Page 36 of Roughing It

I give another snort. No point in trying to act coquettish at this point. The man’s seen me as a drowned rat. “Dude, you own this lodge, so you’re probably rich as hell, and you have horsesanda baby kitten. There’s not a lot to feel sorry for.”

His cheeks go kind of ruddy, and he shrugs. “You’re one to call me out for being rich. You showed up here in a Range Rover.”

At that, I laugh. Hard. I can’t help it. “Yeah, not quite, buddy. I drive a Toyota from the twentieth century, and I had to get a thirty-day extension on my power bill last month after an unexpected trip to the mechanic.”

The humor in the room kind of fizzles out, and he gives me a curious look. “Our rooms are eight hundred a night.”

I choke. I don’t mean to, but I swallow wrong, and the shock makes my throat spasm. “What the fuck?” I gasp.

He eyes me carefully. “You didn’t know?”

“I wasn’t paying,” I insist. “Oh my god, I’m going tomurderFlor. What the hell was she thinking? I mean, no offense,” I say, putting my hands up and scooting to the edge of the couch. “Your place is super nice, but eight hundred dollars anight?”

He looks almost ashamed and shrugs. “We don’t have that many rooms, and I have an entire staff to pay. I’m not—”

My hand flies up again to stop him. “No, sorry. God, I’m being such an asshole,” I say in a rush. “I get it. I really, really get it. I’m just annoyed that Flor spent that kind of money on me.”

His head cocks to the side. “Why? She obviously has it, doesn’t she?”

My cheeks heat up, and I look away. “Well, yeah, but…” I don’t really know how to explain it to him in a way that’ll make sense. “I’m not worth that kind of cash, and I don’t need that kind of weekend away.”

I’m not looking at him, but then I feel the softest touch on my wrist. It’s hesitant, like he’s waiting to see what I’ll do, and if it’s a challenge for me to pull away, it’s one I’m happy to lose. I don’t budge, and I feel his thumb brush along my knuckles.

“Why do you think you’re not worth it?”

I almost laugh again, but he sounds so sincere. “I’m not the best friend in the world. Flor and I have known each other forever,” I explain. I turn my hand because I just can’t help myself, and I let out a trembling breath when he lays his palm down, then strokes his fingers over mine, and it kind of makes me want to melt. It takes me a second to finish my thought. “I can be hard on the people I care about.”

“I know how that feels,” he says softly. “But clearly she thought you were worth it, or she wouldn’t have done it.”

I lose myself in the rhythm of his fingers as they stroke over mine. I’m getting warmer, and it’s making me want to be bold and reach across the divide to deepen whatever this is. Taking a breath, I meet his gaze and shrug. I don’t know how to tell him that my whole life, I’ve never quite felt worthy of attention or affection.

“She’s too generous,” I say, and he quickly squeezes my hand as if to disagree with me, and I sigh. “I had a rough month, so she thought a getaway would help.”

He strokes his thumb down the center of my palm, and yeah… I get hot all over. I can’t help it. I haven’t been touched like this in—hell, I don’t remember. My one sorry little pseudo-relationship had been nothing but unsatisfactory sex on the weekends and never leaving my apartment for anything but to pick up takeout sometimes.

I lick my lips and curl my fingers and graze them against his. He lets out a slightly trembling breath, and I get even warmer, especially at my core.

“What happened?” he asks.

It takes me a second to realize he’s asking about my bad month and not what’s going on inside my panties. I flush a bit and shrug. “My office hit the busy season, so I was working like sixty hours a week, then this guy I was seeing…” It’s so humiliating to tell an obscenely hot guy that I couldn’t even keep the interest of some weedy little office womanizer.

“What did he do?” Maddox’s voice is low, almost threatening, and it steals the air from my lungs because somehow he manages to sound like he cares.

“He made me think there was more to our relationship. And when I brought it up, he just laughed at me, then told me I should have known he’d never be serious about someone like me. It was slightly humiliating.”

“He’s a moron,” Maddox says fiercely. He stops stroking my hand and holds on. “He has no idea what he lost.”

A socially awkward workaholic? Yeah, I think John knows exactly what he lost. But I don’t say that out loud. “It’s fine,” I tell him after a second. His hand is pressed to mine, holding it like we’re a high school couple. “He was really bad in bed. I complained about it to Flor, and she had this wild idea that I could come up here and have—”

I stop, remembering that her grand idea was for me to hook up with fucking Monty, of all people. Maddox stares at me a second, brows furrowed, then relaxes as he figures out what I was going to say.

“She’s the one who invited Captain Douchebag, right?” Maddox asks softly.

I laugh and shrug. “Yeah. She doesn’t have great taste. She lucked out with her husband.”

“And her best friend,” Maddox murmurs.

Jesus, this guy. I shrug again and look up at him. “Anyway, I should have said no, but the idea sounded nice for a minute. You know—no strings, no obligations, no getting my hopes up. Just a weekend of—” Hot, sweaty, intimate fun where I orgasm a lot and recharge? It’s ridiculous, but I can’t make myself say it. Licking my dry lips, I finish with a lame “Relaxation.”

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