Page 15 of Slay Ride

I clear my throat. “I never realized how easy it would be to get under your thin skin.”

With a gravelly groan that is one-part scream, she swats my hand away and storms toward the door.

“Ah, ah, ah!” I call after her. “Remember our deal?”

She flings the door wide, then turns back to look at me. “Fuck the deal. You can call me whatever the fuck you want because for the rest of the trip, I’m staying as far from you as possible.”

The door slams behind her, and I have to applaud Ezra and Jim for choosing a good glass company. A lesser door would have shattered.

“Good luck with that, kitten,” I say with a smile. For the rest of this trip, my goal is to do the exact opposite. The more I’m around her, the more I can annoy her. Maybe I can even get her to leave early again.

With a spring in my step, I head back to my room to get ready for dinner. Let the games begin.

Chapter Seven

Cat

Bennett Carter is officially the most horrible man I’ve ever met in my life. He is cruel, annoying, and downright insufferable. He’s also incredibly attractive, and he fucking knows it. That’s why he took off his shirt and stepped into me. He thought his masculine aura and sinful tattoos would send me into a tizzy.

And it worked.

I drop face-first onto my bed and scream into the luxurious comforter, but no amount of expensive fabric can muffle the anguish I feel at letting him get the upper hand. He got to me, and he knows he got to me.

I roll onto my back. “Recognizing that Bennett is attractive is not the same thing asfindinghim attractive,” I tell myself.

Yes, I noticed his mountains of muscles, but that doesn’t mean I want to climb Mount Bennett and plant my flag. But I also can’t pretend that the experience left me entirely unaffected, either. The moment of unwanted closeness created a twinge between my legs, and now it’s grown into an ache.

I glance at my phone. With only a couple of hours between now and dinner, I don’t have much time to get ready, but I really need to take care of this misplaced arousal. Because that’s what it is. It has nothing to do with Bennett and everything to do with that tall, blond, perfect man named Maverick.

My gaze drops to the small nightstand. I tucked my sex toys away in that drawer for easy access. The entire collection has grown too large to carry along, so I chose only my favorites for the trip. I reach into the drawer and fish out my old standby—the Hitachi Magic Wand. This device should be in every woman’s repertoire.

After plugging it in so that it’s ready when I need it, I lie back on the bed and slide my hand up my shirt. I close my eyes and imagine it’s Maverick’s hand stroking my breasts and tweaking my nipples.

I picture his mouth dipping over my stomach, licking and nipping his way lower. My fingers walk the same path, providing the physical touch to match fantasy Maverick’s mouth. God, he’s good.

As I imagine his mouth moving over my pussy, I grab the toy, turn it on, and press it between my legs. I come almost immediately, but I’m careful to swallow all sound. I don’t want Bennett to hear me next door.

With my eyes still closed and my fantasy still rolling through my mind like a movie, I come down from my orgasm and look between my legs to thank Maverick for pleasing me. But when he lifts his head, it isn’t Maverick.

It’s fucking Bennett!

My eyes snap open in reality, and I throw the Magic Wand away from me with a scream. The toy threatens to drill its way to China, so I reach down and cut it off before it damages the floorboards.

A light sweat slicks my brow. I lick my lips and take a deep breath as I try to push images of Bennett’s head between my legs out of my mind. That wasn’t a fantasy. That was a fucking nightmare.

Someone knocks on my door, and I scramble off the bed. Panic slowly builds because I’m undressed from the waist down and my sex toy is still lying out in the open. I shove it into a drawer as the visitor knocks again.

“Everything okay in there? I thought I heard a scream.” It’s a deep female voice I don’t recognize, but at least it isn’t Bennett. There were some new names on the list for this retreat, so maybe it’s a new friend.

I throw on a pair of panties and go to the door. “Sorry about that. I?—”

“Gotcha,” Bennett says in his best falsetto. He grins at me and pushes into my room before I know what’s happening. “Did you see your reflection in the mirror or something?”

“No. As a matter of fact, I dozed off and had a nightmare about your stupid face. That’s why I screamed. Now, if you’ll kindly fuck off, I need to get ready for dinner.”

Bennett glances at his watch. “You’ll need more than an hour to make yourself presentable. You might as well give up.”

“Please leave.”

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