“Yes, please,” I say, but he doesn’t move, hesitating and running a hand through his curly blond hair. Another moment of hesitation and he leans across the bar and gets close enough to be heard over the music. “Thank you.”
“What for?” I ask, feigning ignorance.
“Come on, Danny. I know you were behind my raise today.”
“Your dedication was behind that raise.”
“Meredith Brooks never recognizes anyone’s dedication,” he says of the CEO and my direct boss.
“She’s not the witch you think she is. She’s just...busy.”
He grimaces and ignores my protest on Meredith's behalf. “You did this. I know you did and my family thanks you.”
I give him an awkward nod. “I’m just glad it came through for you,” I say, thinking I owe him a thank you as well for reminding me there are a few good men out there. I just seem to have my mother’s curse of crossing paths with all the rest.
“I’ll get the cake,” he says, cutting his gaze before I can see what I think is an emotional response.
He turns away and I sigh, settling onto the edge of a barstool. I both dread and revel in the day my savings will complement my trust fund enough to allow me to go to med school and I’ll leave this place. Six more months after three years of struggling, if my calculations prove on target. But the employees here need a buffer between them and Meredith, and one that understands her enough to fight for them without being fired. I seem to have that certain something that resonates with her for whatever reason. And I do get her. I do. She’s stressed and running a family-owned business in a family that all hate each other, but it’s the employees that keep this place afloat. She forgets that too easily.
I rotate to check on Katie and suck in a breath as my gaze collides with that of the man now standing beside me, blocking the view. And not just any man. This one is tall and dark, with waves of lush hair, his lips full, his mouth close. Really kissably close. And, oh God. My hand has somehow come down on the dark-blue fitted suit covering his impressively fit chest, a tingling sensation climbing up my arm.
“Sorry,” I say, jerking my hand back, my heart racing about ten million miles an hour, and I’m not sure how, but it’s like he’s touched me all over and warmth is spreading...everywhere. And maybe Katie is right and it’s been too long since I’ve touched a man because I’m looking at his deliciously masculine mouth again.
“I’m not,” he says.
He’s not? I can’t remember what we were talking about. “You’re not?”
“I’m not sorry for our little...encounter.”
Encounter? We’re having an encounter? “I didn’t know you were standing there.”
“But you do now.”
Oh yes. Oh yes, I do. “Yes,” I say, repeating the word again, and somehow it trails into the stream of soft elevator music, and nothing else comes from my mouth.
His eyes, dark in the dim lighting, heat, or maybe it’s my imagination. Maybe it’s simply the dim lighting but then he repeats the word, “Yes,” and there is this raspy warmth to his tone that has the muscles low in my belly flexing.
I’m not even sure what he’s saying “yes” to. All I know is that there are butterflies in my belly, and I’m flustered when I don’t get flustered. I deal with hot, often rich and arrogant men in my job all the time and never stumble left or right, most certainly not forward, as I am now.
“Are you staying in the hotel?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say again, as if I have no other word in my vocabulary, and when “no” should be the answer. “Are you?”
“I am,” he says and holds his hand out. “I’m Jensen.”
“Jensen,” I repeat, hesitating to touch him again, afraid of how out of control the tequila has made me. It has to be the tequila. It’s the only thing that explains this crazy sensation of sinking into a warm, wonderful, hazy enclave where no one but this man and me exist.
Seeming to sense my hesitation, he arches a dark brown brow, and while the light is dim, I guess him to be older than me, at least in his early thirties, and confident. A man who knows who he is and makes no apologies. It’s sexy as hell.
I slip my hand into his, intending to make it a quick shake, but the heat of his palm seeps into mine, his strong fingers closing around me. Suddenly, I am swimming in his stare, feeling the touch of his palm in places he is not touching but I want him to be.
“Jensen,” I start again, trying to distract myself from what can only be called “lust.” “It’s a unique name.”
“Uncommon,” he replies. “Like your eyes.”
“You can’t see my eyes. It’s dark.”
“But I feel them.”
Oh, Lord help me. I melt like chocolate in the sun, gooey and rich with the sweet seduction of the moment. He’s still holding my hand. I’m still holding his. I look down and back up. “We should—”
His lips quirk again. God, I love this man’s lips. “Yes,” he concurs. “Yes, we should.” Only I’m not sure he’s talking about what I’m talking about. But then he releases me and it’s such a contrast to his words I find I want to step closer to him, to feel him again. But I don’t. I won’t. He’s a stranger. I do not act like this with a stranger in my prim and proper blue suit at my place of work. And yet...we stare at each other and he arches that brow again, as if he’s challenging me to do exactly what I’m thinking. I sway toward him, trying to fight the urge to act out of character.
“Tequila. I need tequila.”
The sound of Katie’s voice jolts me and I turn to find her stepping between me and my stranger, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. There’s a panicked feeling inside me. He’s gone. I’ve lost the moment and him. Not that I had him. Not that I needed him, except my body says I did.
“I need tequila,” Katie declares. “A shot. Please do one with me.” She flags down the second bartender who quickly complies. The shot glasses appear and are filled. Jimmy appears with the cake before we drink them and Katie flings her arms around my neck, giving me a big hug.
“You are amazing,” she declares, and my face is too buried in her hair to see over my shoulder to find out if Jensen is still beside us. “I love you, Danny,” she declares, leaning back to look at me.
“I love you, too,” I say as she pulls back and I reach up and brush the hair from her eyes. Katie really is the sister I never had and suddenly I feel like such a bitch. I shouldn’t be thinking about men when she needs me.
“Then let’s drink,” she says.
“I can’t—”
“My mother’s pregnant. She doesn’t know who the father is.”
I gulp and grab the shot glass. “Let’s drink.”
There’s a flurry of activity behind us, and we turn to discover a tall, raven-haired, gorgeous hunk of a man in ripped jeans striding forward. Katie yelps and runs to him, wrapping her arms around her rock star boyfriend. A crazy-hot kiss follows that has me glancing toward the space where Jensen is supposed to be, but is not. He’s gone and disappointment fills me. My encounter is over and there will be no crazy-hot kiss for me tonight. It’s for the best. Men are distracting and the MCAT, repeat or not, is never easy. I down the shot of tequila. Katie waves a hotel key at me over her shoulder as her rocker guy drags her toward the door.
I sigh and lean on the bar, and for some reason tonight feels very...alone.
Avoiding my empty apartment that will require me to take a subway ride with a tequila buzz, I spend a good hour at the bar chatting with Jimmy and eating too much chocolate cake. When I’m still feeling the effects of the drinks I’ve consumed, Jimmy tries to convince me to either stay the night at the hotel or wait until he’s off and he and his wife will drive me home, but I refuse. It’s a subway ride. I’ll be okay. I’m not drunk. And while I’m just not exactly clear-headed, listening to Jimmy talk about family has me suddenly craving the shelter of home, no matter how empty it might be. It’s mine. It’s safe.
Exiting the bar and entering the adjacent hotel lobby, I scan the elegantly restored 1920’s structure with crown molding, high ceilings, and pillars in every corner, taking in the high-back furniture positioned on red Oriental rugs. Only a few guests remain, either seated or mingling about. I’m about to head for the exit when a wave of sentimentality hits me, no doubt delivered by the tequila. Despite my eagerness to leave, I pause in my steps. My hand goes to my small black purse where Katie’s card holds a special friendship necklace. We are sisters, two people who choose to be family, and I can’t help but think of how often the rocker boyfriend makes her cry. I don’t want to risk her waking up tomorrow feeling as alone as I do tonight. I need to slip the gift under her door.
Decision made, I head to the front desk to find her room number. Both of the attendants behind the counter are busy with customers, so I fend for myself and find an open computer and look up rocker boyfriend’s room number. Glancing at the time on my cell phone, I note the late hour. It’s nearly eleven and I really need to hurry or the train I take will be shut down.
Quickly, I cross the room, bypassing several sitting areas and a number of expensive paintings, to step into the enclave housing six elevators. Punching the nearest button, I wait. Alone. It’s the theme of the night I think. Alone. Alone. Alone. I have no idea why that word is bugging me. Or really, it’s not the word. It’s the implications behind it that I never think about and I swear it’s the tequila. Silently, I decide right then, no more tequila now or ever. I don’t like what it does to me.
The doors to the car farthest from me open and I rush forward, wishing my four-inch black strappy heels were about four inches shorter as I step inside. I lean against the wall, letting it hold my tired body when a man suddenly steps inside moments before the doors seal. Instantly, I’m alert, aware in ways I would not be with most strangers. But then, this isn’t just a stranger, any more than he is just a man. It’s Jensen, and I push off the wall, turning to face him. He faces me as well and in mere moments we are sealed inside.
Time stands still as he reaches over and punches in a floor and I realize I have not done so at all, and I can’t even seem to care. Instead, I drink in just how beautiful this man is, how tall, broad and leanly athletic he is in his finely fitted suit. Not one of the powerful, even good-looking men my job has bestowed upon me have created this kind of burn in me. And none of them made me want to climb under his jacket and wear them like a glove the way I seem to with this one.
I blink with that warm, wonderful thought, and in that instant, he moves, advancing on me. Before I know his intent, his hands are slicing into my hair, his big body pressed to mine, walking me against the wall. Another instant and he is kissing me. Oh God, he is kissing me like I have never been kissed before. Deep, passionate, drugging strokes of his tongue that are more a claiming than a seduction. I am his in that moment and I don’t even fight it. Me. Good girl, the boss’s secretary who doesn’t color out of the lines, is so out of the lines right now, I’m about to fall off the page. And I like it. Oh yes, I like it a lot.
The elevator dings and he pulls back, staring down at me. “That’s our floor.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. “What? No. I can’t—”
“You can. We can.” He grabs the door.
“I don’t know you.”
“I plan to fix that,” he assures me.
Doubt bites through the haze of tequila and desire, creating uncertainty, threatening to ruin this with good, logic, safe thoughts that will lead me away from this man, not to him.
“Now or never,” he challenges.
My throat restricts but the good girl in me, the sane one who protects herself because no one else will, utters the only acceptable answer. “I can’t.”
His eyes, that I now know are a deep beautiful sea green, fill with regret. “Understood. My loss.” He releases me and begins to move, leaving me cold where I was warm only seconds before. I don’t think. I react, grabbing his arm. His leg pins the door, his gaze colliding with mine, his eyes darkening with a mix of what I think is satisfaction and conquest, but smartly he doesn’t speak, as if he knows that if he says the wrong thing, I’ll bolt.
He draws my hand into his, his fingers lacing with mine in what feels far more intimate than it logically is, but then I’ve just proven logic has no room in encounter number two with this man. I am lost to him and in the promise lacing the air with something unfamiliar and wicked, something I have never experienced before. Nerves flutter in my stomach, but they do not win, not when heat licks at all the places I want to feel this man. And not when I crave the freedom to simply experience the moment I never allow myself.
He leads me into the hallway, I am relieved when he doesn’t push me in front of him. He seems to get me without even knowing me, holding on to me but still leading, going first down the hallway, as if he’s aware of the vulnerable, exposed sensation walking in front of him would give me.
It’s then that I realize we’re on the thirtieth floor, where the elite suites are, and I wonder who this man is, my curiosity piquing further when he stops at the “Heather” room, our most expensive rental. But I don’t have time to debate his importance. He pulls me in front of him, his hips framing mine, the thick pulse of his erection nestled against my backside as he slides a key card through the door and pushes it open.
This time, I am in the lead, vulnerable position, and I have this gut feeling it’s intentional, his way of telling me the final decision to move forward has to be mine. This is my moment of control and I inhale, waiting for the need to bolt to overcome me, but it doesn’t. My mind knows I’m with a stranger, it knows this is dangerous, and my actions are out of character for me, but the low burn in my belly this man creates has control. I barely know the instant I decide to stay. I am simply claiming the tiled entryway as my path, and this night as an adventure. He doesn’t give me time to go far or to reconsider my choice. The door slams shut behind him and a dim light fills the open expanse of a room, with windows overlooking the city. I take another step, and he shackles my wrist, dragging me around and to him. My purse, which I’ve forgotten I’m holding, slides to the floor, but I don’t care.