It sounded like he was thanking me for being beautiful, for being the right sort of woman on his arm, the woman he wanted. But the look on his face said something else—like he actually wanted… me. His eyes dropped to my lips, then back to meet my gaze. I felt my stomach lurch. Every cell in me leaned forward.
Touch him. A hand on his chest… pull him inside… kiss him…
“I—it was my pleasure.”
Neither of us moved. Without meaning to, I licked my lips and saw something pass across his face, a flicker of something. He kept his eyes on mine, so dark now, with the hallway light behind him. I felt that feeling again, like when he’d looked at me before, naked in my bedroom, when his gaze had dragged over my breasts and down between my legs. A sharp pulse of wanting that I didn’t know what to do with.
I swallowed.
“I suppose we’d better…” He glanced back at his door.
“Right.”
“Yes.”
Didhe want to leave? Sometimes, when his arm had been around me tonight, I’d felt like he’d enjoyed it too, the contact. His touch had lingered a fraction longer than necessary…
But this was silly. My mind was soft from the wine and the excitement of being there with him, on his arm, like I’d actually mattered—that was all.
“Well, night, then,” I said. I put my hand on the doorknob and turned. When I looked back over my shoulder, he was still there, watching me walk inside.
I threw myself down on the bed and closed my eyes. But the room didn’t quiet. All I could feel was how close he’d been… and how much space there was now.
I opened my eyes again and stared at the ceiling, trying to slow the restless energy still moving through me.
Somewhere beyond the connecting door, a latch clicked softly.
His room.
I held my breath. I heard a creak and a soft footstep, then a low murmur, too faint to make out the words.
Was he on the phone? I reached blindly across the bed formy own phone to text Eliza, but I found myself straining to hear what was happening on the other side of the wall.
Crap. Listening in wasn’t cool.
A shower—that was what I’d do. Remove temptation, get myself under hot running water, and think about literally anything else. I pushed myself upright, phone still in my hand, ready to walk across the room.
And then I heard my name.
Shit. Who was he talking to? Bonnie?
I slid off the bed and crossed the carpet, stopping beside the closed door between our suites. I wasn’t trying to listen, but I heard it again—Andrea, followed by a light laugh.
What thehell—
I lowered myself slowly to the carpet, careful of the floorboards this time, then leaned closer to the narrow seam of the connecting door.
For one deranged second, I considered the classic glass-against-the-wall move, but that felt like a new low, even for me.
I pressed closer instead, trying to catch what he was saying as my grip tightened around the phone in my palm.
And then it slipped—
A sharp tap as it knocked against the wood before dropping to the floor.
Fuck.
I went completely still, heat rushing into my face as the sound seemed to echo far louder than it should have in the quiet.
