by Laura Kaye
“Booked,” the guy said, pointing at a long row of empty hooks on the wall above him. Colton hadn’t realized the significance of that emptiness when he’d checked in because it hadn’t mattered then. He glanced out the door and saw the blurred shapes and colors of cars parked here and there along the front of the building. And then he recalled the private who drove them here saying this motel represented the only accommodations in town. His stomach began the long, slow crawl into his shoes.
“There must be something you can do,” she said, the first real hint of being upset slipping into her voice.
“Wish there was,” he said.
Kady’s fists curled around the straps to her bags and she looked down as if collecting herself. “Okay,” she whispered, her shoulders rising and falling as if she’d taken a deep breath. “Thanks, anyway,” she said as she glanced up again. Grabbing her things, she slowly walked across the office. “Well…”
An idea came to mind, and as revolting as it was, it was miles better than the alternative. “Uh, sir?” Colton asked, approaching the counter. “Can you tell me what room my friend is in? Albert Beckstein?”
“Seven,” the man said, not looking away from the television.
Good to know security was rock-solid here. But at least they didn’t have to go knocking. “Come on,” he said to Kady as he hit the door.
“Wait. You’re gonna—”
“Bunk with Beckstein. Only reasonable solution,” he said, glad that the narrow sidewalk forced them to walk single file. That way he couldn’t see whatever expression she might be wearing right now. Because anything in the neighborhood of disappointment or disagreement might do very bad things to his self-control. And anything that resembled happiness would just make him pissed off. Not a fair reaction, since he’d been the one to shut them down—hard. But there it was all the same.
Toward the far end of the building, she came to a stop in front of the door marked number seven and turned to him.
Ah, motherfucker. Her expression was part confused, part concerned, and the frown shaping those pretty red lips looked a helluva lot like disappointment to him.
Not letting his brain churn on what her reaction might mean, Colton knocked on the door. Being locked in a room with Albert freaking Beckstein would be a lot less painful than sharing the same space with the star of his darkest fantasies while not being able to touch her. That was for damn sure.
No answer. Colton knocked again.
Kady stepped closer. “Colton, we can just—”
Fist, meet door. This time the knock was more of a bang.
The door swung open. “What?” Beckstein said.
“I, uh…” Colton’s words trailed off as he noticed three things in quick succession. Beckstein’s pants were not fully secured. A bottle of what Colton guessed was lotion or something similar lay on the floor behind the guy. And a box of tissues and his open laptop lay near where pillows were propped against the headboard on the rumpled bed.
Holy mother of fucking hell.
Colton’s stomach churned. It was one thing to jack off. It was another thing to jack off and not secure your shit before you opened a goddamned door. That was like, Puberty 101. Or Being a Guy 101. Or Basic Fucking Common Sense 101.
“I’m busy. What do you want?” Beckstein said, zipping himself.
Kady gripped Colton’s arm. “Nothing. We, uh, just wanted to tell you the diner over there is supposed to have good food,” she said as a sense of doom closed in over Colton.
Colton shook his head, rejecting what she was trying to do—namely, rescue him—even as he appreciated the gesture. But damnit, he’d faced down jumping out of airplanes and deadly insurgents and IEDs and living in a hot, sandy hell for months on end. He could damn well handle one disgusting, grating, but otherwise harmless computer nerd for a night.
Right. So get your ass in there before Kady convinces him—and more importantly you—that you didn’t come here for anything more than a restaurant recommendation.
Beckstein huffed. “Diner. Good. Yeah, yeah, got it.” His beady-eyed gaze bounced between the pair of them for another moment, and then he stepped back and closed the door in their faces.
And Colton was immediately saved from torture and damned to hell.
…
“I think I just threw up in my mouth,” Kady said, still kinda stunned. She tugged the lapels of Colton’s coat tighter around her, as if it could shield her from what’d just happened. Who the hell answered the door when they were in the middle of masturbating? And, if you had to answer the door, who didn’t hide every last scrap of evidence of said masturbation first??? Albert freaking Beckstein. That’s who. “Am I crazy, or did we just…was he just—”
“Yeah.” Colton scrubbed a hand over his face. “Never speak of this again.”
Kady chuckled and leaned her head against the thick bulge of Colton’s arm, making her realize she still had a death grip on his biceps from when she’d been trying to warn him away. Since touching him when she now had to share a room with him probably wasn’t the best idea, she let him go and stepped back. A flock of butterflies whipped through her belly. “Well, you dodged a bullet, Brooks,” she said, acting like she wasn’t nervous and excited and really freaking nervous. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.” She peered up at him from beneath her lashes…and tried not to get her feelings hurt that he didn’t look particularly happy about that fact. But, damn, if he thought rooming with her was worse than rooming with Beckstein, that didn’t say much about his opinion of her, did it?
A memory sucked her three years back in time.
After Tyler left the pool house, Colton retrieved his shirt from the floor of the dressing room and refused to meet her gaze. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. You were just…there, and it’s been a long time.”
Humiliation heated Kady’s face. God. If Tyler hadn’t walked in, she would’ve had sex with Colton—and this was what he thought of her? “What? Like, I was just any warm body?” she said, embarrassment shivering over her nakedness as his words battered against the affection she’d always felt for him, even when he made her crazy. “Like this wasn’t about me and you? Wow. And I thought you’d actually seen me tonight.”
Anger darkened his expression. “Of course I see you. I’ve always seen you.”
“No, you haven’t,” she said, crossing her arms over her breasts. It would take too long to fix the ties on her bikini top, and she didn’t feel like swimming anymore now anyway. Or staying at this party for a second longer. “You’ve always seen Tyler’s sister.”
He threw out his hands. “Well, you are Tyler’s little sister. What the hell do you want from me?”
“Not a thing.” Kady scooped up her top and paused, her hand on the dressing room door. “But think about what you just said, Brooks. You have no idea who I am.”
“Yeah? Well, you don’t know me, either.”
“Clearly,” she said, and then she slipped out the door.
“You okay?” Colton asked, expression serious.
Kady blinked out of the memory and shook off the phantom pain of the exchange. That was old news and she’d gotten over it, and they’d seen each other enough times since that night that awkwardness no longer lingered. “Yep,” she said, giving him a smile. “Ready to go see what lurks behind door number three?”
Colton tapped the plastic key chain against his hand. “Guess we better before the moaning starts.”
Chuckling, Kady turned and dashed toward Colton’s room—their room, now. “God forbid,” she called over her shoulder. “Bad enough I’ll have the image in my head. I don’t need the soundtrack. Hurry up.”
Colton walked toward her slowly, and though she was cold and wet and freaking out just a little, she couldn’t deny the way his almost calculated approach made her belly flip-flop. Tall, dark, beautiful, brooding… But not for her. Didn’t hurt to look though, did it? Her gaze dragged over the lean muscles of his body. Nope, didn’t hurt at all.
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nbsp; He jingled the key, then slipped it in the lock. “Here goes nothing.” The door swung open and he flicked at the light switch just inside.
“Oh,” Kady said. “Looks like third time’s a charm.” In the positive column was the fact that it was a rain-and-masturbator-free room. In the negative column was the fact that there was just one bed. As in, one. For both of them. She stepped inside, dropped her bags onto the little round table in front of the window, and slipped out of Colton’s coat.
The door clicked shut behind her and Colton settled his bag on the floor beside a chair. He lingered by the door for a long moment, hands on his hips as his gaze surveyed the typical motel accommodations. Did this room feel small or did Colton just seem to take up a lot of it? He took off his shoes, then turned on a few lamps, peeked into the bathroom, and generally checked things out.
Kady stepped out of her waterlogged heels, but then didn’t know what to do with herself. The rain drummed on the roof loud enough to compete with the whirr of the air-conditioning unit, which chilled her wet blouse and made her shiver. What she really wanted was a hot shower, but given the odd tension hanging in the air like a fog, she thought it might be a little early to start getting naked. “Well,” she said, shoving away the thought of Colton totally bared to her eyes. “I think I’ll check some email and return some calls.”
Colton ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah. Me, too. No doubt my in-box has exploded in the last eight hours.”
Taking a seat at the table, Kady smiled as she unpacked her laptop. “Guess that’s what happens when you’re the boss man, huh?” Two years ago, he’d opened his own computer security services firm in Boulder and immediately won contracts working with the military and defense contractors who prized his experience with the army’s Cyber Command both in the States and while deployed on field teams overseas. Truth be told, Kady envied the autonomy he had working for himself.
“Like you wouldn’t believe. But I haven’t found anyone I want to take on as a partner, yet.” With a sigh, he grabbed his laptop bag and settled into the chair across from her. A flash of lightning threw shadows over the table for a moment. “I brought a surge protector if you want to plug into that,” he said.
“That’s so awesome I’m not even going to crack a Boy Scout joke. This storm is crazy.”
Colton gave her a droll smile. “Your restraint is unparalleled.”
Ha! You have no idea, Colton. I’m trapped in a tiny room with the only man I know who’s capable of giving me an orgasm and I haven’t jumped him. Kady smiled to herself as she bent under the table to plug in her power cord, then she set up her laptop and hot spot and logged in to her firm’s network. She ran through a few easy emails and peeked over the top of her screen at her roommate. Brow furrowed in concentration, his brown eyes moved as if he were reading. She watched him for a moment, struck by the fact that it was…kinda nice to be sitting here working with him like this.
Though they did the same kind of work and saw each other at conferences and occasionally when competing for contracts, like today, it had been years since they’d actually worked on anything together. One of the first times had been when he’d come home to her house with Tyler for Thanksgiving his sophomore year in college. His parents’ marriage had been a total train wreck and Colton and his sister, Sophie, had never seemed like their first priority, so occasionally the Brooks siblings would end up at the Dresco house for a holiday meal. Kady’s mom loved hosting them both, and having Sophie around, even as shy as she was, gave Kady someone to hang with besides the annoying boys.
But that particular Thanksgiving, Colton had been entirely stressed out over a final project on network protection. Curious what college-level computer assignments might look like, Kady had sneaked into Tyler’s room when Colton had taken a break and looked over his materials. He hadn’t been happy when he’d caught her going through his notes until she made a few suggestions that helped him solve his research problem. They’d worked on it together the rest of that night.
His gaze cut to hers. “Why are you watching me?”
Busted. Kady ducked her chin to hide the heat filling her face. “Pfft. Get over yourself. I’m not watching you.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she answered another email.
“Uh-huh. I think you missed me, Dresco,” he said, that old arrogance filling his tone.
She tossed an eye roll his way. “That would be like missing my dentist. Totally never happens.” Another chill set her to shivering. She wished Colton’s coat was dry enough to be warm, but that was going to take a while. So she went to the bathroom and grabbed one of the towels to wrap around her shoulders. Examining herself in the bathroom mirror, she looked kinda ridiculous and her hair was a wavy disaster, but at least she was warmer.
Colton’s gaze tracked her as soon as she returned to the main room. “You that cold?” he asked with a frown.
“It’s fine.”
“She says as her teeth chatter.” He pushed the top button of his dress shirt through the hole and worked downward.
She couldn’t tear her gaze away. “What are you—”
“I’m gonna turn on the heat long enough to dry my button-down. Then it’s all yours.”
“Really, I’m fine,” she managed as he shrugged off the white cotton and revealed a V-neck T-shirt that did absolutely nothing to hide the contours of his muscles. Helpless to stop herself, her gaze traced over the definition of his chest, his stomach, his shoulders, his biceps. The man was cut to such perfection that it made Kady want to trace every dip and curve with her fingertips. Just to see if he was as hard as he looked. Heat lanced through her blood.
“You don’t get to be a thirty-two-year-old man without learning that when a woman says she’s fine, she’s really not.” He arched a brow that challenged her to disagree.
She smirked but kept her mouth shut because, on the one hand, he was right. And on the other, his rightness made her want to ask where that kind of wisdom had been three years ago when he’d been a total ass.
In a quick series of movements, Colton adjusted the thermostat, moved the table out from in front of the window, and draped his shirt over the back of his chair to dry. Sitting again, he scooted his chair closer to the stream of warm air rising up from the vent.
“Well, thanks,” Kady said, settling back into her chair. First the coat, then offering her his room, now the shirt. Since Tyler was often around when she and Colton saw each other, she wasn’t used to him stepping up to take care of her like this. Not that she was the kind of woman who needed taking care of all the time, but who didn’t admire and appreciate a well-placed chivalrous gesture? Kindness was sexy.
Peering over his laptop at her, he winked. “That’s twice in one day.”
Leave it to Colton not to quit while he was ahead. “Don’t count on a third.”
His eyebrows raised in an expression of challenge. “I bet I can make you say thank you at least one more time today.”
The words “I bet” froze Kady’s fingers where they sat on her keyboard. She’d always had a hard time ignoring those words, especially when they came out of his mouth, as they often had over the years. And he knew it. She met his gaze and arched her brow. “The stakes?”
He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “Breakfast at the diner. You thank me, you buy. You don’t, I buy.”
Kady shrugged. This was gonna be easy as pancakes. “Why not? A new contract and free breakfast. I think I like the desert.”
“Contract isn’t yours yet,” he said, giving her a hard stare. “And neither is breakfast.”
She tugged the towel tighter around her shoulders. “Just a matter of time,” she said.
He shook his head as if in exasperation, but the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Bet starts now. I think I’ll eat a light dinner tonight so I’m extra hungry for breakfast.”
Kady bit back a grin. “You’re ridiculous. You know that, right?”
“Maybe. But you like me.”
Kady i
nhaled to respond, but she was saved by the bell. Or rather, by the vibration of her cell phone against the veneer of the table. Her stomach dropped at the name on the caller ID. Bob Chase, her immediate supervisor at Resnick. “Hello, this is Kady Dresco.”
“I thought you were going to be back in time for the site visit with Carson tomorrow,” Bob said without as much as a hello. The fact that she’d gone over his head to propose going after the project at this Panther Canyon facility had significantly moved her name up on his shit list. When she’d gotten the tip about the request for proposals here, Kady had known she couldn’t go through Bob with it. He’d either block her effort or take credit for the find—or both. So she’d gone to Mr. Resnick directly with full awareness doing so would earn Bob’s ire. But she’d decided it was worth the risk, and she’d been right. Resnick had been impressed enough by her identifying the job and her proposal for it that he’d given her the green light to bid as the project manager—which meant landing the contract was in essence a promotion. To not have to work for Bob Chase would be a dream come true… “If you can’t…commitments on smaller projects, how do you think…to manage bigger ones like this boondoggle you’re on…?”
Despite the weak cell service, Kady got the gist of Bob’s tirade. And she wasn’t really surprised. But boondoggle? Seriously? Was it 1953? Kady sucked down the snark and made nice. “I understand, Bob. And I apologize. There’s a terrible storm here and the airport canceled—”
“None of which would’ve been a problem…stayed at the office,” he barked.
Anger settled into Kady’s chest and a multitude of responses rushed to the tip of her tongue. Like, reminding him how lucrative this contract could be, because the initial systems they wanted were just the start of a potentially long-term relationship with this facility and others like it. Like, that Resnick had given Kady his permission and blessing to be here. Or even, just maybe, that he was a giant hemorrhoid. “I understand,” she said instead, forcing some sugar into her tone. “But fortunately, Carson was fine rescheduling for Friday afternoon, which actually worked better with his schedule.”
