And the most embarrassing part?
He could tell exactly how much I liked it.
Chapter Nine
Cole
My body still thinks her mouth is on mine. Still tastes her. Still thinks I’m in that fucking elevator and wants more. My hands keep twitching, reaching—like they’re addicted.
I doused my face with freezing water in the lobby bathroom. Tried exercise, pounding out laps around the hotel until my lungs screamed. Did any of it help? Not one bit. My cock is hard as stone and craving the way her lips parted for me.
I even had a serious pep talk with my main man about how he needs to be “professional.”
My dick laughed at me.Actually laughed.
Okay, let’s break this down.The argument? That was on me. Chasing her down? Also me. The part where I told her she was too scared to act on instinct? I knew what I was doing, and hell… I’d do it again.
But the next part? The part that won’t stop looping in my head?
She grabbedmyface.
Not the other way around.
I’ve been white-knuckling my way through twenty-four hours of not doing that. Thendamn,she kissed me like she meant it, like she was proving a point. I stood there stupefied for a full second(which, to be clear, has never happened to me with a woman).
Everything came back online at once, and I got my arm around her, yanking her in. Then, she pressed into me, her leg locking around my thigh—
Fuuuck.
One roll of her hips and I could tell how bad she wanted it.
If that alarm hadn’t blared, if those doors hadn’t pulled us apart, one more fucking look at those blown pupils, that swollen mouth,
I would’ve wrecked her.
My hands flex again. I catch them, force them to behave. There’s too much energy humming under my skin, I’m a live wire with nowhere to go. And there’s only one place I want to put it.
Not an option.
I push through the ballroom doors, and my gaze locks onto Ivy. I hate how effortlessly my eyes find her, as if they’ve been reprogrammed to seek her out. She’s seated at a table by the windows, the ocean framed behind her, completely immersed in her iPad. Her fingers dance across the screen, her shoulders set in that posture that says,“I’m not flustered, I’m focused.”
Like she’s already logged our kiss as a minor scheduling conflict and moved the hell on.
The Ocean View Ballroom is prepped for lunch, but it smells as though someone dumped a truckload of mango smoothies in here.
Juliette’s team has done an impressive job with last night’s crime scene: fresh linens on twenty large tables, each surrounded by eight chairs, and driftwood centerpieces that are trying very hard to look like they’re not trying. The DJ booth and Saltwater Saviors’ hype reel are long gone, the projection screen now cycling through cinematic beach footage.
And yet, the mango sweetness still haunts the air, proof that some disasters leave a signature scent.
Every place setting has a name card, and the room is filling fast. Voices are too bright, postures too eager, everyone testing out versions of themselves to sound interesting to strangers. I grab a drink from a passing tray and start moving, a grin tugging at my lips as I eavesdrop and search for my assigned seat.
“Hi, so what’s your hobby? Mine’s cyberstalking exes on Instagram.”
“You believe in love at first swipe? Me too!”
“Oh yeah, I meditate daily. I use this app that helps me scroll TikTok in silence for like ten minutes.”
Table three, no placeholder. Table four, still nothing.
