Floyd did not live up to his boring name. He was a thickly muscled, shorn young man with pristine tan skin and not a bit of ink. His eyebrow was pierced, however, and that made him stand out from the crowd. Upon closer inspection, Aubrey realized his left nipple was pierced too.
He gave her a nod, said not a word and got in line.
“Floyd, you’re my Mr. November.”
And then she realized they were done. It occurred to her that Gail had booked her through tomorrow and she wondered why. She was done with her calendar men.
“Right,” she said. “Let’s find my van and get going.”
“Um, I think you’re a month short,” someone called.
“Actually,” she said, half-turning, “my Mr. December is—”
“Here.”
Her eyes caught up with her ears and she stalled out like an ancient car.
Mike.
Here.
Right in front of her.
The other men seemed to rustle around her like a flock of birds, trying very hard to figure out what was going on. Was this man a threat? Should they defend their photographer’s honor? Should they put all this muscle to good use?
“Mike…” she said softly. Her heart gave a kick like a rabbit in her chest and she coughed to help find her equilibrium.
“Aubrey,” he said, nodding. His eyes roamed the other men and he smiled, showing he was no threat. “Guys, how about a coffee or a juice or an…um…power shake on me.” He opened his wallet but Aubrey beat him to it.
“Can you guys go into the coffee shop and grab yourself something on me? Tell them to charge it to my room, 227.”
They looked at each other and then at her again. “Please? I’ll only be a few minutes.”
They filed out together, a big, silent, wary row of men.
“What are you doing here? Bradlee said you were doing my lawn.” She realized how stupid that sounded once she said it. A laugh burst out of her and she said, “Not that I expect you be home doing my lawn. You’re not my lawn boy. Not that you're a boy. You’re clearly a—” She was rambling and wanted to weep with gratitude when Mike cut her off.
“I had to come.” He stepped forward and grabbed her wrist lightly.
What was it about him and that spot on her? Every time she did it, she fleetingly wondered if the energy from his grip would build up there on her wrist and one day his fingerprints would stay there. His grip encircling her wrist visibly. As if he’d branded her.
She shivered pleasantly at the thought of being marked by Mike Sykes.
“Why? Why did you have to come? And the money! To fly here. You don’t have—”
She needed to know and she wanted to hear. But it was hard to keep her lips off his lips. He’d taken a step closer so that she now felt wonderfully crowded by his masculine energy.
He captured her other wrist and used his grip on her to reel her in closer to him. They were in the middle of the bustling hotel lobby but she felt as if they were all alone. Somewhere deserted where her only focus was him.
It stole her breath.
“I needed to see you. I used some pool money. So sue me. Angela took Chuck off to visit her sister. He was better. That’s how it works. He spirals fast and being the miracle kid he is, once he starts to rally, he rises out of the ashes fast. I joked once we should rename him Phoenix.”
She smiled at him and tried to suppress the crushing urge to wrap her arms around him and kiss him.
“Oh,” was what she managed to say.
“I had nothing to worry about anymore and my brain took over.” His thumb was sweeping back and forth across her pulse point and the sensation of his touch somehow leapfrogged from her arm to her belly to her pussy. She heard a gasp slip free of her and Mike grinned. The grin did nothing to smother the heat building in her lower body. It only served to fan the flames.
“I have to…we have to…” she amended.
“Go to your location and shoot,” he said. He leaned in and gave her a slow, thorough kiss.
Aubrey was almost certain she could feel the other calendar boys watching from the coffee shop.
“They're looking, aren’t they?”
“Let them look,” he said, hauling her in. His big arms trapped her close and his mouth explored hers more thoroughly.
It occurred to Aubrey that her ever-vigilant concierge was probably watching this whole thing.
Her phone buzzed. Probably Gail wondering how the day was.
“We have to go,” she said. “We have to go. Before I give up and just—”
“Drag me upstairs and have your way with me?”
She pulled back suddenly, her nerves jangling. “Why did you come? Why really?”
“Because I had to. I had to tell you that you were right and I was wrong. And all that…” He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. “All that connection and electricity and amazing stuff we felt when we were together. It was real and it’s worth it and…”
“And I’m a big girl who can get involved with anyone I like? Even a man who has a son who has some issues and that’s okay with me?”
“That too.”
She pulled his arm. “Come on then. We have to go to the beach and be sexy.”
“With three tagalongs,” he groaned as she led him toward the coffee shop door.
“Not their fault, Mike. They were here first. But you’re the coup de grace,” she said. She squeezed his hand.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we save the best for last. Mr. December is the page that’s supposed to entice you to buy the following year’s calendar. And that’s the slot that Gail specifically applied to you. You’ve got a fan.”
He stopped short and cupped the back of her head, pulling her in for one more kiss before they entered the busy room and found September, October and November.
“You mean you, right?”
“Me too,” Aubrey laughed. She pulled the door open. “Let’s get this done so we can get to the important stuff.”
“Making up?” Mike whispered right up against her ear so she shivered with the sensation of his lips on her earlobe, his hot breath on her skin.
“Yes, that. Making up. More than once.”
“In various positions,” he added.
“Oh talk dirty to me, Mr. December,” she chuckled.
“Want to see my candy cane?”
Aubrey was fighting a wave of hysterical laughter as she waved down her calendar men and hustled them toward the exit.
* * * * *
Aubrey realized it was hard—very hard—to pay attention to the men in front of her with the man she’d been thinking about behind her.
Mike did his best to stay out of her way as she shot September, October and November.
And she did her best to be creative. Surfboards, an old abandoned rowboat bleached by the sun. Surf and sun and trees and even a stellar shot of Floyd with tourists focused as blurry drops of color in the background. A storm started to roll in way off on the horizon just as she was ready for Mike.
The other three leaned against a low stone wall built along the edge of the common area where the soccer-mom van was parked.
“You’re up, December,” she said, frowning.
“Don’t look so happy about it,” Mike teased. He whipped off his shirt but kept his jeans on. He was the only one of them in jeans instead of surfwear.
She wasn’t unhappy about it—she was simply trying to focus on what she needed to say instead of the thundering sound of her pulse in her ears.
The light was changing. She shooed him out onto the beach where there was more white foam in the surf than there had been. Gray had become the predominant color.
“Damn.”
“Did I break your camera?” Mike yelled to be heard over the churning water.
“No, smart-ass. The light is changing. The storm is coming. I’m not sure…” She stepped back, dropped to one knee, fired off a few shots of him. It would be her preference to shoot hi
m with this charged backdrop. But she also knew the appeal of this calendar was pretty boys in the sun on the beach.
Not a man she thought of until she was breathless with a volatile gray-and-blue backdrop of roiling sky and the occasional fork of lighting.
These will just be for me…
She caught a few with striations of blue-white lighting in the belly of the ever-darkening clouds. His blue eyes shining almost supernaturally in the odd light. A seemingly solid column of sunlight hovered over him juxtaposed perfectly with the dark view out on the horizon. He looked angelic. Lit by the heavens. Special.
His hair ruffled in the wind and she took his picture again and again. He didn’t say a word and neither did she. She did what she did and he just stood there, watching her curiously.
It was all she needed.
The wind really kicked up and she had to brace herself against its assault.
“I think we need to head in,” he yelled. “It’s really racing toward us now.”
She took two more pictures, addicted to the look of him and the volatile scenery.
“Your camera, Aubrey…” he said loudly as the first fat drops of rain descended.
She nodded, held out her hand for him and he grabbed it. She’d shoved her camera up under her flapping t-shirt. She let out a surprised whoop when he stopped short and she realized he was holding his phone out. It was set on camera and she saw the beach and surf images flash by on the small screen as he moved it.
“What?”
But he leaned in and kissed her. She could feel the awkward angle of his arm being held up but didn’t care. She kissed him back.
His tongue touched hers for one electric moment and for that instant Aubrey wondered if they’d been struck by lightning after all. But it was just him. Just their chemistry.
The rain got harder and she gasped.
Mike laughed, pulled back, held the phone out. “I can take pictures too,” he teased.
On the screen, there they were, kissing.
“It’s a good shot,” she said, feeling breathless again. And it was. She meant it.
Together they ran.
Chapter Twenty
The other three calendar months had teased her a little when Aubrey dropped them off. There had been good-natured smiles and laughs and even a kissy noise made by one of the men but that all bled away when Aubrey called her goodbyes and Mike took her hand.
“What roo—”
“Hush,” she said and pulled him into the elevator. Somehow they were alone. She wasn’t sure how that could happen in a hotel as busy as this one, but it did.
He pushed her to the wall, kissed her. His upper body pinned her there, his hips pressing hers to the wall. Her nipples spiked, becoming so sensitive that her bra rubbing against them was nearly unbearable. Her skin broke out into goose bumps as he ran his large hand up over her rib cage, slipped it beneath her bra cup to hold her breast in his warm hand. He didn’t stroke or pinch or even move. He simply kissed her deeply and held her like that until Aubrey thought she might melt right through the floor of the elevator.
The car rocked and swayed as they came to a stop. He moved his hand with a groan and stepped back. Aubrey chuckled, grateful that his t-shirt hung down over the fly of his jeans. She’d felt how hard he was and thought for sure it would be obvious to anyone stepping into the car.
An elderly woman, tanned to the color of beef jerky, stepped into the car. She smiled at them until she realized they were going up and then let out a cry.
“It’s okay,” Aubrey said. “We’re the next floor. Then you can press down.”
That seemed to soothe her. She leaned against the wall and began to rummage through a humongous purse.
And then the stars shone down on them because they found themselves alone. In her room. The wind outside the pale-pink hotel buffeting the old structure as it threatened a storm to remember.
When she ran her fingers over his skin, her heartbeat seemed to go slower instead of faster. Her body became liquid. Her mind stopped catching fire. It was easier to push away the urge to marvel at the fact that he’d come for her than to just be there in the moment with him.
Aubrey couldn’t suppress the word though. “Why?”
“I had to,” he said yet again. That was the only explanation he offered.
His mouth was soft and insistent on her skin. Dropping a line of warm kisses as he held her tight. Mike’s large hands nearly met around her waist and Aubrey felt small. She’d never really felt this small before. Or this safe.
“Why?”
“There you go again,” he chuckled. He was the one to pull her t-shirt over her head, to unhook her bra and drop it to the nondescript ocean-gray carpet.
“I need to know.”
But that nearly became a lie when his mouth closed over her nipple. When he sucked. When the sensation of tongue and teeth on tender flesh forced her to shut her eyes and grip his shoulders so her knees would not fold up and dump her unceremoniously on her ass.
He pressed his open mouth to the swatch of flesh between her breasts and looked up at her with those tropical-water eyes.
“When the dust settled, when Chuck was okay, you were the first thought in my head when I woke up. The last when I went to bed. Looking at your house made my gut ache. I took to being your lawn-care boy just to have an excuse to be closer to you. And Christ. It was only a few days.”
“But my lawn?” She touched his face, his lips.
He moved his mouth away, sat up and put his palm across her mouth. Mike shook his head. “I was closer to you, being closer to your shit. When Angela called and said she was taking Chuck to see her sister in Connecticut, it hit me like a fist to the forehead.”
That made her laugh and he smiled in return.
“Why was I wallowing in my own self-pity doing your yard work when the woman I couldn’t get out of my head was a short plane trip away?”
“But the money.”
“The money you advanced me,” he said.
“That was pool money.”
“It’s October. I have a whole eight months, roughly, to get that money back together.”
“You’ll make more,” she said, putting her hand on his knee. Aubrey wanted to feel his skin under her hand, she settled for sweeping her fingers back and forth across the soft, overly worn denim that covered his thigh.
“How long are you here?” she said, moving her hand higher.
“How long are you here?” he countered. His eyes had grown darker like the beautiful sky outside. His volatile emotions vivid in the now-gray of his gaze.
“Until tomorrow. I wasn’t sure why but I guess Gail wasn’t certain how well it would go or how reliable my models were, so she had a built-in buffer zone—just in case I needed to reshoot anyone or there were any snafus or a bad model or—”
He cut her off with a kiss. “You’re babbling.”
His mouth was back on her breast. His hands stroking her skin. Aubrey tried to breathe as she shifted desperately on the bed. Between her legs she was molten and drenched and her whole body beat with her heart to be touched by him.
“I am.”
He pulled his t-shirt over his head and she sighed, not even realizing she was doing it. His skin was hot and firm under her fingers as she skated them along his chest. The skin twitched slightly from the gentle sensation. She smiled.
“Take your pants off, Aubrey,” he said, standing to do the same. “I’d do it for you but as you can see, I’m taking mine off. Taking yours off after would take twice as long.”
She stood to obey. “I see.”
“And that’s too damn fucking long for this,” Mike said the moment she stepped free of her capris.
He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her tight to him. His cock pressed hard and insistent and so very welcome between her legs to slide along her clitoris.
“It’s been awhile.”
Mike kissed down the side of her throat and the feel of his mouth on her made
her shiver. A roll of thunder outside the windows made her shiver again.
“Cold?” he asked, walking her back. He had her wrists pinned down by her thighs as he kissed her, moved her.
“Not at all. Just anticipating.”
“And what are you anticipating, Aubrey?”
The back of her knees hit the bed and she sat. He remained standing. When he let her wrists go, he cupped her face in his hands, stroked her hair. Watched her.
“This. Being with you. I…” She broke off and shook her head.
“What?” His thumb had begun a slow stroke on her lower lip. Without thinking, she parted her lips and licked at the very tip. He made a sound somewhere deep inside that reminded her of an animal.
A fresh rush of fluid wet her upper thighs. Her breath caught.
He was so very hard and she watched, mesmerized by the sight of him and the sound of the storm, as he took himself in hand. That sight, him gripping his cock, set off a craving in her. Aubrey felt as if Mike had touched her.
He smiled down at her as if he knew. No, she thought, not as if. He did know. He took that single step that closed the gap between them and watched her intently. He inhaled deeply and said, “I’ll say it then. Okay?”
Aubrey nodded. Without pausing, he moved just an inch closer and ran the warm, velvety tip of his erection along her lower lip. Her body lit up on the inside, fireworks and falling stars burning in her blood. She wished he could see the way she felt. All glowing and hot like the sun.
She pushed the silly thought away and darted her tongue out to taste him even as he said the words she’d been thinking.
“I missed you, Aubrey,” he said. “And that was when I knew I had to come. I haven’t missed anyone for a very long time except my children. But I missed you.”
She sucked the head of his cock into her mouth, gently drawing on him with her lips and tongue. He groaned and that sent another fresh rush of desire falling through the center of her.
“And when I missed you, I knew that I’d been wrong. I’d been not just wrong. I’d been a colossal jackass.”
She reached out, holding his trim hips in her hands, giving herself purchase as she moved her mouth down on his shaft and let the sensation of him fill her.
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