Page 30 of Cross Check Hearts

And I’m not giving up until she admits that too.

Chapter15

Hannah

Six Months Ago

My eyes flutter open as I wake from a doze. My body is warm and deliciously sore and sated, aching in the best possible way. James is out cold on his side beside me with his head nestled against my shoulder and one of his arms draped over my waist. I shift in his embrace, careful not to wake him up, and my heart flutters as memories of our latest round of sex flit through my head.

We were resting as we recovered from the sweaty sex, lying on the bed together and talking about everything and nothing at the same time. But the conversation felt loaded in a way that I’m still trying to pinpoint. I came into this little adventure tonight determined to stay as anonymous as possible, not to say or do anything that might give away who I am or who I’m connected to, but there was something so surprisingly easy about talking to James. Something so disarming about his quiet confidence and genuine interest that kept bringing my defenses down, often without me realizing it.

Maybe it was the way he looked at me while I spoke, like my words were precious gifts. Or maybe it was because he kept kissing or touching me in some way like he didn’t want to stop. Like hecouldn’tstop, even if he’d wanted.

Not that I wanted him to. And not that I could keep my hands to myself either.

Our last round started because he was trying to teach me some French, and I was terrible at it, but I insisted on trying just because I didn’t want to stop talking with him. When he was teasing me about my rocky pronunciation of the word “cœur,” or heart in French, he thought it was the funniest thing in the world because he swore it sounded more like I was saying “cur” in English, which has a very different meaning.

And when I tried to tell him to buzz off and that I didn’t want to try anymore if he was going to keep teasing me, he started tickling me. And then we were kissing all over again, with a desire that was somehow even stronger than before welling up between us. He pinned my wrists to the bed above my head and fucked me with a passion I didn’t know was possible, and he never once took his eyes off mine, even as I wrapped my legs around his waist to urge him on.

He doesn’t even know my name.

The thought echoes in my head as I watch him sleeping soundly beside me, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. But even when he was using the fake name I gave him, I felt more exposed and seen by him watching me fall apart in his arms. And I know he could see it on my face when I came—because I could see him lose control at the same time, like watching me come undid him.

I never expected this.

This night was supposed to be about escape, about shedding my real life for a few hours of anonymous pleasure. Instead, I found something that feels terrifyingly close to a connection I’m not prepared for.

I don’t know if I was fully conscious of it, but I think some part of me hoped that if we kept talking and fucking, we’d never fall asleep and the night would never end, so I wouldn’t have to leave or go back to Denver. I could just stay here at the club with him forever, like nothing else in the world mattered.

For the first time in a very long time, I didn’t just feel like Coach Dunaway’s daughter. I wasn’t a law student. I was just a woman, being worshipped by the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met.

But now the night is over.

I don’t know what time it is, and it’s not like I can see the sun from this deep inside the kink club, but my body instinctively knows that morning is here. And I’ve been lying in this bed for at least an hour knowing I should reach for my phone to check the time, but there’s not a single part of me that wants to do it.

I don’t want to wake him. Don’t want to have to say goodbye. But there’s a flight I have to be on in a matter of hours, and I still have to get back to the place I’m staying to pack up all my stuff and get to the airport. When I came here earlier in the night, I definitely wasn’t expecting to stay so long. I wasn’t expecting anything at all about tonight.

Especially not the way his touch broke through every wall I’ve ever built around myself.

Grudgingly, and as quietly as I can, I slip out from under his arm and sit up on the edge of the bed. My phone is face down on the nightstand, and with one big breath, I turn it over—and immediately wince. It’s just after 6 a.m., which means I don’t have a lot of time.

I push myself off the bed and my wince deepens at the soreness that ripples throughout my body, including in some places I didn’t even know it was possible to be sore. I’m pretty sure I’ll feel this for days, but at least that will give me something to remember him by. To prove that it really happened, that he existed, and that tonight wasn’t just some wild, fever dream.

Reality is already trying to reassert itself. Soon I’ll be back in my carefully controlled life, where nothing is ever this wild or unplanned.

I pick up my clothes from the floor and quietly get dressed, unable to stop myself from darting glances over at James. A million thoughts race through my head like speeding cars on a track, going in circles at a hundred miles an hour.

What if I woke him up? Or “accidentally” missed my flight?

I know I’m grasping at straws, trying to hold on to something that was always supposed to be fleeting, but that doesn’t make letting go any easier. I just wish I could find something, anything at all, that would give me a good excuse to spend more time with him.

James shifts in his sleep, one muscled arm reaching across the space where I was lying. Even unconscious, he seems to be searching for me, and my resolve nearly crumbles.

There’s a small pad of paper and a pen on the little table beside the bed, along with the nearly empty water bottles that we drank from to rehydrate during all of our… activities. Grabbing the pen, I lean over the little table and start to scratch out a note for him. My phone number pours out onto the page, and I’m halfway through writing my real name when my brain catches up and I freeze, the pen hovering above the pad and my heart hammering in my chest.

I can’t do this. This is crazy.

It was supposed to be one night, so let it be.

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