Page 31 of Guarded Hearts
“I didn’t know men like you existed.” She framed my face and kissed me, kissed me in a way I hadn’t felt from her before.
There was desire, like always, but it felt as though she was pouring herself into me, giving me a piece of herself she’d been holding back. I gripped her hips, securing her tight, letting her feel how sure I was about her, about this moment, about whatever came after.
“If we don’t go in,” I said between kisses, “we’ll be put in jail for having sex in the parking lot.”
She laughed and popped open my door, almost falling off me and onto the ground. I caught her, steadying her.
“I feel drunk,” she said.
“It’s the poor decision-making.” I smiled to take the sting from my words.
She smacked my arm and then grabbed my hand and led me toward the hotel portion of the building instead of the restaurant.
“It’s nice to know I can make bad decisions drunk or sober. They always have something to do with men, though. I should really pay attention to this pattern.” Her tone was teasing, but I wondered if there was a grain of truth underneath. If a part of her knew we were headed for trouble. Secrets rarely stayed secret.
At the front desk, I paid for our room, and she kept her arms wrapped around my middle, as though she was worried I’d change my mind and bolt. There was no turning back. If we both wanted this, needed this connection, I’d take the fall if it came to that. I hoped I never had to findout what Mia would do. She took her contracts seriously—had to with the number of people she employed. She’d hired the HR company to avoid favoritism, to ensure consistency in hiring and firing procedures.
I grabbed a room-service menu, took her hand, and led her down the first-floor hall. As soon as our door was open, our lips found each other, hungry, insatiable. I pressed her against the wall, and her purse hit the floor with a thud.
She sighed into my mouth, and then her stomach rumbled so loudly I wasn’t sure what it was at first.
“You’re hungry.” I buried my head in her neck, trying to get myself under control. Food. She had to prep for the show almost as soon as we got back. I couldn’t watch her on stage later if I knew I’d caused her to starve to satisfy my hunger.
She guided my face back to hers, and our lips collided again. “Ignore it,” she said between kisses.
The room-service menu had fluttered to the floor, and I broke the kiss to collect it, gathering some willpower in the process. “First this,” I said, passing her the menu. “Then this.” I gave her a peck on the lips and headed for the phone. “Pick something.”
“Burger and fries.” She tossed the menu beside the TV without looking at it and wandered over to stand between my legs.
I picked up the phone and dialed room service. She undid my jeans, slid a hand under my boxers, and palmed the hard length, stroking slow but firm.
I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate long enough to order us the same thing. As soon as the phone was back on the receiver, she pressed a finger into my chest, and I collapsed backward on the bed with a grin.
“How long?” She crawled up my body and hovered over me, her lips inches from mine.
“Twenty minutes.”
“I can work with that.”
Then we were swept away in a haze of desire, all the pent-up frustrations from the last two weeks released on each other in a torrent of sighs, moans, and gasps. Almost twenty minutes later, when she came apart on top of me, I’d never loved my name more.
I fed her a french fry off the plate between us on the bed. I’d polished off my food while she’d been talking about her childhood. “All your best memories are from dancing?”
“All the best ones.” She cut her burger in half and passed me some. “What about you?”
“My best memories?”
“As a kid, yeah.”
“Playing hockey on a frozen lake in my town.”
“On a lake?”
Wasn’t that what it would be called? Sometimes my English words got a little muddled. “Maybe a…” I searched for the word. “Pond?”
“Wasn’t it cold?”
“Very cold. But no such thing as too cold. Only bad clothing.” I took a bite of the burger she offered.
