by Lauren Layne
I expect her to protest, but she merely laughs happily. “Yeah, I figured.”
I frown, a little annoyed to be dismissed so easily. My frown turns to a full-on scowl when Lucy all but bounces out of her chair. The gesture has her neck tilting back, and for about the hundredth time this evening I realize my mistake in encouraging her to dress up.
She must have packed the short, hot-pink dress for Oscar, because it’s flirty and sexy and hotter than fuck. The top is fitted and strapless, clinging precariously to perky round breasts, the skirt hitting at that teasing part of mid-thigh that says Look but don’t touch.
Through the open patio doors, I keep my eye on the dance floor, annoyed every time someone moves to block my view, relieved when Lucy comes into sight again.
Well, relieved and turned on.
I don’t know the name of the song, nor the artist, but it’s vaguely familiar. Some hot top-forty number with a sultry female voice that apparently begs to be writhed to, because Lucy’s movements are ninety percent hip wiggle.
I’m not the only one who notices. A tall guy approaches and without missing a beat, his hands find her hips, his movements matching hers as they grind in perfect unison to the song.
My beer freezes halfway to my lips. What the hell is this?
It looks fucking choreographed. My beer slams back down to the table when Lucy’s arm lifts, her hand hooking idly around the other guy’s neck as she leans into him, her head against his chest, lips parted.
Her eyes close as the guy’s hand moves down slightly, then up again, lifting her skirt a bit, and I’m moving before I can stop myself.
The song fades into another as I step onto the dance floor, a Latin song with a sexy, driving rhythm. I watch the man’s hands slide toward her ass as her arms lift to drape over his shoulders and pull him closer.
And then I’m there, shoving him out of the way, my hands replacing his.
“Hey—”
“Mine,” I growl at him.
To his credit, the dude merely lifts his hands in surrender before backing away. I don’t know where he goes after that, because my eyes are locked on Lucy.
I expect her to be pissed at my high-handedness, but although she goes momentarily still, she recovers quickly, her arms wrapping around my neck as she picks up the rhythm once more, and I don’t think it’s my imagination that her movements are slower now. Sexier. Seductive.
I move right along with her.
I’m not one for dancing, but this I can handle. This slow swaying is little more than a grind, and though I don’t know a lick of Spanish, the gist of the song is clear. It’s a promise of hot sweaty nights, of my hands on her skin, my mouth on her mouth….
I’ve pulled her closer now, a little unnerved by how right it feels that after all this time we move together so well.
The rhythm shifts; there’s an interlude with a woman’s voice, and Lucy pulls back slightly, hands sliding over my chest, her gaze locked on mine, teeth dragging against her bottom lip in blatant seduction.
She slowly turns, and my fingers grip harder, thinking she means to move away, but she’s merely pivoting, turning so that her back’s pressed to my chest, her small ass tucked against me.
Shit. Holy hell and fuck. I’m dying.
I can’t help myself. My hands skim over her sides, down over her hips, slowly teasing the fabric upward, just enough so that my fingertips can touch her bare outer thighs. I feel her freeze for a half second before she resumes her torturous wiggling, more deliberate this time, her ass teasing my cock which hardens more with every breath.
We go on like this endlessly, torturing each other, the music, the lack of words, the unfamiliar city somehow letting us pretend that this is all a dream. That in real life, we didn’t break each other’s hearts, that we won’t hate each other tomorrow.
The song slows to a stop long before I’m ready, the DJ coming on the microphone to babble about some shit.
Lucy turns back around slowly, both of us breathing hard as we stare at each other.
What was that? her green eyes ask.
I shake my head once. Don’t know.
The closest I can come up with is dry humping, and that’s not nearly sexy enough to describe what just happened.
Without a word, she turns and walks back toward our table. She picks up her drink, which is now mostly just ice and water, but I grab her wrist and pull the drink away.
She frowns and I frown back.
“Don’t be stupid,” I say, lifting the drink. “Picking up a drink that’s been unattended in a club. Really?”
She shakes her head a little, pushing her hair back from her face. “You’re right. You’re right. Stupid. I’ve probably had enough rum.”
Stupid is right. Both of us.
“You wanna get out of here?” I ask.
She nods, and I’m relieved. Everyone around us is one drink away from screwing. Not the sort of atmosphere we need to be in. I need fresh air, a glass of water, a change of scenery….
Instinctively, I hold out my hand for hers, and the second we make contact, palm to palm, I realize that we’re so not out of the woods yet.
This godforsaken club is the least of our problems.
Because somehow, Lucy Hawkins and I are supposed to survive a dirty dance, one too many drinks, and then share a hotel room without touching each other.
I mentally add a cold shower to my agenda for the evening.
Chapter 20
Lucy
So, silver lining?
At least I’m not thinking of Oscar anymore.
Reece deliberately picked places near our hotel so that we’d be able to walk back, and as we leave the club, I feel a flash of gratitude, because I’ll have a chance to gather my thoughts, clear my head, and get the hell out of the danger zone.
But we’re in Miami, and it’s summer. The air is thick and heavy, just like the tension between us.
Why did he come dance with me? Why?
Except I know why. I love to dance, I’ve always loved to dance, and I wasn’t trying to make Reece jealous with that other guy, really I wasn’t. I’d just needed to feel…wanted. Reece had been kind but platonic all evening, and Oscar, well…he was probably in that other girl’s bed.
So when the guy with the grabby hands had wanted to dance with me when nobody else had…sure.
Only Reece wasn’t nearly as immune as I’d thought, and somehow it’d gone from what was supposed to be a freeing night out, embracing an “All the single ladies” vibe, and it had turned into…well, whatever this is.
Neither of us says anything as we make the slow trek back to the hotel, and all I can think about is that we’re sharing a room.
To distract myself, I try to remember all the reasons why letting him anywhere near me would be a bad idea. I try to remember what it was like when I’d seen him kissing another girl.
But the rum is messing with my brain, and now the only place my memory wants to go is Reece and me together. The first time he’d kissed me. The first time he’d touched my breast over the shirt. Under the shirt.
The first time I’d given him head, the first time he’d put his head between my thighs, and then finally, the first time he’d thrust inside me, the pain and the wonderfulness all wrapped into one glorious memory.
“You all right?” he asks quietly.
“Hmm?”
He glances down at me, blue eyes blazing. “You seem sort of out of breath.”
I let out a little laugh but don’t respond.
We go back to quiet, although oddly it’s not uncomfortable. Well okay, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s not unpleasant. Not really.
Still, the tension is mounting, and I make it to the elevator of our hotel before I realize that I need to say something now, before there’s a bed a few feet away.
“I’m not going to sleep with you.”
Reece doesn’t even blink, his gaze locked on the elevator numbers as we ascend. “Don’t recall asking.”
“But that dance…”
He glances over. “Was a dance. You danced with the other guy too.”
“Which you didn’t like,” I say, hands on my hips. Admit it. You were jealous.
Reece’s eyes flick over me, goosebumps left in the wake of his gaze, but he doesn’t deny or confirm, and I’m oddly disappointed.
True to his word though, once we step into the dimly lit hotel room, seduction seems to be the last thing on his mind. He snaps on the light. No, he snaps on all the lights, before hauling his duffel bag onto the couch and rummaging through it, coming up with a bedraggled-looking Ziploc bag with his toiletries.
He lifts his eyebrows when he finds me watching him. “You want to use the bathroom first?”
“No.” My voice is scratchy, and I try again. “No, go ahead.”
Reece shrugs and goes into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him, while I lower myself to the side of the bed and try really hard not to think about how good it felt to have his hot, firm body pressed against me. I try not to think about how when his fingers brushed my thighs I’d wanted to turn to him, beg him to keep going, to drag his fingers up and up, to touch me everywhere.
I groan, putting both hands over my face and flopping back on the bed, legs dangling over the side.
“Well. This is a sight.”
I sit bolt upright again when I realize Reece has come out of the bathroom and isn’t even trying to hide the fact that he’s noticed my skirt has hiked up.
I hurriedly pull it down, and he smirks. Smirks.
I give him my best glare before scooting off the bed. “Done in the bathroom?”
“Yup.”
Once again, not looking at me. Fine.
I brush by him, ignoring that he smells like mint and soap and man.
He cheated on you. Never forget that.
I hesitate only briefly before taking off my makeup, stuck between this weird place of thinking, It’s just Reece and Ohmigod, it’s Reece.
Sort of like that feeling of wanting to look your best for a guy, and yet somehow knowing that you don’t have to, because he’ll like you anyway.
I put toothpaste on my brush and point it at my reflection in warning. “Don’t. He doesn’t like you. Remember. And you don’t like him.”
“What’s happening in there, Hawkins?” he calls.
“Nothing.” I shove the toothbrush into my mouth, working up a furious foam.
By the time I come out of the bathroom, the rum-haze is fading, my blood is cooling, my brain gaining the upper hand over my hormones.
And then it all goes to hell. He’s standing there in nothing but blue plaid boxers, and he’s an absolutely perfect specimen of a man.
He was always fit courtesy of high school sports and long hours in the vineyards, but this is different. Once again I realize that the boy I knew has been replaced by a man. And he is all man.
“Damn it, Reece, put a shirt on.”
He gives me a bemused look before crossing the room to the closet to grab the spare blanket from the top shelf. “You’ve seen it all before.”
“Yeah but that was…”
Reece grabs one of the pillows off the bed. “That was what?”
“That was before,” I say, grabbing at the pillow.
He laughs and grabs it back. “Seriously? There are like six pillows on that bed. You don’t need them all.”
I grab it back again, only to regret it, because at least the pillow blocked some of the view of his six-pack. To make matters worse, his boxers are slung low, revealing far too much muscly goodness.
I’m in so much trouble.
He turns away and I think I’ve won, but he merely goes to the other side of the bed, grabs a different pillow and stalks to the couch.
“You’re not going to pull out the bed part?” I ask, watching as he settles on the couch, picks his phone off the side table and begins swiping at whatever’s on the screen.
“Obviously not,” he says.
I toss the pillow onto the bed with more force than necessary and go to my bag for pajamas.
“What’s your deal, Lucy?”
“What?” I snap.
He’s not even looking up from his cell. “It’s not my fault you can’t decide what you want.”
“Meaning?”
I sneak a glance to make sure he’s not looking, then peel my dress over my head. His bored tone tells me he cares a hell of a lot more about whomever he’s texting than he does me.
“Meaning, you can’t decide if you want to force yourself to pretend you’re trying to get over that ass-wipe Oscar, or if you hate my guts, or if you want me to jump you, but I’ll tell you, if you’re going to strip in front of me, the latter is likely to happen.”
I spin around, and sure enough he’s staring at me.
I automatically pull my arms toward my chest, the tank top in my hands doing little to cover my front.
Then, both annoyed and motivated by his blatant perusal of my mostly naked body, I hold his gaze as I slowly lower my arm, letting him take in the strapless white bra, the black and white striped panties with black lace and a little bow as I leisurely pull the tank over my head.
Normally I’d take the bra off first, but I’m not quite that brave.
Brave enough though, to turn, my back toward him, bending over slightly as I look for my pajama bottoms.
I think I hear Reece groan, and I grin as I pull out the white cotton shorts and step into them more slowly than I need to.
Only then do I undo my bra, under the safety of the top, whipping it away and dropping it into my bag before scurrying into bed.
I haul out my journal. Reece wasn’t half-wrong when he said I’d been crying into my diary. I’m a little embarrassed to say that the notebook thus far reads more like my seventh grade diary with the pink and teal glittery stripes than it does the worldly travel journal I’d envisioned.
Instead of talking about the sights and my impression of parts of the country I haven’t seen before, it’s a lot of, well, boys.
Last night it had been a lot of tear-soaked scribbles about betrayal and loyalty, alternating between self-pity that I seem to be the type of girl that boys cheat on, and righteous, girl-power indignation that they’d even dare.
Tonight though…I tap the pen against my lips, sneaking a glance at Reece as I try to figure out how to even capture this particular day and night of our road trip.
He’s ignoring me altogether, and I suppose that’s the lesson right there.
Keep your eye on the prize, Lucy. You’re moving toward Napa and away from your history with Reece Sullivan. Don’t be that girl who moves backward.
By the time I plug in my phone and turn off the lamp, he’s still ignoring me, except this time I know he’s faking it and is as determined as I am to dodge the fact that we have unfinished business.
After a few minutes, I see the faint glow from his cellphone go out, and then there’s nothing but the darkness and our silence.
I don’t mean to speak, but I do. “Reece?”
For a second he’s quiet, and I think he’ll ignore me, but then he clears his throat and responds in a quiet voice. “Yeah.”
Crap. Didn’t think this through. There are so many things I want to say, ask…do.
I blow out a breath. “Thanks.”
“For?”
I pluck at the hotel comforter. “For yesterday. For coming after me and holding me, even though I know you hate me.”
I hold my breath, waiting for him to confirm that he doesn’t hate me. Which is stupid. He has no reason to hate me. He’s the one who ruined things.
I hold my breath anyway.
Deny it. Say you miss me like I miss you.
There’s a rustling noise, then the creak of a crappy couch. “Night, Lucy.”
I squeeze my eyes shut in disappointment. His ex-girlfriend is wearing tiny pajamas, not ten feet from him, and he’s not even interested.
Which…I shouldn’t care. I k
now I shouldn’t. Reece Sullivan hurt me more than anyone’s ever hurt me. I should be keeping my distance. Not to mention I just ended a relationship; the last thing I should be thinking about is hooking up with Reece.
And yet I lie awake long into the night. Wondering what if.
Remembering the good parts a lot more vividly than the bad.
Chapter 21
Reece
I rub my forehead in exasperation.
“You missed the exit.”
I can actually hear Lucy’s teeth grinding together, even over the hard rock I’ve put on to punish her for the fact that I can’t stop thinking about her ass in those little shorts last night, nor her tits in the dress….
“Maybe if you’d told me that was our exit before we passed it,” she snaps, moving into the far right lane so we can get off the freeway and backtrack.
“I did tell you,” I growl.
“Oh, you mean when you muttered something under your breath, and then wouldn’t repeat it when I asked?”
I reach for my M&M’s and toss back a handful to keep from reaching across the car and strangling her.
We haven’t gotten off to a good start this morning. I think it was sharing the bathroom that did it. Having to sit and listen to the water running, knowing that only a single door separated me from her naked body.
And then she came out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel, dark hair dripping water over her collarbone, smelling like vanilla and Lucy….
“You’re a terrible navigator,” she gripes.
I don’t deny this. I hate navigating. It’s making me crazy not to be the one driving. I have nothing to do with my hands, too much free reign for my brain to go places it shouldn’t.
“Right or left?” she asks impatiently when she gets to the bottom of the off-ramp. “Actually, never mind. We’ll fill up on gas, and I’ll figure out directions and drive.”
No chance. The second she gets out of the driver’s seat, I’m in it.
Except the girl knows me too well, because she pulls up to the pump, turns off the car, and stares straight ahead, staying stubbornly seated.
I jerk my head toward the back. “When I drive, I pump.”
