“Oh, right.” Julian shook his head.
“Jules?” Another voice came from behind me. Looking up, I found myself staring into the scowling face of a giant whose scent absolutely screamed Alpha. “What’s going on?”
Julian shrugged, amusement flashing over his face. “I’m not entirely sure,” he said with a grin. “Chuck and I met last night before I had to pour Julie into a ride home.”
The bear cocked a brow at me. “And you just happened to show up here?”
“Of course not,” I sputtered. “I’m staying here. In the hotel. I left the hotel info on a business card with the bartender to give him.” A sudden terrible thought occurred to me. I couldn’t stop a wince as I looked back from the bear to Jules. “But that’s not why you’re here, is it?”
Julian shook his head and gave a musical laugh. “No, I haven’t been back to the bar. I was giving a bell performance out front and thought I’d grab a drink before I went home.”
Kill. Me. Now.
I groaned. “So, I just flounced in and helped myself to your booth,” I realized, rising to my feet so quickly that I jostled the table and tripped into the bear. Who, I suddenly realized, was probably Julian’s boyfriend? Or Grindr hookup, if the roommate had been on the money. “I am so sorry.”
I broke for the door, pretending not to hear as Julian called after me to wait for him. Then, to be sure that my humiliation would be complete, I yanked open the stairwell door and began to jog up the steps. There was no fucking way I was going to stand and wait for the elevator with my entire face lobster red.
By the time I reached the fifteenth floor, I was panting and wiped out, but at least I was no longer hungry, so I could wash my shame away in a hot shower and never think about my colossal screw-up again. Or that was the plan until half an hour later when I stepped out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel and heard rapping on my door.
Assuming it was the concierge with a delivery that Kade had texted me would be coming, I threw open the door and froze, standing face to face with the one person I desperately didn’t want to see. Leaning awkwardly against the doorframe with a pizza box balanced on one hand and a six-pack dangling in the other, was Jules.
Unable to make my mouth form words, I stared until the other man huffed a quiet laugh.
“Are you gonna let me in or should I take a page out of your book and just make myself at home?”
Chapter Three
Julian
Shock. Concern. Amusement. Confusion.
So very much confusion.
Oddly, fear hadn’t been one of the emotions that flitted through me when the hottie from the night before had suddenly dropped down in my booth at the hotel bar. I wasn’t sure why he was there. Stalking me never crossed my mind until Jace suggested it while Chuck raced through the hotel lobby like there were hellhounds on his tail. I mean, he was friendly and clearly a little nervous – who has ever heard of a nervous stalker?
I considered it for the briefest of moments and then just shook my head. There had to be another explanation.
Pulling out my cell phone, I’d dialed Damon and gotten the room number off the card that Chuck had left with him. Another call had the pizzeria across the street throwing together a large pepperoni pie, leaving me just enough time to snag a six pack of Holiday Hazy Double IPA before the crust full of gooey, cheesy goodness was ready.
I was standing in the hallway outside his room, waiting for a response to my knock when it suddenly occurred to me that this type of behavior was way outside the norm for me. I’d just begun to second guess myself when the door swung open, revealing a very wet, mostly naked man right in front of me. And all those little details that his outfit had left to the imagination? Well, apparently, I really need to work on my creative thinking because I hadn’t even been close.
To my credit, I only bobbled the pizza once. Swallowing hard, I forced out a strangled laugh as Chuck stared at me in shocked silence.
“Are you gonna let me in or should I take a page out of your book and just make myself at home?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure,” Chuck muttered, stepping back and opening the door further. “Come in.” He closed the door behind me and glanced down at the strip of white terrycloth that was barely holding together around his hips. “Uh, make yourself comfortable and I’ll get dressed.”
I set the beer and pizza down on the small table just inside the door and dropped the backpack holding the elf costume onto the floor beside it as the filter between my brain and my mouth promptly failed.
“Or we could fuck to get the awkwardness out of the way and then eat the pizza cold?”
Chuck did a stunning impression of a trout suddenly yanked from its river as I realized what I’d just said and tried to backtrack. “Or not. I’m sure you’re hungry.”
It might have been a more impressive show of self-control if I hadn’t been staring a hole through the towel that was getting tighter by the minute.
Chuck didn’t answer and I finally forced my eyes back up in time to see a wolfish grin as he reached for the knot on the towel and jerked it free, baring himself to my gaze. I choked on the air I was breathing as his magnificent cock snapped to attention, bouncing off his tummy and leaving a tiny string of precum clinging to the thick hair trail pointing the way to heaven.
Taking a step toward me, Chuck finally spoke, his voice slightly rough. “I love cold pizza.”
