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I gave him a blank stare. “Did you seriously get ‘not inebriated’ in fifteen minutes?”

“Years of residency beat inebriation right out of me,” he grinned lopsidedly.

Okay, so maybe he was just hiding it better. I took his hand, and it was only then I realized my purse was still in his car. Sighing to myself, I followed Cal to the hotel lobby where he told them his name. They gave him two key cards, but theattendant with round cheeks and goth eyeliner only named one room on the third floor.

“Thanks,” Cal smiled in his usual, charming way. Miraculously, he did not look tipsy. Not one bit.

I followed him, bobbing my eyes left and then right. “Um, do I need to get my own room?”

“No,” Cal held up the key card. “We have one.”

“Right,youhave one,” I said pointedly.

“I believe I said payback.” Cal got a wicked curve to his mouth, and then he took my hand in his.

“Oh boy,” I muttered. “There had better be a couch.”

“Right, because the room is not for sex,” Cal said with mocking severity.

I pinched my lips between my teeth. “Funny.” That churning in my stomach lessened some, soothed by Cal’s teasing smile and bright eyes as we took the elevator to the third floor. Sure, this was a fake date, but it had still been fun, right? I could have fun. There wasn’t anything wrong with that.

Cal finally stumbled a little as we maneuvered into the hotel room. He flicked on the light for the suite, which sported one king-sized bed, a small sofa with a walnut coffee table, and the usual inoffensive but bland artwork, wallpaper, and carpets that hotels managed to consistently choose. Still plastered to his side, I fell sideways with him, and we bumped into the narrow entryway before tripping forward, past the bathroom to the left and into the main space. “Cal,” I grunted, grabbing for his shirt and righting him. “What was in those drinks?”

“Apparently,” he wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug and walked us both toward the bed, “a little too much of everything.”

“What are you doing?” I squeezed out from between his hard arms.

“What does it look like?” Cal wrenched us down to the mattress, and we fell hard, poofing up the coverlet and leaving our legs dangling off the edge. Cal didn’t release me. “Hmm, you smell like apples.”

“That would be my shampoo,” I replied, my voice strained as I pushed against him. It was no use. He had both my arms pinned to my sides, and my face had pressed into the soft cotton of his T-shirt. “Get off me, you massive troll.”

He laughed, and the vibration purred through me with a satisfying trill. “I’m the troll under the bridge. Are you going to pay the toll?”

“I’m not under a bridge,” I gritted out, still pushing against him as we lay facing each other on our sides. “I’m under five hundred tons of muscle.”

“Thank you,” he said seriously.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” I rolled my eyes. Giving up a physical fight, I glanced up at him. With his arms tightly wound around me and his eyes closed, I got a perfect look at the sharp line of his jaw and the way his light-tinted eyelashes fanned out over smooth, bronze skin. I found myself momentarily speechless. We were so close, I could see the little cracks in his lips and the five-o-clock shadow that had grown along his chin and jaw.

Cal opened his eyes, and bright green ensnared me. “You want up, Shortstop?”

Did I? I couldn’t remember anymore. “Yeah,” I replied, my voice breathy.

“Then you have to pay the toll.”

I licked my lips, staring up into his mossy green eyes. I couldn’t help but think that Cal had been made to perfectly mirror the lush landscape of the state he’d been born in. My eyes darted down to his dusky lips and then back to his eyes. “What toll?”

Cal tightened his arms around me, drawing me up his body so my hips pressed into his lower belly and our noses nearly touched. His breath, tinted with alcohol and sugar, fanned over my lips. I swallowed hard, and my heart thudded to life, pattering away at an uneven tempo. How had I wound up in bed with Cal-the-Hot-Doctor Reed? And why, on God’s green earth, was he staring down at me with hooded eyes and an expression like he wanted to kiss me?

“How drunk are you?” I whispered.

“Sober enough to want to kiss you.” His lips pressed, curving into a soft smile. “And drunk enough to ask.”

My lips parted like they were inviting him in without another thought. “I think you’re drunk enough to want to kiss anyone, Cal.”

Cal rolled us, and suddenly he hovered over me, his long, hard body poised just over mine and his knee between my legs. He supported his weight on his forearms, but his body pressed mineinto the mattress as he hovered his mouth over my parted lips. “I want to kissyou. No one else—just you. I wanted to do it three days ago, and the time in between has only made it worse.”

I stared up at him, my chest pressing against him and retreating again with sudden, labored breaths. “You don’t mean that.”