If he wasn’t dead already.
Her stomach clenched, but she did what she’d been taught to do.
She got into the SUV and let Rock whisk her away to safety.
Chapter Twenty-Three
For a brief moment—very,verybrief—Trey wondered how much an Uber to Coyote Ridge from Dallas would cost him.
Yes, he was well aware it was a stupid thought, something only irrational, desperate people would even indulge in. Yet he’d had it, and now, as he sat alone in his hotel room, he considered it again. If only he hadn’t carted Evan and Charlie up here with him, he could’ve driven his ass back home tonight rather than wait until morning without worrying about how they were going to make it back.
“You’re losin’ your fuckin’ mind,” he muttered to himself, snatching up the remote and stabbing it in the direction of the television.
He simply needed a distraction. Something to watch until he could fall asleep. Then tomorrow, he’d wake up, and they’d head back to Coyote Ridge. Another trip to the training camp from hell out of the way.
Trey heard a door slam outside, and he winced. While the hotel was decent—some would even consider it nice—the one thing it lacked was soundproofing in the walls.
With a sigh, he leaned back against the pillows, stared at the muted television. There was hockey on, so he left it there. It wasn’t a sport he was particularly interested in, but he did enjoy a game or two from time to time. It certainly beat the nightly news and all the depressing shit going on in the world.
His cell phone buzzed on the nightstand. In a move that reeked of desperation, Trey snatched it up, read the screen. When he saw Magnus’s name, that strange sense of euphoria came over him.
Despite his best efforts to deny it, Trey and Magnus had been indulging in … well, the truth was, he wasn’t sure what to call it. An affair? Fucking? Scratching an itch? Whatever it was, Trey still got chills when he saw Magnus’s name on his phone. The good kind. The ones that were a prelude to a mind-blowing, body-rocking orgasm.
“What’s up?” he grumbled, playing his role as the man who wished Magnus would go away.
“What’re you wearin’?”
He fought back a grin, hated that he even wanted to. “What do you need, Magnus?”
A soft chuckle sounded. “What I want and what I need are in direct cahoots these days.”
Trey didn’t even try to decipher the riddle. He’d learned that he didn’t understand half the shit Magnus said. Considering their age difference, that wasn’t exactly a big surprise. Having just had his thirty-seventh birthday back in May, Trey felt ancient in comparison to the twenty-five-year-old he was fucking these days. But the good news was, Magnus had aged a year, too, since their first encounter on New Year’s.
“I’ve got shit to do, Magnus,” Trey relayed, ensuring he maintained his put-out tone.
“Yeah, you do.”
A knock sounded at the door, and Trey looked up. He was not going to answer because he was tired and wanted to sleep. The only person who would intrude would be his brother, and Brantley had more important things to deal with.
“If you don’t have somethin’ important to say, Magnus, I’ve got to—”
“Answer the door, Trey,” Magnus said softly.
“What?”
“You heard me. Answer. The. Door.”
Confused but curious, Trey got up from the bed and strolled across the room. He planted his eye on the peephole only to see that someone was covering it from the other side.
He unlocked the deadbolt, turned the knob, and opened the door, not caring that he’d just acted like every teenage girl in every horror movie ever made.
Standing in the well-lit hallway was Magnus, wearing flip-flops, a pair of tan cargo shorts, and a white T-shirt with Camp K-9 on the front. He had a day’s worth of stubble on his square jaw and a gleam in his hazel eyes.
“What the fuck?” Trey muttered, wondering if he was dreaming.
“Perhaps you should rephrase that,” Magnus said, disconnecting the call as he stepped forward, effectively moving Trey backward. “How aboutwould you like to fuck? That sounds far more appropriate, considering.”
Aww, hell.
