Page 28 of Slide

She opened her door and climbed out. “I don’t snore. Promise.” She reached into the backseat and grabbed her bag, doing her best to keep the butterflies in her belly out of her voice. If there was ever an opportune time to make a move, it was tonight.

Why did her stomach feel like it was doing somersaults? She’d never been embarrassed with guys in the past. She’d always been fairly confident in her looks and her body. But after being with Daniel for six months, then discovering he’d been lying to her all that time and she hadn’t seen it, her self-confidence had taken a hard hit. Then what followed…

She inwardly gave herself a shake. She wasn’t going there, not on this trip. God, she’d only been on her own for four short months—why did she suddenly feel like a virgin on prom night?

What if he rejected her again?

Yeah, that’d make for a fun trip.

Adam was already at their room, pushing the door open. She followed him in. The place was as dated inside as it was outside. At least it was clean.

After flinging her bag on the small table by the window, she walked to the bed and plonked down. “This isn’t so bad.”

Adam was still by the door. He hadn’t moved an inch. His dark eyes slid from her to the bed she was on then back. “No?”

The butterflies vanished and a hurricane took their place. “There’re no weird stains on the covers. I count that as a win.”

He dumped his bag on the floor. “I’ll go lock up the car.” Then he was gone.

She sat there staring after him. What was she doing? What if this all backfired and her brothers found out? She could screw everything up for Adam. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him. She just wanted to jump his damn bones and move on. But the way he looked at her—the conflict, the torment on his face—she was seriously starting to rethink her plan.

The door opened again and he strode in. “Taking a shower.”

The bathroom door shut behind him a second later and she collapsed back on the bed.

Crap.

This was a huge mistake.

~ * ~

Adam wiped the condensation from the bathroom mirror and stared at his reflection.

He ground his teeth. Beyond that flimsy door was the only woman he’d ever wanted. The one he would crawl over broken glass just for a damn kiss, and he couldn’t touch her. Shit, he shouldn’t even be looking at her. He didn’t know why she’d hidden in his backseat, why she insisted on coming with him…

He pushed away from the vanity and shoved his hands through his wet hair.

Bullshit.

No, he didn’t know what drove her to it, but he knew exactly why she’d chosen to come with him. The woman wasn’t exactly being subtle. Lucy Colton wanted him. His dream and worst nightmare all rolled into one. Now he had to walk out there and pretend that just having her in the same room wasn’t tearing him to fucking shreds, that resisting everything that was Lucy was no big deal. Maybe even be cruel to her, the woman he wanted to get down on his knees and worship, in an attempt to save them both a shitload of pain.

He wasn’t too proud to admit that if he ever had Lucy where he wanted her—out of his fantasies and in his arms—he would never recover when she walked away, and she would. Once she worked out how messed up he was. The demons that hounded him every damn night…

He turned back to the mirror. That face. Shit, sometimes he hated looking at himself. There was so much of his mother. His eyes, his mouth, his cheekbones, the color of his hair. He used that face to get what he wanted, needed. The twisted irony was it was his face, so much like his mother’s, that helped him forget her when he pretended for those minutes and hours that he had a stranger in his bed that she had never existed. That the pain she’d suffered, the way she died, was somebody else’s truth, somebody else’s life.

Inside, though, he was his father through and through: an unreliable, selfish asshole. His father hadn’t deserved his mother, just like Adam would never deserve Lucy.

Shaky fingers lifted, automatically going to the feather he’d had tattooed on his neck a week after he’d buried her. An angel’s feather. No one had been sweeter or more fragile than Sheila Grady, and he knew without a doubt she was an angel in heaven now. He rested his hands on the vanity, fists clenched so tight his knuckles turned white, pain radiating up his forearms. He also knew she’d be pissed at him, the way he was living his life.

She would have loved Lucy.

Shaking his head, he stepped back. Couldn’t fucking bear to look at himself anymore.

It was too late. He was what he was, and nothing could change that—no matter how much he wished otherwise.

Dropping his towel, he turned to grab his bag, only realizing in that moment that he’d left it in the room. He shoved his jeans on commando. His shirt smelled like sixteen hours of overheated, stressed out male and definitely wasn’t going back on. After yanking the door open, he strode out, spotted his bag, and headed for it, purposely not glancing in Lucy’s direction. Still, he was fully aware of her, of every damn thing. She was still on the bed, but instead of lying back like she had been, she was sitting on the edge. His gaze travelled over to her like his eyes had a mind of their own. Her legs were up and crossed in front of her, elbows resting on her knees.

She lifted her gaze from her twined fingers and drew in a sharp breath when she saw him. That little sound, innocent as it was, slid over him. Jesus Christ. He couldn’t take much more of this. Digging around in his bag, he quickly found a shirt and tugged it on.