7 #2
With the way his reddened eyes are bulging out of his head, you’d think I kicked him instead. I might. If his voice gets any louder. I wouldn’t beat him in a fight; he’s even taller than Anders, but I would do some damage and run to safety after.
“It was in the way,” Anders goes on, less polite though a smile still pulls at his lips as he turns around to face the man. “And now you are too. We’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mind ending the scene you’re trying to make.”
We. The word shouldn’t stir the teenager-worthy crush my weak heart decided to develop over Anders. Next thing you know, I’ll be lying in bed, kicking my feet up, writing our names together in tiny bubble hearts.
“Listen, asshole—”
Anders places his hand on the man’s shoulder and says something I can’t hear from where I stand. Whatever it is makes the man frown, half puzzled, half shocked, but completely silenced.
Anders turns back to me with a warm smile as he reaches for my suitcase again. “Let’s go,” he says, walking toward the carry-on I dropped and slinging it on his shoulder. My bones forget how to function for a few moments before I hurry after him.
“What did you say to him?” I ask as I try to grab my carry-on from him.
“A secret.” He winks at me. Did you charm him or threaten him or both?
He grabs my hand I’m aiming toward my carry-on and guides it toward the side of my jeans. The warmth of his large palm presses against my hand as he places it inside my pocket before pulling his away.
“You know I was wrong, though. I did kick his luggage.”
“He should have moved it,” he says.
“I should have been patient,” I say.
“And he should have been understanding.”
A laugh rumbles through me. “I think we both know the truth here.”
“Maybe,” he says as the automatic doors slide open for us, “but I’m team Lucinda, right or wrong.”
Heat slides down my body. I look sidelong at him while we walk to the airport garage.
“I’m thirty minutes early,” I say as we cross the roadway, turn signals blinking, cars honking, people chatting, and guards yelling at people not to park for more than literally five seconds at a time. “How early did you get here?”
“I was tracking your flight, so I knew you’d be landing.”
“Of course you were,” I mutter.
He shoots out his arm, and my chest bumps into it. Better his body than the metal doors I nearly walked into. When I right myself, we walk to the elevator, and he presses the top button. He whistles softly as we wait.
A bundle of voices joins us in one wave of loud noise just as the elevator doors open.
Funnily, it’s a bachelorette party. One girl has a Bride banner draped across her white minidress, and all the other girls, in pink miniskirts, stumble over each other as one—the maid of honor, probably—leads the charge.
“All right, ladies,” she says as Anders walks in first. “There will be no stopping, no breaks, straight to the bar, and we will not sleep until tomorrow.”
They all cheer, and I swear they don’t even see me. Like the most beautiful NFL football team made of perfectly curled hair and six-inch stilettoes, they charge into the elevator. I’m tackled by their bodies and herded in like a sheep.
Anders looks up from dropping my carry-on on my suitcase and reaches out to me as I try to avoid being trampled.
He catches me and pulls me into his chest. The girls shuffle in. The scent of vanilla and tequila engulfs us as the doors shut, and everyone squishes against each other like sardines in a can.
His arms snake around my waist. I grip the fabric of his shirt as we’re pressed up against the back wall of the tiny box.
“Guys, there are other people here,” the girl right beside us says.
“Who wants shots?” someone else asks.
The brunette beside us gives me an apologetic smile as a body shoves me so close to Anders that there is scientifically no way we can be any closer without merging into one person.
My blood hums. I look up and catch Anders’s jaw clenching. I try to move so I’m not making him too uncomfortable.
My hands slide up his chest, and his pulse quickens beneath my palm. I move my legs, but Anders must have the same thought because he adjusts himself, too, and I end up with his thigh between both of mine.
Heat, blazing and fast, flares between my thighs.
The shock of it makes a needy whimper bundle at the base of my throat.
He hardens against me and I freeze. The way my heartbeat pounds in my ears and the shot of need throbbing at my crotch steals my breath.
The slightest movement will wrench the moan from my lips.
Anders clears his throat. I press my forehead against his chest and hold my breath.
An insane, irrational, idiotic brain cell screams at me to move. To learn how it would feel to free myself of the tension simmering under my skin. To place just the slightest pressure where my currently pulsing center begs for it.
I start counting backward from ten. The lack of free space is the reason for my nipples tightening and straining against the fabric of my shirt, and simultaneously, the only reason Anders can’t see my body’s reaction to him, to us.
A bing echoes around us. The girls shuffle out. As soon as cool air swirls behind me, I push myself off Anders and whirl around so fast my vision blurs.
I’m out of the elevator in half a second, crossing arms against my chest, trying to hide my nipples. Anders moves past me, pulling my luggage behind him.
“I’m just up here,” he says tightly as he leads. Veins peek through the skin of his hand as he grips my suitcase.
“Right.”
My stomach is doing Olympic-worthy gymnastics while I continue to count backward and forward, trying to lower my blood pressure to an acceptable rate. We pause at what I think is a Jeep, but the back is a bit bigger than the Wranglers I’ve seen before.
He pops open the trunk and lifts up my bag with an ease that undoes whatever minuscule cooling-off progress I managed to achieve. If I were connected to a monitor in the hospital, the staff would assume I was having a stroke.
I swallow and keep my legs far apart to prevent the slightest bit of friction.
Anders walks toward the passenger side and opens the door. I can’t hold back my groan. When I reach him, he smiles. I grab his hand, remove it from the handle, shut the door, and then open it again.
My finger points accusingly at him. “I told you not to do this.”
He chuckles a low rumble that brings a victorious blush to my cheeks. “I never said I wouldn’t.”
I’ll keep that in mind is what he said.
Anders moves behind me, sliding his hand down the small of my back. I feel every one of his fingers burning there, leaving a perfect trace of his palm as he guides me into the vehicle.
I nearly throw myself in to get away.
He shuts the door, and I have to fight the urge to lock him out. Enough that my fingers lie on top of the button by the time he lets himself in the driver’s side.
“So,” he says as he starts the engine, “how tired are you?”
Eager to focus on anything other than the shock of want coursing through me, I answer, “Not at all.”
“Okay,” he says, “then if you’re up for it, want to meet my family?”
My eyes widen, and the heat within me cools into sheets of icy nerves. “Right now?”
He casts an apologetic look my way before turning to reverse out of the spot.
“My very adorable, very nosy preteen cousin overheard me talking about picking you up from the airport. A fact she kept to herself for all of thirty seconds before my sister knew, then my aunt, and so they are all at my aunt’s place, dying to meet you. ”
I am tired. And I didn’t think I’d have to be on so quickly after touching down. I barely have had time to memorize all of Anders’s fun facts. I definitely don’t know anything too personal if anyone asks.
“We don’t have to,” Anders says at my silence.
I shake my head. “Yes, we do. It’s the whole reason I’m here.” And being overpaid for. Frankly, if Anders asked me to lick the floor of a gym locker room, I’d do so. “I just haven’t picked out a disguise, or a name, or a backstory.”
“The red wig and crooked nose.” Anders cocks his head to the side as he pulls up the memory of me beneath a bush. “It’s smart, but do you need one for this?”
“I always do.”
“We’re in an entirely different state, and you’ll be here a while, so it’ll be a hassle to keep it up. I’d rather remember actual things about you than made-up ones. Just be Lucinda.”
I open my mouth to tell him he shouldn’t remember things about me. That I’ll be a fleeting memory in his life, and three months from now, maybe even sooner, we won’t see each other again. But some mangled emotions I can’t patch up enough to fully understand stop me.
My body turns to face him as he drives. My gaze scans his profile, sharp and defined, aside from his eyes. Tiny creases mark the skin around them, a symbol of years and years of laughter.
Usually, the people I work with want nothing to do with me once the job is done—understandably so. Maybe I’m so used to it that it’s a reflex to reject the thought of someone doing something different. Would it be so bad not to be a complete stranger to Anders?
“Okay,” I say automatically. “Let’s go.”
His hand reaches over and squeezes my knee.
Uh-oh, my heart warns again. Are you sure about this?