ChapterEleven
Five weekslater
Leah carefully backedher car with the rented U-Haul trailer into an extra-long parking spot and wiped her hands on her jeans. She had no reason to be nervous, but there it was again. A tremor in herbelly.
By the time she’d gotten the trailer loaded and hit the road, it had been mid-afternoon, and she’d made good time to Portland. It would be a long day tomorrow. The plan was to drive to San Francisco, but she hadn’t made a hotel reservation like she hadtoday.
Tonight was the last night of her neatly planned life. Tomorrow was the first day of…whatevercamenext.
Okay, so she had some reason to benervous.
She grabbed her backpack full of valuables, double-checked the padlocks on the trailer, and headed around the hotel to the frontentrance.
“Do you need two room keys?” the clerk asked as he swiped hercreditcard.
“Just one,thanks.”
“Are you staying inPortlandlong?”
“Just for thenight.”
He gave her a quick grin as he printed out her receipt. “Too bad. Sign at the bottom, initial that you understand the room is non-smoking…and here’s your card. You’re on the second floor, end of the hall. Breakfast starts at sixtomorrow.”
“Thanks.” She grabbed the key card and headed down the hall. She skipped the elevator and curved past the indoor pool, heading for the stairs at the end ofthehall.
It wasn’t that busy. There was a family herding their kids toward the pool, and a guy having a private conversation on a phone up ahead, his back to her. That reminded her that she forgot to ask the guy at the desk about who delivered food in around here, but she could call down fromtheroom.
She pushed through the heavy door into the stairwell, then took the stairs two at a time. When she hit the second floor, she heard the door below push openagain.
Footsteps on the stairs, heavy and slow, made herheartrace.
She pulled the door to the second floor open and hurried toward her room. Card at the ready, she slid it intothelock.
Redlight.
Second attempt,besmooth,Leah.
Green light. The lock mechanism whirred to life, releasing the handle, and she opened her door as the guy from downstairs stepped into thehallway.
She made eye contactwithhim.
Nosmile.
She stepped into her room and stashed her backpack in the closet as the door swung closed behind her—but the lock didn’t engage. With a glance over her shoulder, she reached to push the door the rest of the way shut, and met unexpected resistance instead. The door pushed against her, or rather, someone pushed the door inward, and she wasn’t strong enough to push it shut. And then the toe of a boot—big, black, heavy-soled—jammed in thedoorway.
She whirled to the side, hoping for at least some element ofsurprise.
The guy pushed into the room and she grabbed his arm, prepared to twist him around. But he was ready for her and used her force against her, continuing the turn until she was in the circle of his arms and pressed face-first againstthewall.
“I saw you in that pink t-shirt and I knew I just needed to have you,” he said in her ear, his voice familiar even as he grubbed it up. “Should have taken thechancethen.”
Three months earlier in a bar off-base, if he’d done this then, he’d have been a stranger. Now he was just pretending, and oh, how she loved him for it. She smiled against the wall and pushed off with both hands, shoving her back into his broad, muscled chest. He grappled for her and she twisted out of reach, making him chase her to the bed. But her advantage didn’t last long, and she quickly found herself pinned to the mattress. His hands were everywhere. Her hips, her waist,herass.
Too bad for him he left her hands free. She planted one hand beneath and swung her other arm wide and up, knocking him sideways. Fresh sweat slicked her skin, but not his. She was good at hand-to-hand combat but he was infinitelybetter.
So when she pinned him to the bed, it was because helether.
She straddled his hips and rocked against the erection straining at his jeans. “You thought you couldscareme?”
