“You’re right,” he said, his voice unexpectedly thick. “I’ll stay.”
Fuck. That was probably my one chance to convince him to check out and fly home so I could have a spare bed to share with someone else.
Ah, well. That was me being a good friend to Keaton. Putting his feelings first instead of my own was a perfect demonstration of the selflessness I was trying to encourage.
I just hoped I wasn’t going to regret being such a great person before the end of the night.
Brody
I started to unpack in earnest now I was sure I was staying, trying to swallow down the lump that had formed in my throat. I hated the fact that I was, well, hated. That video had haunted me for the past couple of years, and today made it clearer than ever that I was never going to get past it.
At least Cade’s closest friends had followed his example and let it slip as time had gone on. Weirdly, they were the only ones who did. Any guy I ever met who recognized me from that video immediately left, some of them actually in the middle of a date.
One of them had done something I thought only happened on crappy TV shows – climbing out of the bathroom window rather than staying to finish eating a meal with me.
I wished there was a way to go back in time and stop myself from making that stupid mistake. The truth was, though, it was just one in a whole series of stupid mistakes. If I hadn’t had that wake-up call, I would still have been the same asshole today.
I grabbed a few shirts to hang up in the closet, walked past Ace to put them away, turned back to go to my bag again – and froze.
Ace had shrugged his t-shirt off over the top of his head, throwing it down on the bed next to his bag, and I found myself swallowing hard.
Maybe it was because it had been a while since I’d managed to convince anyone to actually stay and finish a date – and all that implied. Maybe it was because I’d already thought Ace was hot from the moment I first set eyes on him, with his shoulder-length dark hair (so sleek and shiny I wanted to grab a fistful of it to hold his head in place) and his lower lip piercing (which made me wonder what a kiss would feel like).
Either way, I could only bite my lip as my gaze traveled down his slim, toned body, over his surprisingly built upper arms, and across the tattooed tiger that stretched from his upper rib cage down to the enticing V of muscle that disappeared into his jeans.
He looked at me with a raised eyebrow, and I realized I’d been openly staring.
“Nice tattoo,” I said, sounding like an absolute idiot as I made my way back to my things. “Did it hurt to get it?”
Ace scoffed. “You don’t have a tattoo?”
“No,” I said, casting a sideways glance at him. He hadn’t continued dressing. In fact, he was…oh, no. He was unbuttoning his jeans. “Why?”
“You wear a leather jacket and drive a muscle car,” he shrugged, letting his jeans drop to the floor and then bending to pick them up. My mouth was literally watering. He was wearing tight boxer briefs that left nothing at all to the imagination, and my sex-deprived brain was absolutely drinking up what it saw. From this side, I could see the other tattoo – a snake coiled around his upper right leg that extended up his side, seeming to lick his ribs opposite to the tiger’s head.
“Iusedtodrive a muscle car,” I reminded him.
“Still, I just kind of assumed you would have a tattoo,” Ace replied. “Guess you’re more of a poser than a real bad boy.”
I snorted. “I promise you, I’m more than happy to hear there’s someone who doesn’t think of me as a bad boy.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t a bad person,” Ace warned me.
Well. There was me, tumbling right back to earth. I only dared watch from the corner of my eye as Ace dressed in a nicer shirt and slacks, instead of snatching an extra eyeful.
He’d already demonstrated that there was no need to be shy, and I would have felt like I really was a prude if I’d gone into the bathroom to get changed. I semi-reluctantly shrugged off my jacket and pulled my shirt off over my head, reaching for the replacement I’d picked out. I would keep my dark blue jeans on – they were smart enough for a restaurant, even if it was a formal meal.
As I flipped the button-down around my shoulders to slide my arms through the sleeves, I couldn’t help but catch Ace staring at me the same way I had at him, his eyes roving down my body to the line of dark hair that went into my waistband.
So, I wasn’t the only one who liked what he saw.
I buttoned up my shirt as he looked away, checking himself out in the mirror over the dressing table.
“You look fine,” I told him, thinking about maybe testing the waters. He’d been stand-offish until now, but he didn’t have a problem talking about sex. Maybe he was open like that because he was trying to hint at something.
Maybe he didn’t particularly need to like someone to have sex with them, which… I’d take it.
“Don’t get any ideas, Leather Jacket,” he said, and I wasn’t sure I liked the nickname. “I’m not interested.”
