The same thing happened with my friend Jo. She worked the bar here with me at Club 39, until Mr. Good-Looking-Arty-Tattoo Guy showed up and she became Mrs. Jo MacCabe. I hadn’t spoken to Jo in … God … I couldn’t even remember how many years it had been.
The guy I was serving lifted his gaze from my breasts and gave me a big, flirtatious smile as I handed him his change. I turned away to deal with my next customer because me and men … yeah … that hadn’t happened in a while.
Like, a depressingly long time.
Like, born-again-virgin long time.
Oh, all right, it had been three years since I’d had sex. There was this incident when I was eighteen … I was sleeping around a lot and I woke up one morning with a guy on either side of me and couldn’t remember how the hell I’d gotten there.
Scary, I know.
So I quit the whole sex thing.
And then when I was in my early twenties, I had a fling with my coworker Craig after a seriously delicious kiss at the bar one night. From then on, I had a one-night stand every few months or so, to curb the need.
Until three years ago when I had a one-night stand with a guy who got extremely clingy afterwards. He started turning up at the bar and watching me. When I asked him to stop, he didn’t, and then I slammed him against the wall, grabbed his balls, and threatened to castrate him if he ever came near me again. Thankfully, he didn’t get off on stalking a woman who wasn’t intimidated by him, and I never saw him again.
So that put me off the whole one-night-stand thing.
I’d been through many a vibrator in the last three years.
God, I missed sex.
Maybe three years was enough time to trust that not every guy was a weirdo stalker.
“You’re quiet tonight, Joss?” my colleague Jeb said to me. “You thinking about writing?”
Jeb was nineteen years old and he thought it was cool that I had a book published. In fact, I’d had several published. Fantasy and paranormal fiction. They did okay. I was nowhere near as successful a writer as I wanted to be. I was currently flirting with dipping my toes into contemporary fiction. When I told Jeb that, he thought that meant I wanted my characters to be disapproving and disdainful.
I really hoped it was a case of mishearing me. I hadn’t the heart to correct him.
Plus, it was funny.
For not the first time that night, I asked myself why the hell I was still working in a club with nineteen-year-olds when I didn’t have to. My writing didn’t pay very much, but I had a huge inheritance. I hadn’t been that comfortable using that inheritance, but I started easing up on that a couple years ago. After five years of living in a student flat, I finally had enough. I was twenty-eight at the time. I needed a respectable home. So, I used a small percentage of my significant inheritance to buy a nice two-bedroom flat in Morningside. I turned the other bedroom into an office.
“So why the heck am I still working here?” I grumbled under my breath.
Oh yeah.
Because without this job, I’d be a hermit and if I wanted to write contemporary fiction, I needed to, you know … experience life. If only through others.
However, over the last year I’d started to fear getting older and ending up alone. I never thought I’d fear that. I was supposed to be happy alone.
Fuckity fuck.
My biological clock was ticking and I had to wonder if ending up alone and childless was scarier than the thought of possibly losing again to that sneaky bastard Death.
Some days I would ache deep in my chest, this horrifying longing for a child gripping me. And then other days the thought of having a child, only to lose it, scared the shit out of me.
I was a tangled mess of yucky emotions and at midnight that mess was going to look a lot messier.
“Jeb, we’re out of lime. Can you get some from the back?”
He nodded and disappeared to do so.
“A fellow American. And a beautiful one to boot,” a deep Southern voice said from my right.
I turned and found myself staring at a tall, blond, very handsome guy. He had green eyes and right now they were focused solely on me. “A fellow American. And a Southern gentleman to boot.”
He held out his hand. “Travis.”
I shook it, getting a little sexual thrill from the strength in his big hand. “Joss.”
“How long have you been in Edinburgh, Joss?”
I glanced down the bar to make sure Jeb was back and dealing with the customer who was waiting. I looked back at Travis. “Twelve years.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Twelve years and you’ve still got your accent?”
It was true I hadn’t picked up any Scottish brogue living here. I think it was because I didn’t spend nearly enough time around Scots unless I was working. And even then, we got an eclectic group of accents coming through Club 39.
“I guess not.”
“I’m here with the U.S. soccer team. I leave tomorrow.” His eyes drifted over me, blatantly sexual. “I can’t believe I’ve been here all week and I’ve only just met you.”
A snort escaped me before I could stop myself. “Really? Does that work for you normally?”
Travis grinned, unabashed. “Usually.”
“Maybe it’s the accent. That drawl probably has them panting for you over here.”
“I’m not going to lie—it definitely does.” He crossed his arms on the bar and leaned toward me so we were almost touching. “Is it working for you at all?”
I considered the handsome American. If I were a soccer fan, I’d probably be wetting my pants about now. And he was heading home tomorrow. Famous soccer player and heading home to America. Those things made me feel pretty certain he wasn’t going to turn into a scary stalker.
At midnight I was turning thirty years old.
Did I want to do that alone?
Surely that would epitomize my fears and everything I had to look forward to in the coming years.
Maybe I should fight that idea. Push my crippling issues aside for one night and have sex with this handsome soccer player to prove that I could change my life!
Before I could really think about it, I blurted out, “Do you want some company your last night in the windy city?”
Travis’s green eyes burned with anticipation. “I would love that.” He reached for a napkin on the bar and leaned over to take the little pencil I had tucked behind my ear. After he’d written on the napkin, he handed both back to me. “My hotel and room number. Stop by when you get off work.”
What the hell was I doing?
“Great.” I gave him a saucy smirk. He laughed.
“Looking forward to it, Joss.”
“See you in a little while, Travis.”
He walked away, joining a group of men who I guessed were teammates. As they were leaving, Travis threw me a smoldering look that should’ve burst my underwear into flames.
Don’t get me wrong, I tingled a little.
I think if my head weren’t so messed up, however, there would’ve been a lot more tingling.
I hated how the mind could mess with the body.
For the rest of the shift I worked in a daze, wondering what the hell I’d been thinking arranging to meet a man at his hotel room after talking to him for … oh, three seconds.
I glanced down at the napkin in my hand. He was staying in a fancy-ass hotel.
So!
Serial killers could stay in fancy-ass hotels.
He’s not a serial killer.
What was my problem? I’d gone back to strange men’s apartments.
That doesn’t make it any better.
Shouldn’t turning thirty bring with it some maturity and common sense?
“You sure you’re okay?” Jeb appeared at my side. He put his hand on my lower back and I tensed. “S
u let it slip you’re turning thirty at midnight. That must be rubbish … working and turning thirty. Not having a boyfriend.”
I tried to make him spontaneously combust by mind power alone.
Unfortunately, Jeb wasn’t good at reading a situation. Instead he leaned in closer. “I usually don’t dip my wick into anything older than twenty-five but you’re fit, Joss, and you’ve got great tits. If you want, I’ll sleep with you tonight?”
Did he …
Was I …
Did he just offer me a pity fuck?
Did a nineteen-year-old boy just offer me a pity fuck?
I shuddered and shoved him away. “Ugh, Jeb, you’re a baby. Fuck. Fuck!” I made a face of revulsion and strode away from him before I decided to knee him in the balls.
I was so going to meet yummy soccer man for some sex, if only to cleanse myself of what had just happened.
***
“What the hell were you thinking?” I hissed at myself as I stood outside Room 343 at 1:30 a.m.
After what Jeb had said to me, I left him to clean up the bar after closing.
Idiot child.
Although now, I was seriously regretting my impulsive decision to come to the hotel to have sex with Travis.
Yes, I was afraid of turning thirty and being alone, something I never thought I’d feel. But wasn’t another one-night stand the exact opposite of what my heart was telling me I wanted?
You don’t know what you want.
Shit.
Feeling suddenly cold—and yes, I admit it, scared—I wrapped my arms around my waist and backed away from the door. I couldn’t go in there. Maybe I was finally growing up because the idea of having sex with a stranger didn’t appeal to me. My body wouldn’t react. At least not in a sexy way.
Decision made, I hurried down the hotel corridor on light feet, breathing a sigh of relief when I stepped into the elevator.
I was exhausted, and ready to sleep away my worries.
To my irritation, the elevator stopped on a ballroom floor. Oh God, please don’t let there be a function going on that involves the soccer team.
That would be just my luck.
Holding my breath, I waited as the elevator dinged as the doors opened. Only one man stood on the other side. A very tall, rugged-as-hell man staring wearily at the floor.
As he stepped inside the elevator, a strange current of electricity zipped down my spine, and all of a sudden I wasn’t exhausted anymore. He was so big, his powerful shoulders stretched the beautiful fabric of his expensive tuxedo as he moved. I felt overwhelmed by him as he filled the space.
I peeked over at him where he leaned against the side of the elevator and ran a hand through his hair. He had a sharp jawline, a cleft chin, wide cheekbones, and a roman nose. Dark stubble shadowed his cheeks and his hair was kind of messy, even before he put his fingers through it. Altogether, his rugged unkemptness seemed at odds with the stylish tuxedo.
And then he lifted his gaze to me; as I froze, he seemed to also.
He had startling pale blue eyes framed by long dark lashes.
He wasn’t classically handsome, but those eyes … gorgeous.
Eyes that instantly sharpened with interest as they moved down my body, lingered over my breasts and legs, before traveling back up to my face.
I felt like all the air had been sucked out of me, and the only way to get the oxygen back was via this man.
Oh boy.
The Elevator
I couldn’t ignore the sudden increased speed of my heart, of the tightening in my breasts, or the delicious flip in my lower belly as The Tux stared at me.
What was perhaps only seconds felt like hours as my whole body seemed to come alive under his pale gaze.
I liked blonds.
Always preferred them.
And yet … here I was … wildly physically attracted to this stranger who had little flecks of gray in his dark hair. His lips curled up at the corner at my blatant inspection as I responded in kind to his own inspection of me. The action caused laughter lines to appear around his eyes, and damn if that didn’t make him more attractive.
I put him in his late thirties, maybe forty, and by the way his tux fitted his broad shoulders and smoothed down his flat stomach, I deduced The Tux worked out.
The tingling between my legs grew more insistent as I pictured him naked.
As if he suspected where my wayward thoughts had gone, The Tux’s eyes darkened with unmistakable heat.
As his lips parted to speak, the elevator juddered sharply, knocking me off balance. I gripped the handrail behind me for support as my heart tried to jump out of my chest. There was a creaking noise, and then nothing.
The elevator had stopped.
Stuck.
I looked over at The Tux and he threw me a smile, his white teeth slightly crooked. That imperfect smile sent a bolt of longing straight through my chest, and I momentarily forgot the elevator situation.
“Do you think we broke it?” The Tux asked with a lazy drawl.
He had a lovely Scottish accent, soft and sharp at the same time.
“And how did we manage that?”
His grin deepened but he didn’t answer me.
Did he mean we broke it with our sexual chemistry? Because that would mean he was feeling the heat?
Had I walked away from a one-night-stand to encounter the possibility of another? Because … I wasn’t sure I could say no to this guy, no matter how much of a bad idea it was.
Of course you can say no.
You’re not an animal, not a slave to your own lust.
My eyes ran down his back as he turned to pick up the emergency phone.
I imagined what it would be like to dig my fingers into that strong back as he thrust inside of me.
“Jesus Christ,” I bit out.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Everything okay? You’re not claustrophobic, are you?”
Nope. Just fantasizing about fucking your brains out. “A little.”
He frowned. “We shouldn’t be here long. Aye,” he said into the phone, “that’s right, we’re stuck … how long … Can’t you move faster than that? … What good is that? … Fine.” He hung up and turned to me with “bad news face.”
“The company that does their lift maintenance is from East Lothian. So we have to wait for them to come out.”
“Why wouldn’t they use a city company?” I huffed.
“Because that would be too easy.”
I laughed humorlessly at his sarcasm. Shrugging out of my raincoat, I slumped down onto the floor. “Might as well get comfy, then.”
The Tux seemed to see the sense in that and unbuttoned his tux jacket before lowering himself to the floor. His legs were so long, even with bent knee the tips of our shoes touched. For some reason that made me smirk and when I looked up at him, he was smirking right back at me.
“So you’re American?”
“Once upon a time. I’ve lived here a while. Dual citizenship.”
“American Scottish,” he mused, as if he found the concept interesting. And then he leaned over to hold out his large hand to me. “Braden Carmichael.”
I stared at his hand a moment too long, finding myself studying every minute detail, from his long, elegant fingers to his big knuckles and tan skin.
He cleared his throat and I shook myself out of my stupor long enough to reach for his hand.
As skin glided against skin, I sucked in a breath. The calloused roughness of his palm against the softness of mine caused the hair on my arm to rise. Our eyes locked and I noted the slight flare of his nostrils, like he was surprised too by the literal electricity passing between us.
“Jocelyn Butler,” I managed as he tightened his grip on the shake. We stared at one another, and I wondered if he was ever going to
give me my hand back. “Joss,” I found myself saying, “everyone calls me Joss.” I tugged gently on my hand and he let go with an obvious reluctance.
“What brings you to the hotel?” he asked.
I made a sexual assignation with a complete stranger and chickened out. “Hanging out with a friend who was visiting. You?”
He gestured to his tuxedo. “Young Scots Award Ceremony. I presented the business entrepreneur award. I’ve come from the after-party.”
“Oh? Carmichael … I know that name. You own businesses here in the city, right?”
“I own a few local businesses, yes.”
Now I remembered. I’d passed his estate agency, and I’d read about more of his businesses in the paper. “You own more than a few. You’ve practically got a mini-empire.”
He scrutinized me. “And what do you do, Jocelyn?”
An involuntary shiver ran through me at the way his deep voice curled around my name. “It’s Joss,” I said. No one had called me Jocelyn in a long time. That name was a part of a different life. “And I’m a writer.”
Interest arrested his features. “Published?”
I nodded.
“Anything I might have heard of?”
“Do you read paranormal and fantasy?” I said, doubting it very much.
“No.” He gave me a small smile. “I’m more of a thriller and military fiction kind of guy.”
“I would never have guessed,” I said, letting my eyes drift over his strong biceps.
Braden shot me an arrogant smolder. The man knew exactly how sexy he was. “If you keep checking me out, I may have to return the favor, Jocelyn.”
Amusement prodded at my mouth but I managed to keep a straight face. “You’ve already checked me out.”
“I meant more. I’ll check you out more.” He smiled, a teasing, deliciously crooked smile that made my lower belly do that little flip again.
“We’re in much too close confinement for that kind of behavior.”
I was joking but Braden frowned. “You sure you’re going to be all right?”
“Huh?”
“Your claustrophobia.”
Oh right. I’d said that, didn’t I? “It’s a very mild case.”