Chapter Two
~ Jackson ~
I killed the Humvee’s engine and sat in the sudden quiet, staring at the glowing lights of the Sheraton Hotel’s entrance.
The parking lot was nearly empty—not surprising for a Friday night in Billings in November—just a few scattered cars huddled near the lobby doors like they were afraid of the dark.
I’d made it. Three hours of driving, five gas station coffees, and an audio book about wine-making that I’d been too distracted to follow.
The dashboard lights cast a greenish glow across the cab of the Humvee, highlighting the map I’d left folded on the passenger seat, the empty coffee cup wedged in the center console, the way my hands were still gripping the steering wheel with more force than necessary.
I gave myself exactly ten minutes. Ten minutes to decide whether to walk through those glass doors and take the elevator up to room 412. Ten minutes to remind myself why this was a bad idea.
One. Three hours on the road to spend what—twelve hours in a hotel room?
Fourteen at the outside? For a man who’d sent me a text that was more directive than invitation.
For a man who’d never once suggested we meet anywhere that wasn’t neutral territory—the kind you claimed in a firefight, not the kind you built something in.
Two. What the hell were we even doing? I was thirty-two years old, for fuck’s sake. I owned property now. I had a vineyard to plant, a house to finish moving into. I didn’t have time for weekend booty calls with a man who treated hotels like DMZs.
Three. The weight in my chest when he’d texted. The way my breath had caught. The way I’d immediately checked my calendar—not that I’d needed to. I knew exactly how busy I wasn’t. How available. How ready I was to drop everything and drive halfway across Montana.
How pathetic.
Four. The quiet conversation I’d had with myself on the drive here. How it would be the last time. How I was too old for this shit, too settled, too—
Five. The way he’d looked the last time. Eyes so dark I couldn’t see where the iris ended and the pupil began. The controlled precision of his movements, the barely contained hunger when he’d finally let himself go. The way he’d said my name, like it was something precious he’d found.
Six. The fact that I’d packed a toothbrush without even thinking about it. The fact that my overnight bag was sitting on the passenger seat next to the map. The fact that I’d left my unfinished house—my house—to come here.
Seven. That he’d never said he missed me. Not in words. But there had been something in that text. Something in the timing of it, the night I’d moved in. Not “I’ll be in Billings,” but “I’ll be in Billings and would like to see you.” As though seeing me had been the point of the trip.
Eight. That I’d texted back “Looking forward to it” like a fucking teenager with a crush.
Nine. That I was still sitting in my vehicle with the engine off, counting reasons not to go inside, when the only reason that mattered was that I wanted to. That I’d wanted to since the text came through. That I’d been wanting to for a month, since the last time.
Ten. Time’s up.
I grabbed my bag from the passenger seat and climbed out of the Humvee.
The cold hit me immediately—late November in Montana, the kind of cold that stripped the air from your lungs and turned your breath to steam.
I zipped my jacket higher and crossed the parking lot, my boots crunching on the thin layer of frost that had formed on the pavement.
The lobby was warm and empty, just a woman at the front desk who looked up when I came in, then back down at her computer when I made it clear I wasn’t headed her way.
I’d stayed at the Sheraton enough times to know where the elevators were—not because I came to Billings often, but because I’d stayed here with Cruz before.
Salt Lake, Cheyenne, Rapid City, and now Billings.
A perfect geographic record of exactly how far I was willing to drive to spend the night with him.
The elevator arrived with a soft ding. I stepped inside and pressed 4, then leaned against the back wall and watched the numbers light up. One. Two. Three. Four.
Another ding, and the doors slid open on the fourth floor. The hallway was quiet, lined with identical doors and the occasional landscape painting that looked like it had been ordered in bulk.
I walked to the end of the hall—the corner room, the best view, the kind of detail Cruz always noticed—and stopped in front of 412.
I’d come all this way. Driven three hours. Packed a bag. Counted to ten in the parking lot. Now there was just this: my hand raised to knock, and the question of whether I’d meant any of the reasons I’d given myself not to be here.
I knocked once. Soft. Knowing.
The door opened a crack—just enough for me to see a slice of darkened room and the shadow of someone standing on the other side—and then a hand reached out, grabbed my jacket, and hauled me inside so fast I didn’t have time to breathe.
The door slammed behind me. My back hit the wall. And then Cruz was there, his mouth on mine, one hand on my throat and the other at my waist, holding me in place while he kissed me like he was drowning and I was air.
My bag hit the floor with a thud. My hands came up to grip his arms, to steady myself against the sudden weakness in my knees. His mouth was hot and demanding, his beard rough against my chin, his body a solid line of heat pressed against me from chest to thigh.
I kissed him back with everything I had—three hours of driving, one month of waiting, six months of wanting—and felt his hand tighten at my throat, not choking, but holding, like he was afraid I might disappear if he let go.
When he finally broke the kiss, I was breathing hard, my chest rising and falling against his. He was still holding me against the wall, still watching me with those dark eyes that gave away nothing.
“You came,” he said, and there was something in his voice—surprise, maybe, or relief—that made my stomach do that thing again, that fast, inconvenient flip.
“You texted,” I answered, because what else was there to say?
He kissed me again, softer this time but no less intense, and I let my head fall back against the wall, let my eyes close, let myself have this—just this—without counting reasons or thinking about what it meant.
It meant I was here. He was here. And for tonight, at least, that was enough.
The kiss ended as abruptly as it had begun. Cruz stepped back, just enough to put space between us, and I immediately missed the heat of him.
He was wearing nothing but a towel slung low around his hips, water still glistening on his shoulders and chest like he’d just stepped out of the shower.
My mouth went dry at the sight of him—all that hard muscle and smooth skin—and I had to swallow twice before I could speak.
“You planning to let me out of this hallway, or should I just get comfortable against the wall?” I asked, my voice steadier than I had any right to expect.
His mouth curved in that not-quite-smile I’d seen maybe three times in the six months I’d known him. “Depends,” he said, one hand coming up to brush my jaw. “You planning to stay?”
It was the closest he’d ever come to acknowledging what we were doing—that I’d driven three hours to spend the night in his hotel room, that this was the fifth time in six months, that there was a pattern here neither of us had named.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I said, which wasn’t an answer at all.
He nodded once, as though I’d said exactly what he wanted to hear, and then his hands were on me—methodical, unhurried, working my jacket off my shoulders and down my arms while his eyes never left mine.
The jacket hit the floor with a soft thud, and then his fingers were at the buttons of my shirt, opening them one by one with the same careful precision he brought to everything.
My shirt joined my jacket on the floor. His towel followed a second later, and then he was naked against me, his cock hard against my hip, his hands working my belt open and my jeans down my thighs.
“Bed,” he said, the word halfway between suggestion and command.
I kicked my boots off and stepped out of my jeans, then let him back me toward the king-sized bed that dominated the room. The backs of my knees hit the mattress, and I sat down hard, looking up at him from my new position.
He was beautiful—there was no other word for it. Six-foot-five of solid muscle, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, legs that went on forever. His cock jutted out from a nest of dark hair, thick and already leaking at the tip.
I reached for him without thinking, my hand wrapping around his length, but he caught my wrist and moved it away.
“Not yet,” he said, and then he was pushing me back onto the bed, following me down until his weight pinned me to the mattress.
His mouth found my throat first, open-mouthed kisses that made me arch beneath him.
Then lower, across my collarbone, down my chest, until his lips closed around my nipple and I gasped at the sudden heat of it.
His tongue circled the sensitive nub, then his teeth grazed it lightly, and my back came off the bed, my hand flying to the back of his head to hold him there.
He switched to the other nipple, giving it the same treatment while his hand moved down my stomach to the waistband of my boxers. He hooked his fingers under the elastic and pulled, dragging the fabric down until my cock sprang free, already hard and straining toward him.
His mouth left my chest, trailing a line of fire down my sternum, across my stomach, and then lower, until his breath was hot against the head of my cock. He looked up at me, one eyebrow raised in silent question, and I nodded, not trusting my voice.