by Dylann Crush
She made a decision and reached for him, slipping her hand around his head. Her fingers sank into the cropped hair at the nape of his neck as she drew his mouth down to hers.
Their lips brushed in a soft, almost tentative kiss, and she felt his mouth pull into a smile. He kissed her again, harder. Her pulse thrummed in her ears as her lips parted for him. She tasted the sweet, slightly smoky tang of bourbon on his tongue as it pushed against hers. Sensation overwhelmed her as time seemed to stop. The music and conversation noise swirling around them faded into the background. There was only the two of them and this kiss. Nothing else mattered.
Straining toward him, she lifted her other arm, wrapping it around his neck. His hands rested on her hips, shaping the curve of her waist, his fingertips digging into the fabric of her dress.
She liked his mouth even more when it was pressed against hers. The warmth of it. The softness of his lower lip as she caught it between her teeth. Her hands ached to touch him all over, but some distant part of her mind reminded her they were in public and it wouldn’t be cool to grope him in the middle of the ballroom.
Chris groaned and pulled back, his unsteady breath skimming over her sensitive lips. “I’ve got a room upstairs.”
Gen opened her eyes and blinked up at him, feeling dazed. “Really?”
He nodded, his fingers tightening on her hips. “I’m going out of town tomorrow and I’ve got an early flight. I figured it would be easier to leave from here.”
Gen presumed he’d intended to make use of the room with the lovely Crystal, but that didn’t bother her. She wasn’t inclined to let an opportunity like this pass her by. Not when a man as gorgeous and charming as Chris was looking at her with lust in his eyes.
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed. “I’m asking if you’d like to get out of here—with me.”
Gen’s mouth curved in a smile. “Yes, please.”
4
A single lamp bathed the room in a dusky glow. Two mints wrapped in silver paper lay on the crisply turned-down bed. On the other side of the gauzy curtains, the sprawling lights of Los Angeles twinkled like the Milky Way.
“Nice room.” Gen tried not to think too much about what they were about to do. She wanted to do it. End of story. No reason to think beyond that.
She spun to face Chris, who looked movie-star gorgeous in the shadowy lamplight. He’d already taken off his jacket and tossed it over a chair. As she watched, he reached up to loosen his tie, and her stomach did an Olympic-level gymnastics routine.
He gazed back at her and smiled with one side of his mouth, apparently liking what he saw in her expression. “Do you want a drink?”
“No, I think I’m good in that department.” She was pleasantly buzzed but not sloppy drunk. Not so far gone she couldn’t think clearly or make good decisions. She still felt good about this decision. Really, really good.
“How about some water then?” Chris stooped to the mini-bar and produced two glass bottles of fancy artesian water that would probably cost him ten bucks a pop.
“Thanks.” She accepted the water, refusing to feel guilty about the cost. If he thought she was worth a ten-dollar bottle of water, who was she to argue?
“Cheers.” He lifted his water before knocking back half the bottle in one go.
Gen took a couple of sips, distracted by the way his throat moved as he swallowed. She was thirsty all right, but not for water.
Chris wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and even that was unbearably hot. Everything he did set her pulse humming. He’d probably even look hot scooping dog poop or clipping his toenails.
Christ. What in the seven circles of hell was she doing thinking about toenails and dog poop right now? When she was in a hotel room with a gorgeous man who wanted to have sex with her? Sometimes her brain was more of a liability than an asset.
Fortunately, Chris chose that moment to kiss her again, startling her out of her mental tangent. All the breath left Gen’s lungs in a sharp rush, and he pulled back long enough to take away her water bottle and set it on the dresser.
Closing the distance between them again, he lowered his mouth over hers. Now that her hands were free, she sank them into his hair, sifting the silky strands between her fingers as she welcomed the demanding thrusts of his tongue.
His hands cupped her face, his warm fingers tracing the curve of her cheekbones and jaw, and he pulled back again, looking at her with dark intensity. “Tell me you want this.”
She gazed up at him through her lashes. “Are you kidding? I had to physically restrain myself from mauling you downstairs in the ballroom.”
His mouth pulled into an almost feline smile, and he bent his head to kiss her again. Her fingers worked at the buttons of his shirt, and she made a noise of frustration when she encountered an undershirt instead of skin. He obliged her by shrugging out of his dress shirt and pulling the white cotton tank over his head, exposing the firm planes of his chest. When she pressed her palms against his warm, smooth skin, he let out a full-body sigh of pleasure. His hands slid over her shoulders and down her back, then found the zipper of her dress and tugged it down.
One hand slipped inside her dress and glided slowly up her spine while the other reached for her face again, tipping her head back for an even deeper kiss. Then he spun her around, guiding her toward the bed. Her calves hit the frame and she fell back onto a luxuriously soft mattress, the crisp cotton bedcover cool against the heated skin of her bare back.
Chris stood over her, his eyes like spilled ink. He’d taken off his glasses and tossed them onto the dresser. Without them, his face looked softer and less guarded. His expression was molten as his hands slid over her thighs, pushing up the silky layers of her dress.
When he had it bunched up around her hips, he knelt between her legs, bending her knees as he tugged her toward him. His fingers worked her underwear off her hips and down her legs.
Gen shuddered as she felt his warm breath ghost over her thigh. When his mouth closed over her, she arched off the bed and he tightened his hold on her hip to keep her where he wanted her.
Even though she was a full-ass atheist, she sent up a silent prayer to the goddess of chance or fate or whatever had thrown the two of them together tonight. Chris was extremely skilled in the oral sex department. Definitely one of the top five men who’d ever gone down on her. Make that top three, she decided when her head slammed back against the mattress as he curled a finger inside her in perfect concert with his tongue. Her orgasm overtook her with slow-burn intensity: deep, pulsing waves that grew stronger and stronger until she almost couldn’t bear it anymore, and she cried out as she fell over the edge, her hips bucking against him despite the tight hold he had on her.
Chris stroked her legs and kissed the inside of her thigh as she lay gasping, trying to catch her breath. He stood and bent over her, brushing kisses over her throat and mouth. “So beautiful,” he murmured into her ear before he went to his suitcase and dug out a strip of condoms.
Gen sat up on the bed, feeling giddy and loose-limbed. “Get your pants off and get back over here.”
A laugh rumbled out of him, throaty and deep. While he toed off his shoes and socks, she wriggled her dress off over her head, tossing it carefully onto a nearby chair.
She wasn’t wearing a bra, and Chris’s eyes went wide as they settled on her breasts, his hands stilling halfway through unbuckling his belt. “Come on,” she prodded. “Don’t keep me waiting over here.”
He grinned and made quick work of the rest of his clothes, pushing his pants and underwear to the floor in one fell swoop. Her eyes drank him in hungrily as he straightened and his erection bounced against his stomach.
“Condom,” she ordered, holding her hand out like a surgeon demanding a scalpel from a nurse.
He slapped the strip of prophylactics into her palm, and she tore one open before reaching for him. A hoarse noise wrenched itself from him as her hand closed around him. She gave him an exp
erimental squeeze, smiling as his whole body went rigid and he made an uncontrolled thrust into her hand. She stroked him a few times, enjoying the way it made him tense and shudder, before rolling the condom over his erection.
“Thank fuck,” he gritted through clenched teeth, reaching for her as soon as she was done.
Their mouths clashed together, lapping each other up. He knelt over her on the bed and she gripped his shoulders, pushing him onto his back beside her. Swinging her leg over his, she straddled him.
Chris watched her with pupils that were wide and black as a bottomless well as she took him in her hand and guided him inside her. His muscles flexed beneath her, rippling with tension as she sank down onto him, inch by wonderful inch.
She tipped her head back and let out a breathy moan at the delicious pressure as he filled her up completely. Chris’s hands gripped her hips and he rocked up into her, sending an electric jolt of pleasure shooting through her.
“You’re fucking beautiful, you know that?”
She opened her eyes and found him gazing at her with an expression of open admiration that made her feel even more beautiful than his words had. His hands slid up her torso to her breasts, and she leaned forward to kiss him. He arched up to meet her, catching her moan of pleasure with his mouth.
They rocked together, finding their rhythm. Slowly at first, then increasing the pace as the tension ratcheted up. He spoke to her the whole time, telling her how gorgeous she was, how good she felt around him, how he liked the taste of her. Kissing compliments into her skin with every thrust and glide of their bodies.
Even though she knew better than to believe anything a man said during sex, his words sank straight into her, warming her from within. Gen was usually fine with keeping sex purely physical, but as Chris moved inside her she felt something tug traitorously at her heart.
It wasn’t sadness, exactly. More like wistfulness. It had been a long time since a man’s words had excited her as much as his touch. It wasn’t normal for her, and she didn’t want it to end.
But it was already too late. She tried to stretch the moment out, delaying the inevitable, but the tension building at the base of her spine was too strong. She was too far gone.
“You’re perfect,” Chris murmured as the intoxicating waves of sensation built toward a crescendo. “So goddamn perfect.”
Her orgasm crashed over her like a meteorite strike, spinning the world off its axis. She buried her face against Chris’s shoulder, and his arms tightened around her. He thrust up into her, hard and fast, and his whole body shuddered as he reached his own peak.
She collapsed on top of him, shattered and boneless, until she regained the use of her legs again. Climbing off him finally, she flopped onto her back while he disposed of the condom and cleaned up.
He came back to the bed and pulled her into his arms. Gen closed her eyes, resting her cheek on his shoulder. They lay together, their chests heaving in tandem and limbs intertwined. Her heartbeat gradually slowed as she came back to herself, but that unsettling feeling didn’t go away.
Chris’s hands stroked up her back, one of them tangling in her hair as the other traced lazy whorls along her spine. For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Eventually, Chris stroked a finger across her damp forehead, and he pressed a kiss into her hair. “Gen?” His voice sounded like she felt: a jagged wreck.
“Hmmm?” She lifted her head to meet his eyes and felt a vertiginous jolt of tenderness for this man she barely knew.
He opened his mouth to speak and she went still. Something changed in his expression, and he shook his head slightly as he continued to stroke her hair.
She could guess what he’d wanted to say, so she swallowed her feelings and said it for him: “I’d better get going.”
Before she could change her mind, she pushed out of his arms and started looking for her underwear.
“There’s no rush or anything,” Chris said, sitting up on the bed. “You can stay.”
Gen couldn’t tell if he was just saying that to be polite or if he actually meant it. Because you don’t know him at all, she reminded herself. He’s practically a stranger.
For a moment she considered taking him up on it. She could do it. She could crawl back into bed with him and they could have another go. Spend another hour or two enjoying each other’s bodies. Doze off in a tangle of tired, sweaty limbs.
And then she’d wake up in the morning even more attached than she already was, just in time for him to get on a plane and fly right out of her life.
No, better to leave now, while she still had her wits about her. Before she started kidding herself about what this was.
She tossed a saucy look over her shoulder and pitched her voice to tease. “You’re not falling in love with me, are you?”
“I’m afraid I’m not that easily swept off my feet,” he replied. “But I’m up for a round two if you are.”
She cast a significant look at the sheet covering his legs. “Doesn’t look like it.”
One side of his mouth pulled into a cockeyed grin. “Give me three minutes.”
“Tempting.” Gen turned her back on him to pluck her dress off the chair. “But I’m tired and it’s a long drive home.”
As she shimmied into her dress, she tried to curb her growing sense of regret. This was exactly what she’d signed up for: casual sex with a hot stranger. She hadn’t come up here thinking they were going to cuddle all night, wake up spooning, and then go for brunch. That wasn’t something she even wanted, usually.
The fact that both the sex and the stranger had turned out to be better than expected didn’t change anything. Slightly drunken hookups didn’t lead to meaningful relationships.
Who knew if Chris even had an early flight in the morning, or if he was simply making up a convenient excuse for a clean getaway? Whichever, it was for the best this way. No one could have any misconceptions about what this was. They’d had some fun, but now it was over and time for them to go their separate ways, back to their own lives.
As Gen struggled with the zipper on her dress, Chris rose from the bed and came over to assist, nudging her fingers away. One of his hands cupped her hip while the other gently tugged the zipper up. Gen let her head fall forward, and she felt his fingers brush across her upper back, sweeping her hair out of the way. An electric thrill shot through her at his touch as goose bumps shimmied over her arms.
Down girl. He was simply helping her out the door. No reason to get excited.
But when he’d finished with her zipper he grasped her arms with both hands, and she felt his lips touch the top of her shoulder. Her breath caught, and she waited to see if he’d say anything.
If he asked her again to stay, she would.
Maybe this could be something more. Maybe it didn’t have to end here. Why shouldn’t they stay in touch? Get to know each other better. Maybe they were meant to meet tonight. Maybe it was fate. Or serendipity.
Chris let go of her and snagged his glasses off the dresser before reaching for his underwear. “Tonight turned out a lot better than I thought it would.”
Gen tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice as she slipped on her shoes. “Yeah, it did.”
He walked over to the door and leaned against it, looking sexy as fuck in nothing but his glasses and boxer briefs. “You gonna be okay getting home?”
“I’ll be fine.” She opened her evening bag and slipped out her phone to order a car before she said anything embarrassing. “There. My ride will be downstairs in five minutes.”
Chris pushed off the door, his mouth curving in an easy, handsome smile as he stepped toward her. Gen leaned up to give him one last, reckless kiss. He tasted sweet on her tongue, and the way his fingers slid into her hair she could almost believe he wanted more.
Do you feel it too? she asked silently as their mouths slid together. Ask for my number. Let this be the start of something instead of the end.
But he didn’t ask for her number.
He let go of her and pulled the door open. “It was nice to meet you, Gen-with-a-G.”
He didn’t feel what she felt, and since she wasn’t a Jedi or one of the X-Men she couldn’t make him with the power of her mind.
A false smile curved her lips. “The pleasure was mine.”
He cocked his head, shooting her an incandescent grin. “Not all of it.”
She had to look away from his gorgeous face. She needed to get away from him and his magnetic pull so she could think straight again. Without allowing herself another look, she brushed past him, practically making tracks in the hotel carpet on her way out the door.
His door fell shut behind her with a loud thunk that she felt like a punch to her chest.
Well, fuck, she thought. That’s that.
5
“Sounds like you had a ball at the ball after all,” Melody said on Monday when Gen had finished telling her about Chris.
Gen smiled at the barista as she picked up her coffee order. “I definitely did. Thanks again for the tickets.” If only she could make herself stop thinking about Chris. You weren’t supposed to fixate on one-night stands. It sort of defeated the purpose of the one-night part.
“I’m bummed I didn’t even get a good look at him.” Melody pulled a face as she blew across the top of her coffee. “Jeremy’s mother got one of her migraines and we had to take over her glad-handing duties the rest of the night.”
“His name was Chris. Early thirties, I’d guess.” Gen gave Melody a hopeful look. “I don’t suppose you know him?”
“That doesn’t ring a bell, but I meet so many people at these things and the names all go by in a blur. What does he do for a living?”
“Something in finance? He was a bit vague about it. Works for his father’s company.”
Melody shook her head as they wandered away from the coffee cart in the lobby of their office building. “That doesn’t narrow it down much, I’m afraid. Look at Jeremy.” She flicked her wrist at the huge chrome company logo on the wall bearing her fiancé’s family name. “Half the people there probably work for a family company. You didn’t get a last name?”
