After their conversation, she felt better about the first of those. In fact, she almost felt like something had shifted between them. Maybe finally, after all these years, he’d truly realized she was an adult, a woman. Their near miss of a kiss proved he desired her, at least on some level. But the third? Well, the fact that the kiss hadn’t happened said it all.
Why did he find her so easy to resist? As much as she appreciated the honesty, she’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit to the ball of hurt feelings rolling around inside her chest.
Kady opened up a new email window and hammered out a thank-you message to Colonel Jepsen and his team. She smirked to herself as she typed the words “Thank you.” Colton was so not winning that bet. She’d superglue her lips together before she let that happen.
“What did that keyboard ever do to you?” Colton asked from across the room.
Kady flinched and looked up to find him leaning against the wall outside the bathroom door like he’d been watching her. Heat bloomed over her skin. How long had he been there? And why was he looking at her?
Maybe for the same reason he almost kissed you?
Ugh. Men are so freaking confusing. Especially that one.
“Uh, what are you talking about?” she said, gentling her keystrokes.
He grinned and shook his head. “Any chance you’re getting hungry?”
Kady smiled. “I’ve been hungry since our driver mentioned the milk shakes.”
“Wanna walk over and get some dinner?” Colton strolled toward the table.
“Yeah, sounds good.” She hit send on her message, closed her laptop, and fished her phone charger out of her computer case on the floor. “And I’m even going to be a rebel and leave my phone here while it charges.”
“Living on the edge,” Colton said as he tugged on his shoes.
“That’s me all right.” Kady nudged her heels until they sat upright and stepped into them. The leather lining inside them was ice-cold from how wet they still were. Colton opened the door, letting in a wave of humid June air. “You know, I sorta can’t believe we’re going back out in this again. It’s an actual monsoon.”
Colton grinned and nodded. “True, but there was a big golf umbrella lying on the floor in the motel’s office. I’ll ask if we can borrow it. That’ll help.”
She stepped onto the narrow sidewalk and paused while he double-checked that the door was locked. “You know,” she said over her shoulder as they made their way along the walkway, “if you just want to admit defeat on the whole me verbally expressing my gratitude thing”—she was careful not to use the actual words “thank you,” because Colton was totally a strict constructionist when it came to the terms of a bet—“you can just buy me dinner now. I even promise to go easy on your wallet. I’ll only order one milk shake and no dessert.”
“Ha, just keep walking, Dresco. The night is still young.”
Kady grinned. Well, if nothing else, at least their conversation now proved that their conversation from before hadn’t made things weird.
At the end of the sidewalk, they dashed into the office. He held the door for her, and she slammed her lips shut as the words “thank you” nearly fell off the tip of her tongue. He smirked, then followed her in. “Mind if we borrow your umbrella to go to the diner?” Colton asked the man behind the counter.
“Not at all,” the man said, dragging his gaze from his television program.
“Would you like us to bring you back anything?” Colton asked.
The old guy’s eyes went wide and focused squarely on Colton. “I’d be much obliged for a cup of black coffee.” He pulled out his wallet.
Colton waved him off. “Happy to. We shouldn’t be too long.”
“Thank ya, son.”
Colton ducked his head and retrieved the big, colorful umbrella from a bucket in the corner.
“Aw, look at you being all sweet,” Kady said under her breath as they paused at the door.
“Through and through, cupcake,” he said with a wink.
She rolled her eyes, even though sometimes it was actually true. “Also, take note, that is the only time tonight you’re going to hear those words.”
For a moment, he frowned, and then she saw the lightbulb go on over his head. The old man had thanked him. “Keep talking smack and your loss is going to be that much more humiliating.” He followed her out onto the sidewalk.
Kady looked at the kiddie-pool-size puddles covering every part of the parking lot’s surface and stepped out of her heels. “I’ll be more stable on bare feet,” she said, her fingers hooked around the backs of the shoes.
“Don’t know how much good this umbrella is going to do us,” Colton said. “But it’s better than nothing. Ready?”
Kady nodded.
The heat of Colton’s arm slipped around her shoulders, sending a jolting thrill through her body. “Let’s make a run for it,” he said, raising the umbrella over them. “Stay close.”
Chapter Four
A little over an hour later, she and Colton had bellies full of burgers, fries, and Oreo cookie milk shakes and had delivered George, as he finally introduced himself, his coffee, as promised. The food had been good, the milk shake amazing, and their dinner conversation easy and flowing. And she’d caught herself twice before slipping and thanking him—once when he’d passed her the ketchup and again when he’d let her finish the last of his shake. They’d talked shop most of the time—sharing industry gossip and experiences with new software, speculating on the identity of a new hacker trying to make a name for himself, and other equally geektastic topics. Exactly the stuff she loved.
Kady didn’t remember a time when she wasn’t fascinated by computers, not just what they could do, but how they actually operated. She could still hear her mother’s voice echoing off the walls of the family office totally flabbergasted that a nine-year-old Kady had disassembled the desktop PC. When Kady managed to reassemble the machine so that it worked good as new, her father had found her some science and computer summer camps to apply to. By the time she’d turned ten, she’d known exactly what she wanted to do with her life.
She really loved that Colton got that about her. And he always had. Even when they’d bickered or harassed each other when they’d been younger, he’d always respected her interest and her ability. When they talked computers, he’d never cared that she was something of a nerd, nor did her being a girl seem to bother him.
Add all that together with the fact that the incredibly sexy man with whom she now found herself stranded had been an absolutely beautiful boy, and it was no surprise at all how hard she’d crushed on him.
The door to their room was barely closed behind her when Colton flopped on the bed and rubbed his stomach. “If I didn’t think there was a serious chance of drowning out there, I’d go for a run.”
Kady dropped her heels to the floor and her bare feet froze right where she stood on the industrial beige carpet. She barely heard his words because of the amount of brain capacity that had diverted to the visual he presented. One part of her brain—the biggest part, if she was going to be honest—focused on the fact that Colton’s long, lean body looked so damn amazing all sprawled out on the bed that Kady wanted to pounce on him, especially since the way his left leg hung off the edge pulled his dress pants tighter across his groin, showing off the subtle but unmistakable outline of his cock. But another part—small but vocal—saw Colton lying on the bed and remembered that the room had only the one, and that they were going to have to share it.
As in, him and her, together, in that bed.
As in, her and the only man ever to give her an orgasm, together, in that bed.
Kady’s stomach flipped as butterflies whipped through her middle. “Um, should we see if there’s a movie on? Or something?”
“Why not?” Colton said, sitting up and raking his fingers through the chocolate brown of his hair. “I’m gonna get comfortable first, though.”
Her gaze dragged to his dress shir
t, still hanging on the back of one of the chairs. That was all she had for getting comfortable herself. “Yeah, might as well.”
Colton grabbed a few things from his laptop bag and closed himself in the bathroom. When he came out a few minutes later, Kady couldn’t help but gape.
“When did you get glasses?” she asked, knowing she was gawking at him but unable to help herself. Because as sexy as he’d been laid out on the bed, he was just as sexy wearing those dark frames. Damn, smart was sexy. And right now, Colton Brooks looked like a freaking genius.
“My last year in the army,” he said in a tone that said he wasn’t thrilled about it. “I usually only wear them at night, though. Otherwise, I wear my contacts.”
“Oh,” she said, a strange emotion she couldn’t quite identify rolling through her in a long wave. Sadness. Because he’d worn contacts and glasses for four years and she hadn’t even known. Something like that just felt like the kind of detail you should know about a friend. Though in fairness, before tonight she wouldn’t have known exactly how to classify them. Sorta childhood friends through her brother, turned business rivals who had absolutely incendiary chemistry when they let it loose, which was almost never. Yeah, that wasn’t unclear at all.
Sarcasm. Kady’s second-favorite –asm.
“They look good on you,” she said.
His eyebrow arched over one lens.
Annnd that was sexy, too. “What? I’m being serious.” It was a testament to just how hot those damn glasses were that she was just now noticing that his pants hung loose on his hips as if he hadn’t buttoned his fly.
“Well, thanks.” He dropped a toothbrush and contact case into his bag.
“Ha,” she said with a big smile. “You said it to me. That right there ought to earn me the win on this bet.”
“If only that was the bet that we made. Which it wasn’t.” He stretched out on the bed again, and the position confirmed the accuracy of her suspicion about his pants. A good inch separated the button from its hole, and the top of the zipper was down. He was the devil. Really, he was. When he twisted to retrieve the remote control off the nightstand, the gap widened, flashing her a glimpse of black boxers.
White undershirt. Dark-framed glasses. Sneak peeks at black boxers. Really? How much more was a girl supposed to be able to take before she either spontaneously combusted or found a shower with a removable showerhead?
She scooped up her purse and Colton’s shirt off the back of the chair. “See what’s on while I change,” she said. He nodded and started surfing channels, but she could’ve sworn she felt the heat of his gaze on her back.
In the bathroom, she quickly shed her blouse and bra and slid into the white cotton. And good God, it smelled like Colton. She pulled the collar to her nose and breathed him in. The masculine scent reached down into her belly and stirred things up until she found herself fantasizing about pressing her face, her nose, her tongue to his throat. For starters.
The thought had her glancing to the shower. No removable showerhead. The inhumanity.
Colton’s dress shirt was so big on Kady that she had to roll up the sleeves twice just to free her hands. Despite the fact that the shirttail hung past her butt, she wasn’t ready to walk out there with nothing between her and those glasses but the black satin bikini underwear she had on, so the skirt stayed, for now. Next, she brushed her teeth using the travel set she always kept in her purse—thank God—and brushed her hair, then she threw it up in a bun and stuck a pencil into it to keep it in place. She finished by washing her face and hands and refusing to give an ounce of thought to how Colton would think she looked.
They were just friends. It didn’t matter.
“Find anything?” she asked as she walked out into the main room. She dropped her purse onto the chair where she’d been working and hung her blouse over the back. She’d have to travel in it tomorrow so she wanted it to be at least somewhat presentable.
“Come look,” he said.
She turned and drank him in. Tight shirt. Glasses. Flash of boxers. Check, check, and check. Colton gestured toward the TV. Oh, right. Kady sat on the edge of the bed and kept her face forward so he couldn’t see the blush that had to be filling her cheeks, if the rising heat there was any indication. Her inability to ignore her attraction to him clearly revealed a couple things, though. First, that she still found him incredibly appealing. Second, that she wasn’t quite as over him as she’d told herself she was. And, third, that she was desperately in need of a good orgasm—and her body obviously recognized in him the one person guaranteed to make that happen.
“Let me know if something catches your eye,” he said.
Something has caught my eye, all right, but it isn’t in that box on the other side of the room. Stop it, Kady! She sighed. “Okay.” Honestly, there wasn’t much on that interested her, so before long her mind wandered to the book in her laptop case. She never traveled without reading material. Often, she read on an app on her phone, but she’d adored this particular story so much she’d bought the paperback, too.
It was an erotic romance—super dark—about an underground boxer who was shamelessly unself-conscious about the kind of sex he enjoyed—rough, really rough. The kind of sex that left fingerprint marks on arms and wrists, and bruises from pounding hip bones on the soft flesh of the thigh, and tenderness in the ass cheeks that made it hard to sit comfortably for days. The kind of sex that involved harsh words and hot taunts rasped in the ear, and the overpowering of the woman’s body, and even role-playing involving force.
Kady had reread it so much that the pages fell open to her favorite scenes. Truth be told, she was shocked by how much the darkness thrilled her—so shocked she’d never even shared her growing interest and curiosity with her girls. But there was absolutely no denying it did. Maybe her interest in this explained her inability to orgasm with the men she’d dated. Maybe her experiences had all been too sweet and tender to get her there. Maybe it had nothing to do with Colton’s wonder powers after all.
Thinking about the book made her yearn to build a little pillow fort against the headboard and curl up with it for a few hours, but no way she was reading that in front of Colton. For one thing, this book made her way too hot. For another, Colton would probably have the mother of all freak-outs if he knew that this was what turned her on. And if he ever told her brother? Oh, God. No. Nope. Not taking that chance.
“I don’t really see anything,” she said. “Do you?”
He shook his head, got up, and retrieved his laptop. “Netflix to the rescue,” he said.
He lay down on his stomach and settled the computer at the top of the bed. As Kady shifted to stretch out next to him, she couldn’t help taking a good, long look at Colton’s ass. The looseness of his waistband had tugged the dark fabric down, exposing the dimples in his muscular lower back. God, he was a work of art. Really.
She lay down and tried not to think of her bedmate’s well-sculpted butt.
“Oh, here we go,” Colton said. “How about Office Space?”
“Oh my God, I love that movie.” Kady grabbed a pillow, folded it in half and propped up her head so she could see the monitor. “I’m gonna need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow,” she said, mimicking a line in the annoying supervisor’s voice. “Mmkay? Oh, and I almost forgot, ahh, I’m also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, ’kay?”
Colton chuckled. “You clearly have excellent taste in movies.”
“Th—” She swallowed the word.
His eyebrow arched. “Almost,” he said in a low voice that was way too damn sexy.
“Almost nothing,” she said.
He smirked and clicked play, and they settled in as the credits started.
Soon, they were both laughing and saying some of the lines right alongside the movie and taking turns proclaiming their love for this scene or that. Really, you couldn’t work in the computer field and not adore this movie’s championing of the little-guy computer programmers’ p
lan to swindle money from the evil firm so they’d never have to work again. It was damn near a cult classic.
As nice as sitting with Colton and working had been earlier, this was even nicer. Only rarely did she get to spend time with him when neither her brother nor their professional colleagues were around. And it gave her the opportunity all over again to admire his sharp sense of humor and revel in the sexy rumble of his laughter. All while he wore those glasses and lay two feet away from her on the bed.
Their room might’ve been old and out of style, but this night had turned into a little oasis of paradise in the middle of the Nevada desert. It kinda made Kady feel weird…sad?…that they would part ways again tomorrow afternoon. She mentally ran through her schedule for the next few months and couldn’t readily determine when she’d next see him. And that sucked.
Don’t get attached, Kady.
Right.
Except…
She couldn’t actually think of a time when Colton Brooks hadn’t owned a little piece of her heart. The admission set off a squeezing pang in her chest.
In the back of her mind, Kady could almost hear Regan telling her she was screwed.
When their first movie ended, it was still on the early side, so next they agreed on The Matrix, another movie with a computer programmer/hacker hero, this time set in the future. Kady readjusted her position, getting really tired of the confinement of her skirt, but still feeling strange about parading around in front of Colton in just her panties. “Mind if I get under the covers for this one?” she asked.
Colton’s eyes flared. She could’ve sworn it. “’Course not,” he said.
They got off the bed and folded back the bedspread and sheets, and Kady climbed in. Then she used the cover of the blankets to wiggle out of her skirt. She dropped it on the floor by the bed.