39. Ashley
ASHLEY
“ H old the elevator!”
I shot my hand into the crack and almost got it pinched for my effort, but I hit the stopper and the doors clunked open again.
Someone at the back of the crowded car sighed impatiently.
The elevators were busy, full of conference-goers and families needing breakfast and sporty types who liked a morning run. I’d had to wait a few minutes for one to even arrive and someone from the dinner cruise had come along to chat while I did. I’d had to find polite words when my brain was still in bed with Fox.
We’d had sex. Really good sex. The kind of sex that made it impossible to imagine sleeping with anyone else ever again. I couldn’t sleep with him again, though. Even I, with my aspirations that were doomed to crash, had enough grasp of reality to know when something really was too grandiose to wish for.
So I’d walked away and here Fox was, racing after me, making my heart soar to unimaginable heights. He’d pulled on boardies but nothing else, not even flipflops.
That wasn’t the face of a man chasing down a woman in an airport or holding a boombox above his head to woo her, though. That was grim disaster shouldering in to stand before me while the doors closed behind him.
“What?” I asked with growing dread.
“Shane’s here.”
“What?” My reaction was dramatic enough that all the heads in the elevator turned to stare at me. “Here?” I pointed at the floor. “In the hotel?” Was I screeching? I think I was screeching.
“On his way. He landed an hour ago and was renting a car.”
“What does he want?”
The elevator stopped and Fox shifted into my space to allow a handful of people to get off around him, then he stepped back, giving me room again. “He wanted me to fetch him. I was surfing and missed his text.”
Then I had called Fox on the hotel phone. He let me into his room and we’d?—
I covered my mouth.
The elevator stopped again. More people got off while we stood there in dumb silence.
When we arrived on my floor we stepped out, but didn’t move.
“He’s definitely on his way here.”
“Yes,” Fox confirmed tersely.
“He didn’t come all this way to see you or his parents. You’ll all be home in a few days. He wants to see me.” Why? I didn’t want to see him. Not now.
Not after this morning.
Oh God. I looked at Fox and guilt, so much guilt, pulsed between us. It was like the force that pushed magnets away from one another. He looked to the end of the hall and the hardness in his profile hit me like a slap.
A familiar, grotesque, frightened feeling was awakening inside me, the one that said I was to blame for this. I was the screw up. Everything was wrong and it was all my fault.
“We should talk,” Fox said grudgingly through his teeth.
“About what? Tell him whatever you want. I don’t want to see him.” With growing agitation, I paced down the hall to the suite. My hand shook as I touched the room card to the door lock.
I pushed into the room and Shane turned from the open bag on the foot of the bed. He was dripping wet and completely naked.
“There you are.”