of curling his hand into a fist, he touches the door with his fingertips before turning toward the door adjacent to mine at the end of the hall. He waves a key card in front of the lock and disappears inside.

That’s when it occurs to me. Lincoln went into a suite on this floor and it’s right next to mine.

As soon as his door closes, I rush down the hall to let myself into my room, and flatten my back against the door as soon as it closes. To my left in the sitting room, on the wall that separates my suite from the room he’s in, is a locked door.

A locked connecting door. To Lincoln’s suite.

I stare at it for several moments, wishing I had X-ray vision so I could see what he was doing beyond that wall.

Obviously, because that superpower eludes me, I close my eyes and use my imagination. Not so shockingly, it’s even better when lubricated by champagne.

In my mind, I watch Lincoln shrug off his suit jacket and toss it over the back of a couch just like mine. He reaches up to his tanned throat to loosen his tie.

God, ties are hot. Someday, I want to pull it free from its knot and tease him with it.

But back to my fantasy.

His capable fingers work each button free and his white shirt falls open, revealing that muscled chest and hard stomach I didn’t know he could still have ten years later. But he does. I know because I saw it. I might have been tipsy that night too, but the memory is burned into my brain for eternity.