by Foster, Lori
Ben nodded contemplatively, undoing the buttons at his wrists. “Those are some bold choices, Masterson.” He rolled up his shirtsleeves in preparation for his own selection process. “Personally, I’m more of a traditionalist. I’m going for the Doritos with a side of Mike and Ike, Jolly Ranchers to cleanse my palate, and Twix for dessert. You want to split the pretzels as an appetizer?” he asked, ripping into them and holding the miniature bag in her direction.
“Why not?” Instead of taking one pretzel, though, she took a handful, and Ben liked that about her. She balanced them in a precise stack on her knee. “So does the wife know you leave the ring off while you’re away on business so you can lure pajama-clad strangers into sharing hotel-bed dinners?” she asked, crunching into a pretzel.
Ben shook his head. “Single and loving it.”
Chloe’s laugh was smug. “There’s a shocker.”
“So what about you?” he asked.
“What about me?”
“Well, I know you’re a Masterson by birth because on the plane you said there was no Mr., but that still leaves plenty of options.”
She shook her head as she started on the SunChips. “Also single. Mostly loving it, except when I’m on the phone with my mother, dodging the grandkid discussion. I did, though. Have a boyfriend. We broke up about five months ago. He cheated on me,” she explained, answering his unspoken question. “A couple of times, actually. It was all very cliché. I have horrible taste in men. Spider and I were a mistake right from the beginning.”
Ben choked on his pretzel. “You dated a guy named Spider?”
Chloe nodded.
“Wow. Was he a professional wrestler?”
“No.”
“Did he have superpowers?”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “He owned a tattoo parlor.”
“That was going to be my next guess.” The chip she hurled in his direction bounced off his chest and landed on the sheets. “So where did you meet Spider? Intermission at La Bohème? Church book club?”
“I met him when he gave me these.” She set her chips on the pillow and reclined, tugging the waistband of her shorts down enough to reveal a pair of small birds etched just inside her hip bones, one on either side of her abdomen.
Ben almost swallowed his tongue. Christ, he ached to touch her. His hands flexed involuntarily, resulting in the decapitation of several pretzels unfortunate enough to be left in the bag he was holding. He set it on the mattress beside him and took a deep, steadying breath. And he’d thought the star on her arm was haunting him.
“Which is kind of ironic when you think about it,” she continued, oblivious to his slack-jawed appreciation of her body, “because swallows mate for life.” She snapped the elastic back into place and, instead of resuming her sitting position, she rolled onto her tummy.
Is she commando under those shorts?
“Anyway,” said Chloe, reaching toward the pillow to retrieve her dinner as though her extreme hotness hadn’t just evaporated every speck of moisture in his mouth, “I finally kicked his ass to the curb when I walked in on him and his latest conquest christening the kitchen table I paid for. And the rest, as they say, is history. How about you?”
Ben managed to work up enough spit to moisten his tongue. “I have never dated a guy named Spider.”
“C’mon, Ben. I showed you mine.” Chloe fished the last chip from the bag, crumpled the empty packaging in her fist and tossed it awkwardly over her shoulder in the direction of the garbage can. It hit the end of the bed and rolled onto the navy carpet. “Spill it. How did your last relationship go down in flames?”
Melanie’s face flashed in front of his eyes. He felt like a dick for giving Chloe a hard time. He was the king of clichés.
The boss’s daughter. The heirloom ring. The proposal eclipsed soon after by her announcement that she was leaving him. For some douchebag lawyer who was her father’s age and had enough money to keep her in the style to which she was accustomed. They’d walked down the aisle six months after she’d ditched his ass. They’d recently celebrated a year’s worth of wedded bliss.
Ben shook off the humiliating memory.
“Nothing to tell.” Ben poured some M&M’s into the palm of his hand and held them in Chloe’s direction.
“Love ’em and leave ’em, huh?” she ventured, selecting the three red ones from the mix and eating them simultaneously.
Ben transferred the remaining candies from his palm to his mouth and gave her a “whatcha gonna do?” shrug. “What can I say, Chloe? I’m a lone wolf. I don’t play by society’s rules.”
Smiling, Chloe tore open her Skittles. “Perfect. Then you can be the one to spike the punchbowl at the next family reunion. I’m tired of being the black sheep of the Masterson family.”
He grinned. “Much as I’d like to be in on your diabolical plots, I probably won’t be scoring an invite to the party. Grandpa and Grandma Masterson couldn’t have children. My dad was adopted.” He selected a blue M&M’s from the package and tossed it in the air, catching it in his mouth.
She froze, sexy green eyes wide. “We’re not twelfth cousins twice removed?”
The idea hadn’t even occurred to him, but he realized now it had been dominating her thoughts. And why wouldn’t it be? Unlike him, she couldn’t have been sure they weren’t related.
Something had shifted in the way she looked at him. It was a slight change, almost indiscernible, but he felt it in his gut. And a little south of his gut.
She took a deep breath and Ben was treated to an eyeful of cleavage. God, her breasts were amazing. His hands flexed again.
His pulse raced and Chloe’s breathing grew shallower. Her lips parted.
The piercing cry of the hotel telephone jerked him out of the moment.
He fumbled with the bulky receiver before bringing it to his ear. “Hello? Yes, this is Ben. No, I only requested one cot. Yes, I realize the room has a queen-size bed.”
His prey—or had she been the hunter?—took the opportunity to retreat, mouthing the word shower at him before grabbing her suitcase and disappearing.
* * *
SHE WAS IN BIG, big trouble.
Chloe tipped her head back and let the warm spray of the shower wash the remnants of the day and the smell of chemically-approximated flowers—courtesy of the Value Inn’s complimentary two-in-one shampoo—from her hair.
This wedding stuff had been stressing her out since the day she’d received the meticulously calligraphed invitation requesting her presence at her little sister’s nuptials. Throw in a couple of icy phone calls with her mother and a return-airfare-from-Seattle-to-Buffalo-shaped dent in her savings, and, well, Chloe was on the edge.
And people on the edge did stupid things, such as blubber in front of a complete stranger, and then think dirty, filthy thoughts about him. And while she’d found Ben handsome from the start, something warm and wicked was bubbling up to the surface now, waking parts of her that had been dormant for...well, quite a while.
If not for the ring of the phone, she’d be letting Ben indulge a few of those parts right now. Suddenly the water sluicing over her body felt hotter. She ran her soapy hands over her breasts and across her stomach, the utilitarian washing of her body growing sensual. She would love to explore Ben’s abs, to see if her brain had Photoshopped them in hindsight, or if they were truly as spectacular as she remembered. Her mind drifted lower and so did her hands.
Oh, God.
She knew how long it had been since a man had touched her—going on five months now—but how long had it been since she’d touched herself? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d indulged in the best stress relief available to womankind.
Sure, nothing beat a willing partner, but there was something to be said for being the one in control...of getting exactly what you wan
ted...right when you needed it.
Yes. Oh, yes.
Chloe reached out to brace her hand on the wall but overshot and knocked the entire line of Value Inn mini bath products off the built-in shelf. They rained down to the tub with a series of bangs that jerked her out of the moment. Her heartbeat, already revving from her sexy daydreams, revved even higher with a shot of adrenaline.
Seriously? First the phone, and now this?
Chloe knew when she was beat. With a sigh, she turned off the shower. She reached past the curtain to pull one of the white hotel towels off the metal rack above the toilet. Like all mass-laundered hotel towels, it was scratchy and barely reached the tops of her thighs when she wrapped it around herself.
The TV went silent as she stepped out of the tub. There were some muffled noises she couldn’t quite place, and then the squeaky floor betrayed Ben’s presence.
Chloe froze.
He was walking toward the bathroom.
Her hand flew to her chest, gripping the tiny towel in a tight fist. Her skin buzzed. Her heartbeat picked up. The light seeping under the bathroom door was interrupted by his shadow. There were only two inches of ramshackle door and a threadbare towel separating them. He was right...there...
“Chloe? You okay?”
Oh, man. His deep voice hit her right in the estrogen and her body picked up where it had left off in the shower. All that delicious heat flared back up. “Fine. Dropped something.” The ability to form full sentences had deserted her.
“Okay. Well, good news. According to the weather forecast, the storm’s moving quicker than they thought. It’s already stopped snowing out there. We should get out of here on time tomorrow.”
“Great.” She hoped the word didn’t come out as breathy as it had sounded to her own ears.
“I’m going to head downstairs and see a man about a cot. Or a woman. I’m not picky. Judging by the ominous ‘no one’s available to take your call’ message I just got when I phoned the front desk, it might take a while. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck.” Yep, pretty breathy. Now she felt guilty for forming such a dark opinion of Stewardess Barbie. Maybe the poor girl couldn’t help it. Maybe it had been Ben’s fault the whole time.
Then the hotel room door shrieked open and banged shut.
Chloe exhaled a shaky, disappointed breath.
What had she expected him to do? Bust open the door, profess their chemistry was undeniable, and ravish her like the hero in some old romance novel her grandma kept hidden at the back of her bookshelf? Well, kind of. But dudes got arrested for that kind of stuff nowadays.
With a sigh, Chloe wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at her blurry image.
Barefaced. Plain brown hair.
Maybe it was for the best that Ben hadn’t broken down the door after all.
She barely recognized herself. She wasn’t even in Buffalo yet and she was already reverting to the old Chloe. The one who’d been so desperate to escape. It was as if the closer she got to home, the more of her identity she was losing.
Her mother always said she wore too much makeup. It didn’t matter how many strangers complimented her, or how many friends asked for a quick lesson. Her mother wouldn’t be impressed that she’d worked her way from sales associate to manager of her local Titanium Beauty store in less than two years. Or that customers loved her makeup recommendations, and that the job afforded her a decent apartment and a means to pay her bills. To Fiona Masterson, it would never be more than a menial labor job at a makeup store in the mall.
And sure, her life wasn’t as posh as her childhood had been, but she had a position in an industry she loved, and it was a great learning experience that was going to help her when she finally launched her own business and became a full-fledged makeup artist. She’d even started a YouTube channel where dozens of people thanked her for her tips and tricks on a weekly basis. It wasn’t netting her much money yet, but she’d broken the five-hundred-dollar mark two months in a row. Not bad for a fledgling channel that relied on word of mouth.
Besides, making money wasn’t the reason she had a YouTube channel. Mostly, it was a place for her to indulge her passion for makeup, for teaching women how to apply it, for investigating and reviewing products. Makeup wasn’t just about vanity, it was about confidence, and she loved reading the comments of her subscribers as they discovered their best selves.
She grabbed the tiny blow-dryer that hung on the bathroom wall and attacked her wet hair with the renewed resolve of a woman with a plan. She was done feeling crappy about herself. She had a video to make for her regular Sunday night upload, anyway, so why not kill two birds with one stone?
First she was going to do her makeup.
Then she was going to do Ben.
CHAPTER 3
ONCE HER HAIR was under control, Chloe pulled on some sexy underwear—a black satin push-up bra with matching panties—and added a black T-shirt for modesty’s sake. And socks.
Then she grabbed the cosmetic case and headed back into the room. She set her bag on the desk and liberated her laptop from her giant purse.
While it whirred to life at the touch of a button, Chloe took a seat and turned on the lamp beside her. She rummaged in her bag through the familiar jumble of eye shadow pots, Q-tips, brushes, eyeliners and mascara, making her selections as her computer booted up.
Once she’d settled on her makeup choices, she set to work, using the mirror hanging on the wall to make sure her concealer, foundation and powder were blended flawlessly into her skin. A little blush finished off her base, and she was ready for the fun stuff.
She went for a relatively simple daytime-appropriate look of blue-grays and soft purples.
Once she was happy with how her left eye had turned out, she pulled the laptop in front of her and opened the programs she needed. With the press of a button, her image appeared on the computer screen. She tucked her hair behind her ears and clicked Record.
“Hi, guys, Chloe here. I’m on the road this week, and as you can see,” she motioned at the disheveled bed behind her, “my accommodations are not the most glamorous. But that’s no reason not to look like a million bucks! So here’s a quick makeup tutorial for all you jet-setters out there. A lot of you have been asking me for tips on what to bring with you on a trip. So my first recommendation is to pack a great eye shadow palette. With a palette, you get a lot of variety without taking up a lot of space, plus, all the colors are guaranteed to go together.” She flipped the case full of blues and purples open and angled it toward the camera. “I’m going to be using this eye shadow palette by Jeweled Web—it’s called Suburban Storm.
“For this look, I’m also going to be using an eyelash curler, my trusty brow gel, my favorite drugstore liquid liner, and the Lashes for Days mascara from Titanium Beauty.” Chloe held each product up to the camera as she named it, and the routine of it all calmed her.
“As always, I’ve already done the left side, so you have an example of what we’re aiming for.” She turned her head a little and closed her eye. “So now that we’ve amassed the troops, I’ll show you how to recreate this effect, and then we’ll amp it up so you can see how an eye shadow palette can take you from business meeting to nightclub, even when you’re away from home.”
She fell easily into the rhythm of her makeup routine, chatting confidently at the camera, noticing from the corner of her eye that she was just approaching the five-minute mark as she finished up with her mascara wand. Perfect. Her under-six-minute videos always seemed to pull more views than the longer ones.
“So that’s it.” Chloe angled her head to the side, closed her eyes, opened them and leaned toward the laptop screen. “A dramatic look for a night out, or if you’re like me, any given weekday. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. Thanks for watching. I�
�m Chloe and as I always say, ‘makeup, not war’. Until next time.”
Chloe clicked a few settings in the program, saved the video file, and set her laptop aside. Her weekly makeup tutorial was ready to post to her YouTube channel on Sunday night, as scheduled.
And she was ready for Ben.
* * *
BEN STOPPED IN front of the door and liberated the key card from his pocket, taking a moment to notice that his Prada dress shoes had fallen victim to the weather. The snow and salt had left streaks on the usually-gleaming black leather. He’d need to clean them before the big meeting tomorrow. The day he’d bought them, the salesgirl at the Bellevue Neiman Marcus had oohed and aahed over them, assuring him they were top-of-the-line, as comfortable as they were stylish, but if he was being honest, he still preferred the beat-up Converse shoes he used to wear.
Dress for the job you want, he reminded himself. It would all be worth it when he was hanging out at his cabin. He might even enforce a strict Chucks or bare-feet-only policy there.
He unlocked the door and strode inside. “Chloe, they’re out of cots, so...”
He stopped. Blinked. Tried to process the delectable sight before him.
“That’s okay. I don’t think we’re going to need the cot, do you?”
“You’re not wearing pants.” It was an inane thing to say, but in his defense the blood was rushing away from his brain at an alarmingly fast rate.
Chloe’s laugh was low and sexy. “You’re a real charmer, Masterson, but your powers of observation are a little off,” she chided, glancing down at herself, “because I’m— Oh, shit!” When she looked back at him, his seductress was frowning. “I meant to take the T-shirt off before you got back.”
She reached for the hem and tugged her black shirt over her head, dropping it to the ground. Ben didn’t think he’d ever been as deeply in lust with someone as he was with this woman in her sexy black-satin lingerie and a serviceable pair of black socks.