Page 27

TWENTY-SEVEN

TRENT

Sheila Dawson earned her Master’s of Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence, had an ex-husband who owned a construction firm, and two kids who were spending the weekend at a neighbor’s house. She worked her way up from customer service to Vice President of digital acquisitions and had slipped her second room key into my pocket before waiting in line for her fifth chardonnay.

Kit sat hunched over a table full of margaritas, offering no support and assistance. Not even a glance. Just before midnight, Mike corralled Kit and Hayden out of the bar, and I found my escape route.

“Oh, looks like my friends are packing up. I’ve got an early morning, but it was so nice to meet you.” I slid Sheila’s room key into my hand and ducked down to swipe a kiss over her cheek while I returned the room key to her purse. But even five drinks in, she outmaneuvered me.

She turned her neck, tilting it up so our lips touched. Temporary shock rendered me motionless, the key falling onto the floor as her hands grabbed my shirt. Her tongue slipped into my mouth before I staggered away.

“Um…” I raked a hand through my hair, not daring to look over and check if Kit saw the exchange. “Good night.”

I slinked off before Sheila drew me back in.

“Can we head up to the room?” I muttered to Kit.

“What about your new friend?” she asked with a mischievous grin.

“Now.” I took her arm after a brief goodnight to Hayden and Mike and dragged her back into the lobby.

The printer expo was in full swing in the hotel. Doors stood ajar down the narrow hallway-lined with rooms as men and women in business suits shared bottles of alcohol inside.

“It’s so loud,” Kit muttered. “We’re never going to get to sleep.”

Being honest with myself, sleep was the least of my worries. Sheila had temporarily distracted me from my dilemma of spending the night with Kit. Hell, if I’d had an adequate amount of sleep and half a clue, I might have taken Shelia up on the offer just to make sure I didn’t fuck up the fragile friendship I’d built with Kit.

Kit fumbled with the room key, swiping it as she dodged a guy with his tie wrapped around his forehead as he stumbled down the hall. The man bounced against a wall, eyes narrowing in concentration at me, then the floor, then me again. “You’re that man!”

Kit groaned as the door flashed red and swiped the key again.

“The Breakers, right? Tred or Ted…no, Trent Vogt.” He clapped a meaty hand on my shoulder and yelled back down the hall. “Hey guys, there’s a football player here! Did you come to the conference?”

I shook my head. Kit pushed open the door. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“I don’t. He’s on my fantasy team. He earned me ten points last season. Hey.” His face careened close to mine, and he braced himself against the wall. “Should I draft you again? No more Phoenix fiascos, right?”

Kit grabbed my shirt, pulling me into the room. I stumbled inside as Kit slammed the door in the guy’s face, cutting off either a request for an autograph or a picture.

“Thanks for that.”

“We don’t need the printer people outside our door waiting in line for autographs. I’m exhausted.”

I walked past the bathroom and stopped short, surveying the room with wide eyes. “Um, Kit?”

“What?”

“Didn’t you say you got a room with two queen beds?”

“Yeah, why?” Kit’s eyes widened to saucers. She dropped her bag at my feet as she ogled the single king bed at the center of the room. “No. This isn’t right at all.”

Her fingers trembled as she reached for the phone in her pocket, pulling up the reservation. “Two beds. It’s right here.”

She didn’t wait for me to confirm the reservation before scooping up the phone on the bedside table and pressing the button for the reception desk.

“Hi, I just checked in. I had two queen beds on my reservation, but this room has a king-sized bed.” She folded her arms, turning to face the wall. “Yeah, I know. That’s not really an upgr—Is there anything? Nothing at all? Fine. Fine.”

She slammed the phone on the receiver and gave me a tight smile. “They don’t have any double queen rooms.”

I tensed. “They told us that in the lobby.”

“Right, right.” She raked a hand through her hair, loosening her messy bun so tendrils of brown hair fell free around her face, contrasting the tension on her face: her knitted brow, her clenched jaw. “Alright. We can make this work.”

“Kick Mike and Hayden out of their room?” I suggested.

“Are you serious?”

“Of course not. I’ll sleep on the floor if it’s gonna tear you up that much.”

She eyed the floor with a grimace. The matted red carpet didn’t look clean. Or particularly new.

“Don’t be silly,” she said with absolutely no conviction. “It’s a big bed. We’ll be fine for a night.”

“Yep, just two people with sibling energy sharing one bed who kissed once,” I joked wryly.

She groaned as she shouldered her bag and brushed past me on the way to the bathroom. She slammed the door behind her.

I sat on the end of the bed and scrubbed my face. How the hell would I get through the night? Whatever had happened over the last four days had me off my game. Add in the fact that I hadn’t gotten laid in at least a month, and this was a bigger recipe for disaster than Kit realized.

Thankfully, Kit would keep me in line. She wasn’t interested, and the kiss hadn’t affected her at all. How? No idea. Apparently, my temporary break from women had broken my ability to distinguish a good kiss from a bad kiss. An enthusiastic partner from an ambivalent one.

The door to the bathroom opened, and Kit raced out and around the bed, slipping under the covers so I only glimpsed the oversized band t-shirt she wore. Was she wearing shorts under that? I couldn’t say for sure, and the mental image of Kit in a t-shirt with my name on it and nothing else stirred a wave of lust that pushed me up from the bed.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” I said, not sure why I’d bothered considering Kit had curled herself into a ball, desperate to fall asleep before I climbed back into bed.

Like the rest of the trip, the hotel bathroom was a bare bones affair: white subway tile walls with a clear glass door to the shower that allowed water to spill onto the floor.

I tossed a bathmat on the floor and turned the shower on as hot as it would allow. The barely scalding water did nothing for my half-hard cock and rather than risk waking up with a boner, I fisted it, annoyed when my mind immediately replayed Kit in my arms on the bus and the tantalizingly brief glimpse of her legs and what might have been under that oversized shirt.

I came hard, with more than a little disgust that Kit slept on the other side of the wall, completely oblivious that I had used a half-second glance at her pajamas as jack off material. Not cool. Certainly not something a friend would do, though whether Kit and I were friends, I still didn’t know. I wanted to be friends. And based on my overactive imagination, I also wanted things that fell beyond the bounds of friendship.

At least sexually spent, I finished my shower and brushed my teeth before leaving the bathroom. I walked into a wall of cold.

Had I known she’d turned down the air conditioning down to a freezer-adjacent temperature, I wouldn’t have worried about a boner. From the parking lot lights, I could make out the outline of Kit under the sheets. A sweep of the bedside table, and I found my charger, plugging in my phone for a bit of light.

“What are you wearing?” Alright, Kit wasn’t asleep.

“You can turn around and look,” I teased. Her shoulders tightened, pulling the covers tight. “Shorts. I can throw on a t-shirt if you want, but I only have one clean shirt left.”

“It’s fine.”

I slid under the covers. “I didn’t exactly pack with a roommate in mind. Why’s it so cold?”

Kit’s shivering body vibrated the bed. “I always sleep like this when I’m in a hotel.”

“Like you want hypothermia?”

“You can turn the air conditioner off if you want.”

I shook my head. “Nope. But if you decide you want to cuddle up for some body heat later, I’m right here.”

I grimaced at my awful attempt to lighten Kit’s mood. Obviously being trapped in a bed with me wasn’t her idea of a good time and, in this situation, teasing her wasn’t helping.

“Maybe I should sleep on the floor,” she groaned, her voice muffled by blankets.

I reached a hand out under the covers, grasping her hip in the dark. “Don’t do that. I’ll shut up.”

She stilled as my thumb brushed over the swell of her hip. Shorts. Or at least briefs. The hem of the T-shirt curled under my fingertips and beneath it was slick fabric.

“What are you doing?” Her voice wavered.

“I’m not sure.” My thumb brushed the silky fabric, fingers clenching around the bottom of her shirt, my grip weak enough that she could easily pull away.

She didn’t. Instead, the sheets rustled as she moved. The hairs on my arm stood up as she danced her fingertips up my wrist, past my forearm, and across my shoulder.

She pressed her palm against my bare chest. I sucked in a breath, holding it.

I slipped my hand over her hip, palming the small of her back and pulling her closer. Her knees relaxed, drawing away from her body on her slow slide across the bed. She slotted into my arms as if she was made to be there. None of the jumble of arms and legs and hands when I normally fell into bed with a woman. No awkward arm or elbow to the ribs. My arms wrapped around her as if we’d held each other a million times before. Familiar and new all at once.

Her palms seared the skin of my chest, her bottom hand tucking into my ribs as the other made its way up my neck, her thumb glancing against my jawline.

“I can’t stop thinking about that kiss,” I admitted in hopes of a confession of her own.

She chuckled, arching her body closer to mine. My dick went hard, even after the shower. “Is that a fact?”

I nodded, dipping my head into the crevice of her neck and brushing my lips over her soft skin. She shivered.

“Tell me the truth. What’d you think of the kiss?”

“Average,” she whispered.

I let out a laugh, wrapping my arms firmer around her body, my palm cupping her ass. “Average? Seriously?”

“I’ve had better. You can improve.”

“Improve?” I nipped her earlobe, and she yipped. My body pulsed at the unexpected sound. “That’s heartless.”

“I’m only telling the truth. You’re not great at everything, Texas.”

“Only most things.”

Her palm fell away from my face and down my abs. She stalled at the waistband of my boxers. “This changes nothing.”

Her thumb grazed the trail of hair leading away from my belly button, my rigid cock pressing against her thighs.

“Meaning we’re still not friends?”

“Meaning, if you want to have sex, it’ll be just like the kiss.”

“Average? I don’t have average sex.”

“It won’t mean anything. I’m not your girlfriend.” The statement should have been a relief. And that exact phrase had eased my mind on more than one occasion. But somehow, the words didn’t hit the same way this time. They didn’t bring that same amount of relief. Or any relief, really.

“Right. Not my friend. Not my girlfriend. A temporary fuck buddy during a rally?”

“A one-time fling. A mistake.”

“One we’re both making sober.” Despite the numerous offers of drinks and shots by the expo attendees, I’d held onto a half-empty beer the entire night. But the sobering reminder of the table full of margaritas gave me pause.

“Yep.” She nodded. “I had one margarita. Hayden drank the rest. But just so you know, this never would have happened if we hadn’t shared a hotel room.”

In a thousand years, I wouldn’t have guessed we’d end up in bed together. Or more accurately, that I would have wanted to end up in bed with Kit this badly.

“You’re probably right.”

“This is a one-time deal,” she added firmly.

Her certainty gnawed at my ego. “Let’s just save discussion for afterward. When you find out what a mind-blowing lover I am.”

“Ew.” She squirmed against me.

The negative reaction didn’t tamp by arousal.

“Ew?”

“Lover? What are you? A 1970s porn star?” She nuzzled closer, her body warm. I draped an arm over her shoulders, rubbing the middle of her back even as she teased me.

“I’m a romantic,” I lied. I’d been called a lot of things by the women I’ve slept with. Romantic didn’t make the top ten.

“Hardly. You’re horny, and I’m the only person around.” She paused. “Only person who’s not married or in a committed relationship. Unless that doesn’t normally stop you.”

I squeezed her. “Only when there aren’t better, if not slightly hostile, options.”

“I’m not being hostile,” she murmured, the tension in her back easing as I swiped my thumb down her spine. “Not as much as usual, anyway. And you’re still hard, so clearly you’re not not into it.”

“As you said, I’m incredibly horny, and my standards aren’t the highest right now. So, if you’re going to be mean to me while we fuck, maybe try not to make me cry.”

“I’ve never made you cry.”

“Not in front of you, anyway.”