Chapter 29
Every breath he takes, which has been two since he took his shirt off, tightens his abs as he swings his wet tee over the curtain rod.
I can’t even help myself but check him out.
I’m drenched in water, sitting in a bathtub with Matthew Pearson’s God-like body above me.
Did I know he had a body that looked this good?
No, I had no idea. Seeing him like this is simmering my skin and I’m no longer cold.
I blink. “Nothing.”
“Maybe there’s a dryer downstairs. I can take your clothes,” he offers.
I finally remember where I am as he peers down at me. I look at my wet outfit and sigh. “I only have one bra.”
“Okay?” he questions, looking down at where said bra would be. My breath catches as I watch his eyes scroll down my body. “Is that a problem?”
“For me? Yes!” I scoff, standing up. “I can’t not wear a bra.”
“Even when you go to sleep?” he asks, handing me a towel.
“No, sleep is different, but…” I look down. “Everything is soaked.”
“Okay,” he says. “There’s no need to panic. Let me see if there’s a dryer here. I probably have some quarters in my wallet, and I’ll fix this, okay?”
I dry my face and arms with the towel. “How much time do we have until we meet your mom for lunch?”
He steps out and grabs his phone. “An hour.”
I step out of the tub, soaking the floor. When I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, my hair is wet and so are my clothes, but I don’t look bad.
“Hi, is there a washer and dryer here?” Matt says into the hotel phone, looking over at me as I walk around the corner. “Thanks.”
I steal a glance at his back muscles as I walk to my bag. I grab it as he says, “I’ll put our clothes in the dryer. Here.” He throws me his hoodie. “Boyfriend material.” He shakes his head. “I mean the material is thick.” He turns to his bag, leaving me with a smirk. He’s cute when he flirts.
I take my bag and his hoodie to the bathroom and shut the door.
I peel off my wet clothes, bra included, and I force my clothes into a ball.
I put on his hoodie with nothing underneath, my pajama shorts, and new underwear.
Luckily, I packed a week’s worth just in case, so I shove my wet underwear in a random pocket of my bag.
I walk out and hand him my wet clothes. “Thank you.”
He nods, already dressed. I frown when I see he’s fully clothed. “I’ll be right back.”
“You’re just leaving our stuff in the dryer?” I ask. “And coming back?”
He nods. “Yep.”
“Okay.”
“Open the door when I get back,” he says, walking to exit the room. “Is your bra in here?”
I nod. “Yeah, please don’t let it fall out.”
He looks down at his hoodie and then back to my face. “Okay.”
When he leaves, I exhale. Thank God he was willing to do this because I only brought a few outfits. One for the wedding, one for sleep, and one for tomorrow. I didn’t think of packing anything extra in case of accidents.
Right now I am fangirling over that wet shirt he pulled off in the shower.
I can’t believe that happened. It was straight out of a movie.
And then the way he looked at me right after.
It was like he was hoping that I was looking.
And wow, did my eyes enjoy the view. Probably a bit too much because that was attractive.
But he’s Matthew Pearson: tall, beautiful, perfect smile, pretty eyes. Who wouldn’t be attracted to him?
It feels like I looked at my phone for a minute when there’s a knock at the door. I tiptoe to it and look through the peephole. He knocks again.
I use the best old lady voice I can. “Who’s there?”
“Amber,” he says like he has no patience, but I know he loves me for it.
“Who are you, young man?”
He sighs, and I hold in my chuckle.
“Open up,” he demands.
I break character as I say, “What’s the password?”
“You have a black lace bra.”
I scoff, my jaw dropping to the ground. He did not look at my bra!
“Say, knock, knock,” I demand.
“Knock, knock,” he says while knocking on the door.
“Who’s there?” I say and then I shake my head.
“Your best friend.”
“Eh! Wrong!” I open the door, facing him with a scowl. “You freaking pervert! You looked at my bra!”
“Don’t let the door shut!” he says, catching it with his arm over my head. He licks his lips, and I don’t budge as I cross my arms. I can’t believe he specifically called out the type of bra I had on. Was he touching it? Did he smell it? Did he hold it against his own chest?
He leans down and says, “I didn’t look at your bra without you knowing.”
“What?” I scoff.
“Yeah.” His jaw clenches as I look at his bruised cut. It’s starting to develop and change colors. “I could see it through your shirt earlier.”
I playfully nudge his chest. He doesn’t move. I walk back into the room and scoff. “You are a perv.”
“That doesn’t make me a perv. It makes me observant.”
I roll my eyes as he looks down at the hoodie I’m wearing. I should have worn something underneath this because now that my nipples are grazing the material, I feel like this is all a mistake.
“Dryer should take an hour,” he says.
“An hour is too long,” I scoff, very annoyed.
“I can check it in thirty.”
I walk to my target bag. “Be a good boyfriend and paint my nails.”
He walks over slowly with a neutral expression. I hold out the nail polish with the best sassy attitude I can muster, keeping my eyes on his. He takes the nail polish and looks me deep in my eyes. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to–”
“What?” I flick a brow at him. I hold out my fingers.
“I’ll spank you,” he mutters, and it’s so forced that I almost laugh.
I step closer to him. “Is that your way of dirty talk?”
He wiggles the nail polish in my face and smiles. “I’ll paint your nails.”
I sit on the bed and scoot over to make room for him. He twists the cap open as I hold out my hands. He has no idea what he’s doing because he swipes a gob of nail polish on my pointer fingernail and makes a mess.
I inhale. “This is bad.”
He laughs, inserts the brush back into the container, and does the next fingernail horribly.
“Have you never used a paintbrush before?” I ask, watching as he attempts a third nail and fails. The nail polish is pooling into my cuticles.
“Yeah, I’m Picasso,” he says, concentrating hard on my pinky nail.
“Is this your first time?” I joke, gasping. “Aw.”
“You’re fixing this, right?” he asks in deep concentration. He’s putting way too much on my thumb now.
“No, I’m rocking it,” I say, pulling my hand back and blowing on my nails. “If anyone asks, I get to say that my hockey player boyfriend did my nails.”
I hold out my left hand for him. He holds it this time, wiping excessive polish off the brush, and swipes my fingernail in one go.
“There,” he says proud of himself. “I did it.”
“Hurry and do these before they dry,” I say, giving him back my right hand.
He leans down, takes my hand, and focuses on removing all the extra polish on my nails.
“Is it supposed to do that?” he asks.
The top was dry, so under the blob is wet, and it scraped off. Now I have a horrible manicure.
“I’ll fix it,” he says, adding more nail polish.
I won’t interfere because he is determined to figure this out, and I’m getting a kick out of Matthew Pearson painting my nails his team colors.
“Is your mom going to judge my nails?”
“If she does, tell her that I’m open for business. I charge ten dollars per finger.”
I smile. “I bet girls would actually pay you to paint their nails.”
“It’ll be my side hustle,” he jokes, taking another finger and carefully applying polish to it.
“Spankings are a bonus.”
He dips the brush in the container and says, “Spankings are only for you.”
I watch him apply nail polish to my last finger.
He says, “The offer expires at midnight.”
“Oh,” I chuckle. “It expires, huh?”
“Yeah, special offer for my…er, hum…girlfriend for being snobby.”
“Snobby?” I gasp, offended. “Like you’re an angel.”
He closes the nail polish and jokes, “Spank me all you want, baby.”
On impulse, I smack his ass when he stands. He squeezes in his cheeks dramatically and makes an Ooh sound. It sounds like a moan as he trots away, and my head falls on the only pillow on the bed as I laugh at him.
He says, “I charge extra if you’re doing the spanking.”
I roll in his direction and ask, “Are you into spanking?” I keep a serious face because I’m curious.
“Pfft. No. Definitely not into that.”
I smile. “Oh my God. Have you spanked someone before?”
He looks over his shoulder at me. “I’m going to for the first time…tonight.”
“You are not–”
“That’s two spanks now if you keep this up.” He twitches his hand. “I’m just kidding, Amby. You shouldn’t take me so seriously. Does it look like I’m a spanker?”
“I don’t know. Make a mad face,” I say, automatically making one.
He scowls, and I start to break my expression because I don’t think I’ve ever seen his features so intense. I can’t help but laugh. But he might be ripping his cut open.
He says, “What? Is it good?” He walks to the mirror on the wall and looks at himself. “Come here.”
I get up from the bed and walk over.
“Show me yours,” he says, but I can’t do it. It feels so stupid. “Come on.”
“Fine.” I scowl at him.
He stands awfully close to my back. “You see this face,” he says, gently touching my chin with his arms wrapped around my shoulders. “This is the face of a spanker.” He smiles, releasing me. “Not this one.”
I turn around and look up at him, giving him my best death glare.
“Just because I lost control in high school, doesn’t mean you get to use that against me forever.”
“Oh, I will use it against you forever because you wanna know what I think? I think you can’t control yourself around me.”
I laugh at that joke. “You think you are so clever.”
“You don’t think it’s true?” he asks, bringing his hand to my face. He gently grazes my cheek with his knuckles. “I have no problem proving you wrong.”
As I stare up at him, I realize our issue. We are too competitive and like to win. I whisper, “I bet by the end of it, you’ll have blue balls.”
“Don’t test me,” he breathes, dropping his hand.
“Blue balls are on the menu tonight,” I smile.
“Why when you can have the whole entrée.”
“What?” I narrow my eyes.
“Yeah, I’m your boyfriend for the night, so why not take advantage of it?”
My stomach drops like I’m the scariest rollercoaster of my life. “You want to take advantage of this?”
He looks at my lips and then into each of my eyes. “Amber, do you even kn–”
My phone notification goes off in my back pocket. I reach for it, but he stops me.
“Don’t let whoever that is interrupt this. I’m about to tell you something important.”
I think I can’t breathe. I drop my hand, glancing at his cut again. “We should get you cleaned up. It’s still bleeding. Is that normal?”
“Stop changing the subject,” he says.
I look up at him and nod, trying to remember to breathe. “Okay.”
“Do you have any idea how much fun we would have together?” he asks.
My eyes search the room. “What?”
“Fucking,” he says.
I laugh in his face. “Please. Don’t say that word.”
“Then what do we call it?”
“I don’t know. Making love? Fucking sounds horrible.”
It looks like he’s making a mental note of that. “It’s not horrible.”
“But that’s all you want from me?” I ask, even though my uterus is throbbing. My vagina is like yay for fucking! But it’s not in sync with my heart and mind. “Because if th–”
“It’s not all I want from you. It’s not something I considered until now. I’m throwing it out there.”
“You haven’t fantasized once about hooking up with me?” I question, not believing that for one second.
He pulls out his phone. “I’ll text you my answer if you text me your answer.”
I grab my phone. “I don’t know.” I glance down at the screen.
Kyle: Hey, if you’re not busy, want to grab a drink tonight?
My stomach does flips as I look up at Matt. He’s typing on his phone.
“I can’t,” I say. “I actually don’t want to know.”
“What?” he asks, disappointed.
“Yeah, I…I… It’s okay. I don’t need to know. We just need to get through your mom’s elopement without getting confused.”
“You said you were going to give me blue balls tonight, so I decided to throw it out there.”
I swallow, feeling heat prick my cheeks. “Yeah, and there’s an expiration date on that. Midnight. If you’re spanking me, then I’m giving you blue balls.”
His face slowly breaks into a smile. “Okay.”
My grip tightens on my phone. I’m scared that my fake boyfriend will be upset if he sees who texted me. He’s playing the role too well and asking me to hook up means I accept the challenge of not fucking him. Like ever.
I can’t agree to that.