Page 12

RYAN

I’ve seen all sorts of women naked, and I enjoy all types of bodies. I remember most of them pretty clearly – or at least I did, until now.

Seeing Marlow almost naked must have made some neuron in my brain misfire. Or maybe it made the world tilt on its axis and threw us into some sort of alternate dimension or an episode of The Twilight Zone .

And now, it’s all I can think about as I toss and turn in the hotel bed.

She’s long legs and soft curves. Creamy white skin and pale constellations of freckles. Just under her belly button, she has a soft swell of skin that stretches between her hips. Her ass is round and firm, but there are a few glossy, white stretch marks faintly running down the back of her hips.

These are the things that drive me fucking wild as I lay there.

It’s the way her lips felt against my thumb, the way they wrapped around my fork.

The way she kept her icy blue eyes focused on me through it all.

The way she shimmied out of her dress like she didn’t have to think twice about undressing in front of me.

And the way that it revealed all these tiny imperfections that no one else gets to see.

It’s weird, I know, but it’s also like knowing a secret about her.

When everyone else sees Marlow in her little dresses that hug her in just the right spots, she seems like perfection.

Unattainable perfection. An ice queen as frigid and mysterious as the Artic Sea.

Knowing she has those little flaws makes her human and attainable.

And thinking of Marlow as attainable…well, the idea of that has me fucking rigid under the covers.

It’s an interesting thought…because I had no idea that I was interested in attaining Marlow.

A few feet away, Marlow lets out a single, sharp snort. I smile into the darkness when I realize that she woke herself up with her snoring fit. A soft, delicious moan escapes her lips as she rolls onto her side and drifts back off to sleep.

___

“You snore,” I say as soon as Marlow starts to stir in the morning. I’m already dressed and ready to hit the road.

She opens her eyes just enough to scowl at me before burying her face back in the pillow.

“It was like sleeping next to an asthmatic dinosaur.”

Without looking up, Marlow grabs a spare pillow from her bed and chucks it at my face. I catch it and walk over to the side of the bed, smacking her on the ass with it…or at least my best approximation of where her ass is under the heap of blankets.

“Come on, Snora the Explorer, time to wipe that drool off your face and start the day.”

Marlow finally starts to roll over. Her lips are pursed into a smile she’s trying her best to fight.

Her hair is a red pool of curls around her face.

I’m searching for an imperfection to squirrel away in my mental lockbox – a fake eyelash stuck to her cheek, a stream of drool running down to her chin – but there’s none.

It’s unclear what I’m planning to do with this new list of imperfections.

Maybe try to remind myself why we don’t like each other, or maybe drive myself crazy trying to convince myself that I don’t feel anything but annoyance for this woman.

“Did you just spank me with a pillow?” Her voice is raspy with sleep.

“Yep.”

“You broke the rules then. I said no touching my ass.”

Her eyelashes flutter as she adjusts to the filtered sunlight in the room. She stops trying to fight her smile and her lips curl lazily upward.

“Doesn’t count. It was the pillow that touched your ass, and you’ve got at least three layers of blankets piled on top of you. Besides, you’re the one that tried to get naked in front of me last night,” I laugh.

Marlow’s eyes widen and she quickly presses the palms of her hands over her face. She lets out a groan of misery but doesn’t put up a fight when I grab her wrists and pull her hands away. She sits up and glares at me.

“That was a mistake,” she finally says. “I was tipsy and tired and…”

“Horny?” I interrupt.

“What? No. Ew, Ryan.” She throws the covers off herself, standing up and stretching out her arms overhead with a big yawn.

Her pajama top rides up, exposing a slice of her pinched waist with the little soft spot below.

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed. If I reached out, I could easily pull her to me.

I could explore her soft skin with my hands and my mouth.

I could run my tongue across the little freckle just above her belly button.

I could drag my teeth across the curve of her hip, or slide her pajama bottoms off and find out what it would really be like to touch her ass and her hips and her thighs.

And what the fuck is happening right now? Where are all these thoughts coming from? I need to get home and get laid. I need to purge Marlow from my brain.

“Who’s the horny one now?” she says, breaking me away from my thoughts.

Panic wells in my chest. Did I just say something out loud that I shouldn’t have? I didn’t touch her, did I? Then I follow her eye line down to the bulge in my jeans and laugh.

“Don’t flatter yourself; that’s just morning wood,” I lie. I took care of my morning wood in the shower twenty minutes ago.

“So, it has absolutely nothing to do with the way you were just staring at me like you wanted to club me over the head and drag me back to your sex cave? I presume that’s how you seduce all those women.”

I stand up. It’s a fucking terrible mistake. We’re only inches apart. How we managed to do this for hours at a time last night, I can’t seem to remember.

“You want to see how I seduce a woman?” I smirk at Marlow. Our eyes are fixed on each other, challenging the other person to make the next move.

And Marlow does.

She drives her fist into my right shoulder. It lands with a thump, and I rub the spot dramatically as she walks off.

“Just so you know,” she says over her shoulder, “I may snore in my sleep…but you talk in yours.”

She winks and walks off toward the bathroom with an extra sashay in her step.

___

An hour later, we’re both dressed, packed, and waiting outside the lobby for the valet to bring my truck around.

I’m still racking my brain over what I may have said in my sleep last night.

Asking Marlow is out of the question. Letting her know that I even care what I said would be giving her too much power.

It’s not the first time a woman has told me that I talk in my sleep.

Usually, it’s pretty innocuous stuff – mentions of food, weird animal facts, and a tirade about the washing machine one time.

Even if I was having dirty thoughts about Marlow before falling asleep, I was probably just dreaming about a burrito or a koala or something. She’s definitely just fucking with me.

I hope.

The valet attendant is taking a long time. There are two other groups waiting outside with us, both growing antsy with each passing moment.

I’m looking down at my phone, swiping away a couple of text messages I received in the night from a woman I hooked up with last year who was passing through Gatlinburg over the weekend.

“Shit,” Marlow curses under her breath.

I look up and follow her line of sight past the glass doors leading into the hotel. It’s the woman from our table last night, the one that Marlow told off, along with Blair and Kevin. They’re all headed straight toward us.

“Damn, I thought we could make a clean escape this morning,” I say.

Marlow looks up at me, sawing her bottom lip between her teeth. She takes a tiny step closer and startles me by looping her hands around my neck.

“Pretend that we’re kissing,” she says quietly.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Kiss me, but don’t like it,” she says. We’re closer now and her breath dances across my lips.

My eyes travel down to her mouth. Her bottom lip is wet and swollen from where her teeth pressed down a moment ago. Something swells in my chest when I look at her. Panic, maybe. A bunch of nerves tangle up inside of me.

When I press my lips to hers, they all come undone, unraveling almost painfully in my stomach as I try to figure out how to follow Marlow’s instructions.

How to kiss her, but not like it. After all, this is not us.

This is fake. And I’m finding that I do hate kissing her like this, all chaste and proper and stiff.

I want to fucking devour her instead.

Our lips are barely touching. Hers are soft and uncertain as they brush against mine, leaving the slightest trace of her taste behind. I want to lap it up. I want to taste every bit of her.

When Marlow whispers ‘more’ against my lips, I pull her against me and part my lips, drawing her lower lip between mine.

It’s a slow, warm kiss that makes both of us push against each other a little harder.

Our lips glide softly together until I need more.

I slip my tongue past her lips in a light stroke.

Marlow’s sweet, soft tongue greets mine warmly, drawing me in further.

I’ve had a lot of first kisses, but none like this. It’s the kind of kiss that feels new and exciting, yet familiar.

“Mr. Ehler, your truck is ready,” the teenage valet hollers as he jingles my keys.

There goes his tip.

I groan and Marlow laughs against my lips. We don’t break away immediately. A heavy breath seems to pass through both of our chests at the same time. We release it as we release each other.

The valet gets a dirty look from me, but I still toss him a couple bucks as I shut the passenger door behind Marlow.

Our plan worked. As I walk over to the driver’s side of my truck, I see the group we wanted to avoid walking down the street and entering a coffee shop on the opposite side. They must have walked right past us without interrupting.