Chapter 6
Kat
Alex really was rich.I had already known that—like every sane person who has had their heart broken, I Googled my ex from time to time—but the suite he got at the hotel really made it hit home. It was bigger than my apartment, with two bedrooms, a kitchenette, and an expansive sitting room with floor-to-ceiling windows. Alex had barely glanced at the rate.
“We’ll stay the night,” he said. “That will give you some time to rest up.”
Rest up for what? I wondered, but I was suddenly too tired to obsess over the answer. “I’m going to take a shower,” I said, heading for one of the bedrooms.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“That’s changed, then. You used to always be hungry.”
I shot a glare at him over my shoulder. “I like food. Do you have a problem with that?”
One of Alex’s eyebrows went up, and for the first time I saw a trace of the humor that had made me weak in the knees as a teenager. “No, I don’t.”
“Good.” I said it more grumpily than I needed to, because the truth was, being around Alex was affecting me. That tall, lean body of his. The way his belt sat on his hips. The tattoos I knew were on his arms beneath the jacket. I wondered if he’d had any of them removed in the last thirteen years, and whether he’d gotten any new ones.
I wondered how many women had seen Alex’s tattoos after me.
Probably a few, I figured. Alex was hot and obscenely rich. He wouldn’t be lacking in women knocking at his door. I hadn’t been celibate either—I liked sex, I was good at it, and I appreciated quality over quantity. But sex between Alex and me had always been particularly, spectacularly good. It was hard not to look at him and remember that.
I walked into the bedroom and dropped my coat on the bed. I bent to pull my boots off as pain throbbed through every part of my body. I’d passed the phase where the pain only happened where my injuries were. Now, everything hurt.
I managed to get my shoes off, but the effort made me dizzy. I tried to sit on the edge of the bed, but I missed, and I barely grabbed it as I sank to the floor. When I got there, I was too tired to pull myself up again, so I stayed on the floor, my back against the bed, and worked at the button on my jeans. In the process I jarred the wrapped, broken fingers on my left hand and I groaned softly in pain.
The bedroom door opened again and Alex walked in. He approached softly, his boots thumping on the carpet. I fumbled with my jeans button again, refusing to look up.
He dropped to a crouch facing me and put my black lacy bra on the floor next to me. “You dropped this.”
Great. That was just great. My fingers grasped my jeans button, then slipped.
“And this is for you.” He put a bottle of Advil on the floor next to my bra. Where had he gotten that, I wondered? The man was freaking mysterious.
Alex’s voice was gentle as he watched me continue to try and get my jeans undone. “What would happen if I offered to help, Kat?”
I inhaled a breath. It was a good question. What would happen if Alex Blake, my ex-husband, offered to help me take my clothes off?
Despite the pain and the embarrassment, despite my fear and exhaustion, I knew what the answer was. We’d end up having sex.
This had always been the way with Alex and me. It was easy to block it from my memory when he was gone, but now that he was here, so close, I remembered it perfectly. Alex and me, naked. Over and over and over. When things were good, we’d had sex. When things were bad, we’d had sex. When things were crumbling, when we weren’t communicating, we’d had sex. When we were mad at each other, we’d had mind-blowing sex. Sex was the one constant of Alex and me.
We’d had quality and quantity.
Even now, with so much between us, I knew it could happen. My body thought with a mind of its own when it came to Alex. Fuck first, think later had pretty much been my motto with him. And now, sitting on a hotel room floor, I knew it still could be.
But I wasn’t going to admit that. There was also the matter of the ring in my jeans pocket, which I didn’t want him to find. So I answered his question with, “I don’t know, but if I were you, I’d protect my balls.”
He didn’t laugh. He scrubbed a hand over his face as if he was suddenly as tired as I was. “Okay. Fine. Get a shower and some rest. I’m going out for a little while.”
I tried to keep the panic from my voice. “Where are you going?”
“To take care of a few things.” He dropped his hands and let them dangle between his knees. His scent wafted toward me again. He needed to get away from me now, or I was going to wrestle him to the floor, hate or no hate. I’d always been a slut when it came to him.
“What things?” I asked, keeping up the interrogation instead of begging him to help me take my pants off.
“We’ll talk when I get back.”
There was that insufferable I’m-in-charge attitude that always drove me crazy. I tried to remember that I wanted nothing to do with him, physically or any other way. “Maybe I won’t be here,” I said, knowing I sounded like a petulant child. I was just so damned tired.
But Alex surprised me. “Please don’t leave, Kat,” he said, his voice soft and sincere. “I won’t be long, and you’re safe here. We’ll figure something out, I promise.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing.
That had to be good enough. Alex stood without another word and left the room.