Zoe tried to take a step toward the living room, but it didn’t work. She stumbled and swayed, before sinking back onto the bed, and winced as whatever she sat on crunched beneath her. Shifting to one side, she pulled out the now crushed remainder of her chocolate chip cookies.
Another pounding knock at the door. “Great. Just great.”
Dropping her head into her hands, she willed the room to stop spinning. “Fuck me, how much gin did I drink?”
Struggling to her feet again, she walked into the living room and discovered her answer. In addition to the assortment littering the bed, there was a pyramid of mini bottles stacked on the coffee table. Apparently, she hadn’t just stopped with gin.
“Oh, no. Oh, no,” she whispered over and over again. This was so bad.
Another knock. “Just a minute,” she called out.
Turning, she made her way to the small kitchenette and scrubbed her hands. Her fingernails were still tinted orange by the time she was done, but at least she wasn’t leaving a trail of Cheeto dust in her wake.
As she dried her hands, she wracked her brain to figure out who could be at the door. Room service was clearly not a thing at the Bear-a-dise Lodge. Frowning, she crossed the room to answer it, and when she finally managed to unlock the door and get it open, she stared at the man on her doorstep as realization slowly sank in. She was face to face with the penis. Well not exactly the penis. She found herself face to face with the owner of the penis. Though, being face to face with the penis wouldn’t be so bad if her memory served her correctly. Apparently alcohol wasn’t the only she thing she wanted to suck down.
Her blood rushed in her veins, her face flushing and not with embarrassment. Just looking at him made her want to climb him. As good as the memory version of him was, the reality was even better.
Shaggy brown hair, with a few remaining hints of blond from the summer sun, curled against his neck and just made her itch to run her fingers through it. His eyes, a deep forest-green, were thickly lashed and deep set, making his expression difficult to read. Mystery men were so fucking sexy. An image flashed in her mind of her up against the wall, him cupping her ass with those incredibly, manly hands while he pounded into her. She could feel the heat of it. She swayed under the intensity of the overwhelming lust. Or maybe she was getting ready to pass out again. Either was a possibility.
“It’s you,” she uttered. It wasn’t the snappiest response but at least it was moderately more functional than “take me now”.
He reached out to steady her, his strong hands closing over her arm as she leaned into him. Oh, muscles. Firm with the just the right amount of chest hair peeking out the top of his thermal shirt. She squeezed her thighs together and tried not to whimper.
“I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t suffered any ill effects from last night’s encounter with the bear,” he said, his brows furrowed and a concerned note in his voice.
“I’m suffering ill effects from my encounter with those deceptively small mini bottles, but otherwise I’m okay… Pants,” she said, pointing at his jeans. “You do actually own them, then?”
Logan stared at the woman. She looked a little worse for wear and smelled like a bar room floor. It was having zero effect on him. He was still in the same painfully aroused state he had been last night, because underneath the alcohol and the Cheetos, he could still smell that honey scent that made him want to lick her from head to toe, while paying special attention to a few particular spots in between.
What the hell is wrong with me? He’d met his fair share of gorgeous, curvy women over the years and been entertained by more than a few of them. No one had ever affected him like her. She hadn’t even touched him. Hell, she had Cheeto dust on her forehead like it was Ash Wednesday at the Quick Stop.
“Yes,” he finally managed to mumble. She leaned heavily against him and pressed her face against his chest. The loud sniff as she inhaled against him was impossible to ignore. “I own pants.”
Looking down, he noted that she wasn’t looking up into his face. Instead, she was devouring him with her eyes. Her gaze roamed over him from head to toe in a way that made the pants completely pointless. He’d had women undress him with their eyes before, but never like that.
Her tongue darted out, licking her lips in a way that made him sweat, before she replied, “I’m okay. The bear freaked me out a little, but I’m all right. You’re very strong. Do you work out?”
“Ms. Hawkins, you’re rambling… and a long way from sober,” he said.
She laughed so hard she lost her balance and nearly toppled right out the door. “You’re observant too,” she replied breezily. “I’m drunk as a Baptist on a backroad!” That started whole new peels of laughter. And with every great guffaw, she leaned forward and showed him far more than was good for either of them.
He sighed, looked down at the welcome mat in front of the door, since that was a safer place for his eyes to rest than on her truly impressive tits. Damn his brother’s rule about fraternizing with guests. What was he even doing there? There’d been no good reason for him to come up there and see her. He should have just left well enough alone and avoided her. But there was that scent that just would not let go of him.
She shifted in his arms, and her breasts pressed against his chest just as her hip brushed against his agonizing erection. He groaned like a man being tortured. Truthfully, he was.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Look, if you’re embarrassed because I saw you naked—”
His head snapped up. “I asked you not to look!”
She stepped back from him, at last standing on her own two feet, and gestured toward the mirror directly across from the door. “It wasn’t like I meant to. Besides, if my memory serves me correctly, you have no reason to by shy and every reason to wave that thing around like a light saber on a nude beach.”
Logan looked at her then, really looked at her, past the smeared makeup and the Cheetos crumbs, past the bed head and the blouse that was half unbuttoned and driving him crazy. Her eyes were glassy and dilated, her cheeks flushed. She wasn’t hungover. She was still drunk. Even if he had been entertaining the notion of breaking his brother’s rule, he wouldn’t do it while she was still impaired.
“You need coffee. And a shower.”
She cocked her eyebrow at him. “Are you going to help me with that?”
It shouldn’t have made him even hotter for her. It should have been physically impossible for his dick to get any harder, but it did. The teeth of his zipper would be imprinted on his cock for life. But there she stood, drunk, orange in places, and clearly saying things she would regret.
“No, I’m not,” he said, striving for a firm tone. “I’m going to make you coffee while you shower, and we’re going to try to get you sobered up before this all goes to hell.”
“Too late,” she said, turned on her heels, and sashayed back inside.
Logan’s eyes were drawn to the lush curves of her bottom. A dozen mildly pornographic fantasies featuring his hands on that ass were running through his mind. Walking into the cabin behind her, he shut the door. As he turned back around, his eyes were drawn to the mirror she’d used to sneak a peek at him the night before. She was unbuttoning her blouse. Turn about was fair play, he told himself. If she could steal a glance or two, so could he. He was already painfully erect, how much worse could it get?
The blouse dropped to the floor, and the bra hiding beneath it left very little to the imagination. The cups were completely sheer save for the little bit of floral lace that barely covered her nipples. He was wrong. It could get a lot worse. His jeans were about to castrate him.
“If I fall in the shower,” she whispered in a seductive manner as she looked at him over her shoulder, “will you come save me?”
He forced himself to keep his eyes on her face. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to look elsewhere. He did. He really, really did. But that wouldn’t go well for either of them. Does it count as premature ejaculation if you g
o off before anything even happens?
“No.” The response was short and terse, mostly because his teeth were clenched together so hard it made his jaw ache.
Her mouth dropped open. Again, it led his mind to dangerous places. “Seriously?” she asked, her voice pitched low and seductive. It ought to be ridiculous. It wasn’t. It was so fucking hot he thought his dick would explode. “You won’t help me?”
“No,” he replied firmly. Where he found the strength of will to turn her down, he didn’t know. “So don’t fall. And you ought to keep the rest of your clothes on until you’re in the bathroom. You don’t know me. I could be any kind of psychopath!” He sounded like a prude. Like an old, dried up spinster. When the hell had he ever asked a beautiful woman to keep her clothes on?
“I was only trying to level the playing field,” she offered, turning to face him as she leaned nonchalantly against the wall. The pose thrust her hips forward and her breasts upward. Christ almighty, she was killing him. “You’ve shown me yours, I thought I’d show you mine.”
Trying to put the train back on the rails, he adopted a professional tone. “Look, ma’am—”
“Zoe,” she corrected. “No ma’am. Ma’ams are old and wrinkled and wear orthopedic shoes and cotton underwear. Do I look like a ma’am?”
No. She most assuredly did not. “Please, just go get in the shower, and I will make you coffee… Zoe.” Saying her name was a mistake. It felt right rolling off his tongue. He could imagine other ways of saying it, like when she was sitting astride him, riding his cock, or when she was on her knees in front of him, taking him into her mouth.
Logan turned around and faced the kitchen. Maybe he could stick his dick in the ice bucket. Hell, the ice would melt and the water would fucking boil. Christ almighty.
He heard the shower turn on. She wasn’t even in the room with him, and he didn’t have eyes on her anymore, but it didn’t help. His mind was filling in all the blanks for him. All he could see in his mind’s eye was a pair of truly glorious tits covered in soapy water and occasionally her hands, sans Cheeto dust, as they ran over them in a way that was far more about his fantasy than her need for cleanliness.
Logan leaned his forehead against the wall, and hoping to stave off some of his lust-induced stupidity, banged his head there a couple of times for good measure. “I’m going to die from lack of blood going to my brain.”
3
Zoe was rinsing the conditioner from her hair when the first wave of nausea hit. It was quickly followed by a wave of humiliation. What had she just done? She’d all but stripped herself naked in front of that poor boy and tried to go all Mrs. Robinson on him. And he was a boy. He couldn’t be more than mid-twenties. He was too young even for her fake age. And no matter how tempting he was or how good looking he was, she didn’t want to be that woman.
Leaning her head against the shower wall, she allowed the rapidly cooling water to sluice over her. It was sobering her up, but it wasn’t doing a damn thing to wash away her shame. She’d all but molested him. Actually, considering that she’d plastered her body to his and sniffed him, there was no but to it – she had molested him.
Forcing herself to get out of the shower and face the music, she turned off the taps and stepped out onto the bathmat. Another wave of nausea hit her and she had to sit on the edge of the tub with her head between her knees until it passed.
“Never again,” she mumbled. She’d gone from life of the party to something that ought to be mopped up in a mortician’s work room in less than ten minutes. Even her damned teeth hurt. “There’s a whole world of regret in those tiny little bottles.”
Getting gingerly to her feet, she grasped the bathrobe hanging on the back of the door and shrugged into it, knotting the belt loosely. It wasn’t exactly generously sized so as she left the bathroom, she kept tugging at the lapels to keep herself adequately covered.
The smell of coffee greeted her, and her stomach rolled in protest. He was standing in the small kitchenette, leaning against the counter. His long legs were crossed at the ankle, and even though she’d just mentally reprimanded herself for her lustful behavior, her eyes automatically went to the impressive bulge at his crotch. The last vestiges of alcohol in her body warred with her conscience, chanting “Strip! Strip! Striiiiiiip!” to the tune of “batter, batter, swiiiiing!”.
He cocked an eyebrow at her, and good Lord, he looked sexy. “Feeling better? Slightly less intoxicated?”
“If you’re asking if I’ve found the ability to be utterly ashamed of my actions… then yes. I don’t trust myself to pour the coffee, so if you’d just get me a cup and leave me alone to die of humiliation, it’d be much appreciated,” Zoe replied.
He chuckled as he turned around and filled a cup with the steaming liquid. “You’re not the first person to lose their head to the minibar, and you won’t be the last. Those tiny bottles fool you.”
When he handed the cup to her, Zoe accepted it gratefully. Unfortunately, due to her trembling, she had to hold it with both hands, which meant the robe was slipping again. His eyes wandered over her, flashed with heat and then closed for a second.
“Sorry. These robes aren’t exactly plus-sized,” she muttered in apology.
“No. No, they’re not,” he agreed. “And for the record, my name is Logan Arthur. My brothers and I own this lodge.”
“Am I barred for life? My name and photo to be hung on the wall of shame next to people who shoplift and write bad checks?” Zoe asked before she took a sip of the strong brew. As the scalding hot liquid hit her taste buds and then her throat, she coughed. She might have wanted to curl up in a corner and die, but clearly her involuntary responses were not in agreement. They were protesting the potency of that beverage with all they were worth. Good God, he made coffee like he wanted it to get up and walk on its own.
He laughed softly. “No. I think we’ll keep this between us. I wasn’t saying that to embarrass you more. We’ve got a rule about getting too personal with guests, Zoe— I didn’t get your last name, and looking it up makes me feel like a creeper.”
“Zoe Hawkins,” she answered. “And you’ve been unbelievably nice and impossibly sweet about all this, even when I was trying to jump your very young bones. Thank you.”
He nodded as he moved toward the door. “I remade your bed. Minus the leftover Cheetos and liquor bottles. Do you want the minibar restocked?”
Humiliation utterly complete, Zoe hung her head. “Let’s not tempt fate.”
Another laugh and he opened the front door of the cabin. “Have a good day, Zoe Hawkins. I’ll stop blushing if you will, okay?”
“I don’t think that’s ever going to happen,” Zoe said softly.
He turned and headed for the door, but paused and looked back at her. “Rules are made to be broken, Zoe, and when you’re feeling up to it, I plan to break the hell out of a few.”
With that bomb still exploding around her, he opened the door and walked out into the sunshine. Zoe moved to the couch and sank down weakly. What the ever-loving hell had just happened?
By late afternoon, Zoe felt marginally human. Her headache had receded to nothing more than a dull, nagging pain and her stomach no longer rolled and heaved at the mere thought of food. Regardless, she was still swearing off alcohol for the foreseeable future.
She’d finally managed to plug in her phone and was fully charged at last. She’d also finally talked to India, her friend and sometimes writing partner, who’d bailed last minute because of her shitty boyfriend. When the phone had enough charge to actually power on, there had been fifteen frantic texts and just as many voicemails from her when Zoe hadn’t called upon her arrival. India was something of a worrier, though in this case, Zoe suspected it was prompted more by a guilty conscience than actual concern.
After explaining the run in with the bear, wisely choosing to leave out the fact that her heroic rescuer had been buck naked and porn worthy, she’d convinced India that she was fine and harbored no ill
will. Unfortunately, the writing that had been the sole purpose of the getaway eluded her. She’d been staring at the blank page on her laptop for the last hour and nothing was coming. Of course, that was part of the problem. It was hard to write a sexy book when you couldn’t actually recall what real sex felt like, much less the mind blowing fictional stuff.
Frustrated, Zoe shut her computer and leaned back on the sofa. The cabin was spacious, but at the moment she felt like the walls were closing on in her. It wasn’t the cabin. It was the deadline—the great, looming, ever present reminder that she’d already blown through her advance. In order to get the advance on the next book, that one had to go to print. Still, she needed to clear her head and destress of anything she did manage to write wouldn’t be worth the paint she was wearing off the keyboard. Reaching for the guide book, she flipped to the section about bears. Don’t carry snacks with you. Don’t hike alone. Carry pepper spray.
It wasn’t really hiking, she reasoned. There were walking trails around the lodge, and she wasn’t going far. She wouldn’t be going up into the mountains. She’d have her pepper spray with her just in case. And you might even catch a glimpse of Mr. Hot Innkeeper.
Did she want to run into him? He’d pretty much promised to rock her world, but she wasn’t quite sure she was ready for that. Well, physically she was beyond ready. Mentally? Not so much. Still, she was up, going through the motions of getting ready for her walk.
That is not why I am going on this walk, she told herself sternly. It’s to clear the head, to get the creative juices flowing, she reasoned. Your juices are already flowing.
Even more frustrated because her inner slut wouldn’t shut the hell up, Zoe slipped on a pair of sneakers and grabbed her purse. It was a trip of pure necessity. She needed more Cheetos clearly, as they were the mainstay of her diet. There was a small gift shop at the main building of the lodge that also carried basic supplies. She could get some things there so she wouldn’t starve.
Two Tickets To Bearadise (Bearadise Lodge Book 1) Page 2
