Chapter Eight #2
I would take it with me to my grave, but the press of his body, the firm, yet gentle way he was holding onto me to prove his point had my heartbeat thrumming and my sex clenching hard.
It was just biological, I tried to remind myself. It was just the reaction to the nearness of a good-looking man after a long, long dry spell. Just that primal, evolutionary tug to mate. Nothing more, nothing less.
“You can let me go now.”
I prayed he didn’t hear the thickness in my voice, that he couldn’t feel the way my heartbeat was kicking, or how my breath had gone all quick and shallow.
Want stirred slowly, a lazy curl beneath my skin, making me suddenly aware of each inch where our bodies that touched: the spread of his chest, his firm center, the corded muscles of his arms.
I’d never been one of those petite, small-boned women, so I never felt small before. But I did right then, with this giant of a man dwarfing me in height and width.
And, God, as much as I hated to admit it, I liked it.
A lot.
His hand slid. My breath stuttered.
The next thing I knew, he was pulling the gun from my fingers, his knuckles dragging down over my breast, then across my stomach, down my side.
Each second stretched tight, the air humming with possibility.
I didn’t even know his intention until I felt the gun slide back into the holster at my waist.
“Haven’t had a woman pull a gun on me like that before,” he said, his hand grazing my hip. He might as well have lit it on fire. And the flames were catching, spreading, burning inward.
“Never had a man disarm me before,” I admitted, suddenly not caring how breathless my voice sounded.
“I’ve had a lot of training,” he said, his face brushing the side of my head.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
I wanted to hate him for it.
Hate my body for falling for it.
But, damn, it felt good to be touched, to be held.
I’d been so alone for so long.
Colter’s hand slid up, drifting over my ribs, and I swear I felt the sensation thrum between my thighs.
Then there was someone clearing their damn throat, making us jerk apart like guilty teenagers.
“Jack,” Colter said, his voice thick, before he even turned.
“Colter,” Jack said back.
“What do you want?” Colter asked as I finally turned, hoping my cheeks weren’t flaming, but judging by how hot they felt, I figured that might be a pipe dream.
“Just stepping out for some air.”
“You hear about the fuck who got released?” Colter asked.
“Yeah.”
“He staying here?”
“No.”
“Good. Keep it that way,” Colter said. “Dylan,” he said, looking back at me, the mix of longing, regret, and lingering heat making my belly flip. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I watched him jog across the street before I took a slow, deep breath.
“What?” I asked, feeling Jack, the guy I’d met earlier, looking at me.
“Not a damn thing,” he said, making me turn to see the smirk he shot me before dipping back into his office.
“What the fuck was that, right, girl?” I asked Sugar, who was looking up at me with those big golden eyes of hers.
I dug for my key and let us into the room, leaning down to unhook Sugar’s leash.
And it was as I was straightening that I saw it.
Something in the center of the bed that definitely didn’t belong there. Something I hadn’t put there.
A gift basket.
Someone had been in my room while I’d been gone.
“What the fuck?” I said, my hand going to my gun and hovering there.
Until I saw two very distinct things in that basket.
A box of syringes.
And my insulin.
My hand dropped from my holster.
I moved back toward the window, sliding the ancient curtain out of the way to look out.
But he hadn’t turned back.
He was making the trek back to the clubhouse.
“What the hell is that, right?” I asked Sugar, who’d moved toward the bed to sniff at the basket.
I didn’t need to wonder how he’d gotten in. I’d been picking locks since I was in elementary school. And I went ahead and didn’t think about the creep factor of him figuring out my room and letting himself in.
I jumped right into curiosity as I pulled my insulin and box of needles out of the basket.
Without insurance or pharmacy rebates, it had to cost a couple hundred, maybe more. It depended on the prescription. And he’d paid for that. Without a second thought.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he’d compiled a care basket.
Who the hell did shit like that?
“It’s weird, right?” I asked my dog as I reached for a large blanket in a warm, buttery-yellow color.
It was the softest damn thing I’d ever felt.
Until I took out the fluffy socks with a yellow and white floral pattern.
Next, there were several towels—plain white, fabric spray (lemon), cleaning wipes, and bleach spray.
“I guess this is his subtle way of telling me to thoroughly clean the room, huh?” I asked Sugar. “Maybe he knows something I don’t.”
I put the cleaning supplies to the side and went back to the basket, finding a sleep mask, slippers, one of those big stainless steel water bottles everyone was carrying around—again, in yellow—and earplugs.
As if sensing the question rolling around in my head as I held them, somewhere down in the hotel, a woman’s voice was drifting over toward me.
“Yes! Oh, fuck! Just like that! You’re so big, daddy!”
She wasn’t even trying to sound convincing, but it seemed to be working for the guy as the fake moaning got louder and louder.
“Guess this place has a specific clientele,” I said, tossing the earplugs on the nightstand with the eye mask.
It made a certain sort of sense. Guys got out of prison, had nowhere to go, got a room, and quickly blew off years’ worth of sexual frustration with local sex workers. And, of course, we couldn’t count out the local married men paying for some on the side.
And Colter wanted me to believe in romance.
I didn’t know about him, but I lived in the real world.
In the real world, I spent the next hour scrubbing the room that had likely been used by sex workers and clients thousands of times.
Real, real romantic shit.
Though I had to admit that once I took a shower and climbed into my fuzzy socks and got under the impossibly soft blanket, things did feel a little less dark and gritty than they used to.
Damn him.