Chapter 16
They, indeed, got no sleep. That was why it took all Emmy’s strength to peel her eyelids open and then immediately snap them
shut against the blazing sun when someone dared knock on their door and wake them the next morning.
Gabe was face down into the mattress beside her, arms flung out and hair sticking up in every direction from her yanking on
it all night. The sheet half covered his perfect ass, and two of the pillows had landed on the floor.
Emmy sat up and shamelessly tugged the sheet to expose all his perfect ass and cover her chest.
The sight of Gabe Olson sleeping naked was criminally stunning. His long legs, his grooved back. That perfect, rounded real-life
peach emoji she’d gripped in her palms multiple times last night. She could have stared at him for the rest of time. It took
more strength than she knew she possessed to tear her eyes away.
She left him sleeping and assessed her own damage. Her hair tangled around her head in a frizzy nest. She could only imagine
what had become of her makeup having run through the rain and then endured all the bedroom activity that followed. Remarkably,
she was not hungover at all, likely because Gabe had given her more of a workout than she’d had in years and all the alcohol
had evaporated from her body like mist. Still, exhaustion clawed at her. Her body ached in the most pleasant places. She wanted
to lie back down, savoring her rubber muscles and the twinge between her legs, and sleep for a hundred years.
But someone was still knocking.
She glanced sideways to see the alarm clock showing 10:05a.m. in a slash of aggressively red digits. The last time she’d
looked at the clock before the tide of sleep had pulled her under, it had been close to 6a.m. Gauzy predawn light had already
begun to glow in the room then. Now it cut in like a blade thanks to a thrown pillow having landed by the curtains and pushing
them partly open.
In her sweep of the nightstand, she saw her phone and noticed three missed calls and a handful of texts from her sister.
“Shit,” she muttered, hoping nothing was wrong right as she heard Piper’s voice on the other side of the door.
“Emmy! Are you alive in there?” Another knock followed it.
“Shit!” Emmy hissed again, feeling like they’d been caught. They were two consenting adults with personal history sharing
a hotel room, so chances were not zero they were going to sleep together, but still. The idea of Piper catching her in bed
with Gabe sent a wave of panic surging through her.
She swatted at his arm. “Gabe! Wake up!”
He stirred with a grumble as Emmy thumbed her phone, scanning her texts to see what all the fuss was about.
Piper had apparently lost the ability to text words and had resorted to emojis only. A flood of dolphins, fish, and turtles
filled her screen, along with popping champagne bottles, oranges, and a few boats.
“What the hell?” Emmy muttered in confusion as Gabe sat up.
“What time is it?” he said with a yawn.
She turned to see him bathed in gold like some kind of Rembrandt painting come to life. The light spilling in left him positively
glowing. His stubble had magically grown into a seductive, scruffy length that hadn’t existed only four hours before. And,
no, his lips could not still have been that beautifully swollen from kissing.
Emmy’s phone slipped out of her hand.
“You do not look like this when you first wake up,” she muttered. “ Are you kidding me? ”
He sleepily scratched his cheek where it had been smashed into the bed, not having heard her through his yawn, and then arched into a stretch that pulled and flexed all his muscles in a way that made Emmy think she could have another orgasm just looking at him.
“What’s going on?” he lazily said, and rubbed a hand over his hopeless hair.
She was too stunned to speak.
“Emmy!” Piper shouted with another knock.
Gabe jerked in surprise. “Is that your sister?”
The question snapped Emmy back to reality. “Yes!” she blurted and threw herself from the bed. Their clothes from the wedding
were scattered everywhere and still soggy. She ran around frantically grabbing and throwing them into a pile in the corner
to hide the evidence. She didn’t even think about the fact she was doing it naked until she felt the heat of Gabe watching
her.
He leaned back with the sheet tangled at his waist, propped up on his arms with a hungry smile. “Well, this is quite the show.”
She glared at him as she threw one of her shoes by the strap. It hit the wall with a thud and fell atop the heap of her dress
and his pants and shirt. “You could help, you know.”
“I think I’d rather watch.” He clasped his hands behind his head and lay back against the pillows. “What’s the big deal anyway?”
Piper was still knocking.
“The big deal is I don’t really want Piper walking in on all this .” She waved her hands at the slightly more kempt but still trashed in a very telltale way room. Half the bedding hung to
the floor, a bra dangled from a chairback, a dress shoe stuck out from under the bed, a man too attractive for his own good
sat naked in rumpled sheets with his hair looking thoroughly woman-handled. “It’s very obvious what went on in here last night,
and I don’t want to deal with my sister’s commentary right now, that’s all.”
He looked at her with a wicked little grin. “Then you probably shouldn’t answer the door naked.”
Emmy turned scarlet head to toe and ran for the closet to pull on one of the plush robes. “Can you please get dressed? Or, I don’t know, hide?”
Gabe laughed. “Hide? She booked the room for us; she knows we’re both in here.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Emmy said, and turned to snatch her bra to throw it into the pile of shame. “For all she knows, we got
in a fight last night, and I made you walk the plank at the pier, and you got eaten by sharks— What are you doing?” She turned
around to find him standing behind her, not a stitch of clothing on, with an erection big enough to make her knees wobble.
Her eyes moved to it like magnets. Memories of last night slammed into her. Her whole body quivered.
He hooked his fingers under her chin and tilted her head up. The wicked smile had only grown. “I woke up like this,” he said
as if she were accusing him of something. “But it certainly didn’t help to watch you run around panic cleaning naked. Either
way, you get all the credit.” He took her hand and placed it on the smooth, hard, hot length of himself.
Emmy’s breath hitched in her throat. Every nerve twitched. She could have burst into flames and thanked him for it. “What
are you doing to me right now?”
He only continued to smile. “Enjoying you.”
“Torturing me.”
“Enjoying torturing you.”
Her heart thumped hard. Finding her voice took great strength, but she saw the familiar challenge in his eye. The glittering
flicker when he was getting off on messing with her. But it was a new kind of messing. In this novel territory where they’d
touched each other everywhere and panted each other’s names into the dark, the old rules didn’t apply.
Emmy impishly smirked at him and tightened her grip. “Dangerous game to play with your life in my hands, Olson.”
He sucked a sharp breath between his teeth and slightly bounced up on his toes. “Aw, there’s more to me than just a dick, Jameson. I hope you realize that.”
She pulled him toward her then swung her hands around to squeeze another of her favorite body parts of his. “Yes, you’re also
an ass, and I don’t mean this kind.”
He laughed and sank his lips to her neck. He kissed and sucked and nipped at her, sending her still-waking blood dizzily looping.
She melted into him, the length of him rock-hard between them.
“Emmy! Open the goddamned door or I’m calling the front desk for a key!” Piper wailed and pounded again.
Emmy snapped back from Gabe and yanked herself into focus.
“What does she want?” Gabe asked, and, thankfully, headed to the closet for the other robe.
“I have no idea. She’s texting me fish emojis and champagne bottles.”
Gabe frowned and pulled the robe over his shoulders. Somehow, he was even more beautiful partially dressed.
Unable to stop herself, Emmy crossed the room and looped her arms around his middle before he tied the robe shut, shoving
her hands against his bare skin. He smelled divine. Rain, sweat, notes of her, diluted cologne. Him. She pressed a kiss into his chest. “I don’t know what she wants, but can you please help me make this less awkward?”
He smoothed his hands over her wild hair and cupped her cheeks to tilt her face up. “Em, I’m not going to talk to your sister
with a raging hard-on, don’t worry.”
She swooned at the nickname and sputtered a weak laugh.
He kissed her forehead. “I’ll go in the bathroom.”
“Thank you.”
They parted, her heading for the front door and him to the bathroom, when Emmy stopped and spun around.
“Oh, could you maybe... keep the hard-on?” Her hands suddenly fidgeted in her robe’s loose sleeves. She bit her lip.
He gave her another wicked grin. “It’s not going anywhere without you.”
She nodded, radiating desire for him in every cell down to the ends of her hair, and turned around to take a deep breath,
preparing herself to pretend she wasn’t about to combust so she could have a conversation with her sister.
She tightened her robe one last time and cautiously opened the door.
“ Finally! ” Piper greeted her with the pep of someone who’d been up for an hour and had, at minimum, three cups of coffee. “I was starting
to worry. Are you—?” She cut off and leaned back to suspiciously eye her. Emmy noted she was fully dressed and looking newlywed
glamorous in a flowy white dress over a bikini with wedge sandals and a wide hat. Bangles clattered on her wrist, and the
new diamond band addition to her left hand set off a rainbow of sparkles even in the covered hallway. “You look like you were
up all night fucking.”
“Piper!”