Page 13 of Maybe This Time (About Time 0.5)
On the flight, my brain taunts me, replaying those lines from when we were in the hotel doorway.
That moment.
Then my traitorous mind takes a few more steps, teasing me with images of what it’d be like if I had one night with him the way I want.
I grit my teeth, trying to get him out of my head.
I need to. My God, do I ever need to.
The resistance cause is not helped when Stone has a lunch meeting with his friend Callum a few days later. Before he walks into the restaurant, he winks at me and says, “Bye, handsome.”
It’s almost like he’s messing with me.
And I like it.
Too much for my own good.
When he finishes a late-night radio interview the next evening, we leave the station together, and I open the limo door for him, as I always do.
I expect him to slide in right away, but someone calls his name.
My gaze snaps in the direction of the voice, my radar going off.
But it’s a photographer he knows.
Stone flashes a smile at the guy against the backdrop of the Vegas neon. As he’s standing right next to me, his body shifts closer to me than he usually is.
I catch my breath, inhaling his ocean breeze scent, the hint of a moan daring to escape my throat. I bite it back, then curse myself silently.
I hope he didn’t hear that hitch in my breath.
After he smiles for the shot, he looks at me, his face dangerously near mine. “You okay?”
“I’m great,” I rasp, wishing he weren’t so close, wishing I didn’t want to bend closer, slide a hand around the back of his head, and haul him in for a deep, possessive kiss.
Taste his lips.
Explore his mouth.
Feel him slam his body against mine as we consume each other.
“Are you sure?”
I lie my ass off when I say, “I’m positive.”
Because I am not okay.
I am on fire.
I am burning up with too much lust, too much want.
I’ll need to find an industrial-strength fire extinguisher at this rate.
Especially when he slides into the car and asks, “What’s your story?”
Asks it like we’re on a date. Like we’re checking each other out. Letting down our guards. Testing out possibilities.
My story.
I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want him to know.
My story is that I’ve been in love a couple of times. Once madly, deeply. And it ended terribly.
My story is that I love my family, I love my job, and I can’t risk losing it.
My story is that I’m wildly attracted to my boss.
My story is that four months working with him hasn’t dampened this attraction.
It’s only intensified it.
I don’t tell him those private details. But I serve up a wafer-thin slice of it on the quick ride to the hotel, hoping it’ll throw him off the scent of my desire. “I went to college, earned a degree, served my country in the Marines, and became a bodyguard. That’s it. That’s my story.”
“Nothing more to it?” he asks, like he’s angling for something else, a nugget, a delicious detail.
“Nothing that interesting,” I say as we pull into the hotel.
“I bet there’s a lot more to you than you let on.”
“Nope. I swear there’s not.”
“I don’t believe you,” he says when we get out of the car and head into the casino.
“You should.” I tug at my shirt collar.
I’m too damn hot.
I’m burning up being near him.
Even the air-conditioning in The Extravagant Hotel can’t cool me off.
But I’ve got a job to do, and I narrow in on that, my focus solely on the client, not the man.
I scan the casino, keeping my eyes peeled for threats, staying one step ahead of anything and everything, doing my damnedest to see Stone as the client.
Only ever as the client.
Like that, we make it through a sea of poker tables and slot machines, and past the high rollers lounge. We sail by Speakeasy, a 1920s-style bar, then past more gamblers, partiers, and revelers.
Until finally we near the elevator banks.
Usually the ones at this end of the hotel aren’t that crowded, and I’m grateful that’s the case tonight.
Means we can get into the elevator and reach the penthouse quickly.
Less time with him is precisely what I need. A glance at my watch as I stab the up button and punch in the code for his floor tells me it’s nearing midnight.
Ten more minutes.
Then I can get a break from him.
A break from all this desire.
I swallow, draw a breath, and stare at the elevator lights as they indicate its descent to the lobby where we wait.
Five floors, four, three.
“Hey! Look. We made it just in time,” a woman shouts as she jogs over. A pack of women follow her—a whole damn crowd.
Stone raises an eyebrow. Wedding party? he mouths.
But they look too young, and there are too many of them.
