Page 30 of Reckless

“You embarrassed?”

She stood near the foyer and put a hand on her hip. “Oh, is that what’s going on here? You’re going to insult me for bringing up a very real issue?”

He growled and she realized this guy had probably very rarely heard no in his life. Harlow was all about education and not at all about responding to any of this baiting. He was struggling with something else. She wasn’t sure what it was, and she didn’t know him well enough to guess at that point.

“I apologize,” he said as she sighed and turned, heading to the door.

She stopped and turned to face him.

“I got a little snotty. It’s because I want you here with me. But you’re right. For now. Let’s see how it feels the next time or the time after.”

“You’re very sure there will be another time or the time after that.”

His cheeky grin changed into something naughty and uninhibitedly sexy and a responding pull low in her belly agreed there would be a next time.

He was standing so very close to her just moments later. He pulled her close and kissed her. “I like you, Harlow. I want to get to know you better. And I want to have a lot more sex with you.”

“I like you too, Miles. We can definitely get to know each other better, including sex.” She kissed him long and slow before stepping away and looking out the peep hole to be sure the coast was clear before she went outside the room.

He let go of her hand after kissing her fingertips. “See you tomorrow. I’d ask to walk you to your room, but you’ll only say no.”

She grinned. “See, you’re learning already. Goodnight, Miles,” she said and left the room while the hall was empty.

CHAPTERTEN

Poppy had begun to deliver Above Me’s dailies to them after Las Vegas. She got them to everyone in Earthquakes first, also making sure they were awake and were going to eat something before she and Maddie headed down to Harlow and Nora’s room to bring theirs and then go do yoga. Usually in Poppy or Maddie’s room as Above Me’s was far smaller and contained a Brian who was sometimes sleeping.

After yoga, it had become part of their day to have a cup of tea and breakfast as the four women chatted for a while. Sometimes Miles would come down pretending to look for Poppy for some reason or other, but really, he just wanted to hang out with Harlow too.

Which was more and more all right as the days passed.

That morning—a quick look out the window of her hotel room reminded her she was in New Orleans—she and Poppy were joined by Maddie and Nora in Harlow’s room for breakfast because for that city they’d booked connecting rooms.

“By the way, thanks again for the laundry duty,” Maddie said.

The day before, right after they’d arrived at the hotel, Harlow and Nora found the laundry facilities in the hotel basement and had offered to run a load for anyone else while they were there. Maddie had jumped at the chance and had repaid the favor by bringing them chocolate croissants and chicory coffee she’d picked up on the way back to the hotel after a media thing.

“No problem. I’ve got enough to go about ten days without needing to wash anything, but I don’t want to run out of underpants.” And she sweated through her clothes when she was on stage under the lights, and no one wanted funky clothes.

She was having sexytimes on the regular with Miles so she had an even better reason to keep ahead of the dirty clothes monster. A person liked to smell good when a very gorgeous other person was kissing up on them.

He still didn’t like it that she left his room every night. She didn’t much like it either by that point. It was a lot easier to stay in his bed where it was warm, and she was pleasantly loose and sleepy from all the orgasms.

But there had already been pictures taken of them. Backstage, at a restaurant in Dallas and even inside the hotel. There’d been comments about the way Miles had been looking at her from the one taken at the restaurant. And at the time he’d been holding her hand under the table and was probably thinking about boning her. Or going down on her. Damn, the man loved eating pussy and she couldn’t be happier about it.

They couldn’t keep it quiet forever. Eventually, if they continued with this…relationship or whatever it was, they’d either get caught or would have to be open about it to get ahead of a story. Until then though, she was enjoying herself with him in those stolen moments after the show each night.

She was sitting on the bed, guzzling coffee and listening to her friends chat when her phone buzzed.

“I need to take this,” she said, getting up and going through the connecting door to Brian and Nora’s room since Brian and Omar were off on a comic bookstore date.

“Hi there” she said when she called the number on the text.

“We got your message,” her brother Hector said.

She’d left a voicemail to let him know she’d be in Atlanta for a few days and that she’d like to see him and their other brother Louis while she was there. It had taken her two hours to decide on the proper wording of a short voicemail and then she’d worried for the next day that she’d said things wrong.

“Oh good,” she said trying to keep her voice calm and not betray any emotions.

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