by Vi Keeland
“Bennett? Is that you?”
“What the fuck?” His voice grumbled clearer through the open space. Looking down, I found him slumped against the door. He’d been using it to keep upright, and fell back when it moved.
I pushed him and the door forward to unlatch the safety chain, then opened the door wide.
Bennett followed right along, his weight pushing the door open until he was sprawled out, lying flat on the floor—the top half of him in my room, his legs outside in the hallway. He went hysterical laughing.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. Then it dawned on me that he could be ill and in need of medical attention. “Shit.” I leaned down in a panic. “Are you okay? Does something hurt?”
The smell of alcohol answered in the absence of actual words.
I waved a hand in front of my nose. “You’re drunk.”
He flashed the sexiest crooked smile. “And you’re fucking beautiful.”
Not exactly what I expected.
I stepped around his body on my carpet and looked up and down the hall. No one else was out there.
Bennett pointed up at me with his entire face joining in for a dirty smirk. “I can see up your dress.”
I had on a long T-shirt that barely reached my thighs. And he was looking up at my underwear. I pulled the material tight at the hem and pressed my legs closed.
“What’s going on? Did you think this was your room or something? You’re two doors down, the room next to the elevator, remember?”
He reached up, and his fingers skimmed my thigh. “Come on. Let me see ’em again. They were black and lacy. My favorite kind.”
Warmth spread up my legs from the feel of his fingers on my skin. But my heart was smart enough to remember what he’d done earlier. I pushed his hand away. Which he found amusing.
“You don’t like me, do you?”
“At the moment, no.”
“That’s okay. I like you.”
“Bennett, do you want something, or do you need help getting back to your room?”
“I came to apologize.”
That thawed my ice a little. But he was drunk, so I couldn’t be sure he knew what the hell he was sorry for.
“Apologize for what?” I asked.
“For being a dick. For acting like a jealous boyfriend.”
I sighed. “What was your problem tonight?”
A goofy grin spread across his face. “Toby boy shouldn’t have been touching you. I was angry. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
More of my guard came down. “It’s fine. I guess on some level I can appreciate your chivalry, wanting to stick up for me.”
He found that comment amusing, too. “Chivalry. That’s something I’ve never been accused of.”
Bennett reached out and put his hand on my bare foot. He traced figure eights with his finger. God, his touch felt good, even there.
He stared down, watching his hand draw, while he continued to speak. “I’m sorry, Texas.”
For some stupid reason, the use of my nickname softened me. “It’s okay, Bennett. Don’t worry about it. Just don’t let it happen again. Okay?”
He stopped drawing and covered the top of my foot with his palm. His thumb reached up and stroked my ankle. I felt it between my legs.
“It will, though,” he whispered. “It will happen again.”
My brain had become distracted by the way his simple touch radiated all over my body, so I didn’t follow what he was saying.
“What will happen?”
“I’ll act like that again. I can’t help it. You know why?”
I wasn’t sure I cared as long as that thumb kept stroking my ankle.
“Hmmm?”
“Because I was jealous.”
My jaw dropped. I had to be misinterpreting what he was saying. “You were jealous about what?”
He looked up from the floor and our eyes locked. “About him touching you.”
“But why?”
“Because I want to be the one touching you.”
I suddenly became acutely aware that I was standing in only a T-shirt.
“I need to put some pants on.” The door to my room was still open, with half his body in the hall. “Can you pull your legs in so I can close the door and grab something to wear?”
He managed to bend his knees and lift them enough so the door would shut, but he didn’t get up from the floor. He also didn’t let go of my foot. The sound of the lock clicking closed rang out extra loud, followed by silence. I remained painfully aware that I was half naked, Bennett was touching my leg, and the two of us were very alone in my hotel room.
I tugged my foot from his hand and hurried to my suitcase to find the sweats I should’ve put on before opening the door in the first place. Digging them out, I rushed to the bathroom.
Jesus. I scared myself, catching my reflection in the mirror. Bedhead, smeared makeup, puffy, tired eyes with dark circles—I looked like a homeless person. Mascara ran down one of my cheeks and—I leaned forward for a closer look—was that drool dried to the side of my face?
I spent the next God knows how long fixing myself. I tied my hair into a ponytail, washed my face, brushed my teeth, put on deodorant, and slipped into sweatpants. Then I had a long conversation…with myself.
“You’re fine. He’s just drunk. He has no idea what he’s saying.” I took a deep breath. “Nothing’s gonna happen out there. You’re just going to help him up, and help him to his room.”
But…if he starts to rub my foot again.
“No. Definitely not. This is stupid. Just go out there, already. How long have you been hiding in here anyway?”
The better question is, how long has it been since you were with a man?
“Stop it. You’re being ridiculous. This is your nemesis, a man you don’t even like half the time.”
Tonight doesn’t have to be that half of the time…
I pointed a stern finger at the mirror. “No more.” Then I took one last look at myself and straightened my posture before putting my hand on the doorknob. Here goes nothing.
Literally.
Because I swung open the bathroom door to find…
Bennett snoring on my floor.
***
I couldn’t go back to sleep.
And since I had an early-morning flight, I only had a few hours to kill until I had to leave for the airport. Yet a few hours didn’t seem like nearly enough time to replay everything Bennett had done and said last night.
I’d tried to wake him after I’d come out of the bathroom, but it was no use. He’d fallen into a deep, drunken sleep. So I covered him with an extra blanket from the closet, tucked a pillow beneath his head, and left him sleeping right there on my floor.
Even while I’d gotten ready this morning—zipping my suitcase, the sound of the shower, dropping the deodorant on the tiled bathroom floor—nothing made Bennett flinch. I got the feeling he could probably stay that way until this afternoon, and he probably needed to, but then he’d miss his flight. Luckily, his wasn’t until three hours after mine, so he didn’t need to get up for a while.
I phoned the front desk and asked them to give me a wakeup call at nine, but I wasn’t so sure the sound of the phone ringing from the other side of the room would even wake him. So I decided to set the alarm on his cellphone, too. Only I had to get it out his pocket first.
Crouching down, I examined his face, making sure he was still in a deep sleep. Bennett really was one damn handsome man—his complexion had a natural, sun-kissed color even in his drunken stupor, and I knew that if his eyes were to open, they’d be shockingly green against his skin. And what man had lips that full and pink? Of course, unlike me, he slept graciously. His lips were slightly open, showing a hint of his perfect white teeth, while mine would be leaking drool into a puddle on the floor. It almost wasn’t fair how good looking he was.
But I had a flight to catch, and so did he. So I couldn’t waste any more time admiring him. I neede
d to try to slip his phone out of his pocket to set an alarm.
Except…
When I went to reach into his pants pocket, my eyes snagged on a significant bulge a little to the left. Oh my God. Bennett had a hard-on in his sleep.
Wow. That’s...a good size.
I might’ve stared at it for a minute or two.
I might’ve taken another minute to close my eyes and imagine what it might feel like in my hands if I unzipped his pants and reached inside.
I might’ve wondered if he would even know if I opened that zipper.
Or if he woke up while my hands were wrapped around that bulge, what he would do.
This man is really making me lose my mind.
I shook my head and snapped myself out of my insanity. I needed to get on the road and set this damn phone alarm.
My hand shook as I reached into his pocket. With every move I made, I kept checking his face to make sure he wasn’t waking up. Ever so slowly, I inched his cell free.
When it was out, I exhaled, realizing I’d been holding my breath. My hands were still shaky as I woke up his phone. I hadn’t thought about the possibility of a password—most people had one. But when I pressed the on button, no keypad came up. Instead, it booted directly to his home screen, and an unexpected picture of an adorable little boy. He was probably no older than ten or eleven, with shaggy, light brown hair and the biggest, toothy smile. He wore shorts and yellow plastic rain boots, and he stood on a rock in the middle of a stream, holding up a giant fish.
I looked at the photo and then to the sleeping man next to me. Could Bennett have a child? He’d never mentioned one, and he’d said his longest relationship was less than six months—not that you need to be in a relationship. But it seemed like something that would have come up in our conversations by now. I looked between Bennett and the photo a few more times. There wasn’t any resemblance that I saw.
I might’ve guessed he’d have a few dirty pictures of women on his phone, but not a sweet little boy as his background. The man was truly a complete enigma.
Luckily, while staring down at the boy, I caught the time on Bennett’s phone.
Crap.
I needed to get out of here. I quickly set an alarm for two hours from now and went into his settings to turn the volume all the way up and make sure his phone would vibrate at the same time. Then I laid it on the floor, right beside his ear. If that didn’t wake him, nothing would.
I got up and grabbed my luggage, giving the room one last look for anything I might’ve forgotten. Then I navigated around the sleeping man and gently opened the hotel room door. He still hadn’t budged.
I stole one final look at the bulge in his pants.
Well, Bennett Fox, this has been interesting, to say the least. I can’t wait to see how much of it you remember in the office tomorrow.
Chapter 19
* * *
Annalise
At eight a.m., I’d already been in the office for hours.
On my flight home yesterday, I’d typed up a summary of the information I took away from the Star meetings and sent an email to three staff members—two from Wren and one from Foster Burnett—asking them to read over my notes and meet for a brainstorming session first thing this morning.
When I’d gotten to the office at five a.m., Bennett’s door had been shut, although the light was on. After catching up on emails for an hour, I went to get coffee and noticed his door was open and the light was now off. I figured he’d done what he often did—arrived at the office early, did some work, and then went for his morning run after a few hours. We hadn’t had any contact since I’d left him passed out in my hotel room yesterday morning, and even though my curiosity about how he’d handle what had happened was eating at me, I had no time to waste today.
Just as my meeting began, Bennett strolled past the bullpen. He took a step back, catching sight of us inside. His hair was wet, and he held a large Starbucks coffee in his hand.
“What’s going on in here?”
“We’re just getting started on the Star Studios pitch,” I said.
His eyes inventoried the people in the room, and I thought he might be about to question why I’d picked people to work on the campaign with me without discussing it with him first. But instead, when our eyes met, he merely offered a curt nod before walking away.
Me and my handpicked team worked the rest of the morning together. I’d had a dozen loose concepts for Star in mind before we started, and we narrowed my list down to two ideas and then expanded on them, as well as adding two more that the session came up with. Our plan was to spend a little time on our own, each running with all four of the concepts, and see which popped when we met again in a few days.
On my way back to my office, I stopped off at Bennett’s. He had his head down, sketching something.
“Did you make your flight?” I asked.
He leaned back in his chair and tossed his pencil onto his desk. “I did. Luckily I had the wherewithal to set an alarm, I guess.”
Ummm... No, you didn’t.
He continued. “I don’t really remember much about the night after we finished dinner. Did I pass out on your floor after walking you to your room or something?”
“You don’t remember knocking on my door?”
“Apparently not.” His brows furrowed. “Why did I knock?”
“To apologize for the way you acted at dinner.” And tell me why you acted the way you did.
“I don’t usually have more than one or two hard-liquor drinks. I’m more of a beer person.” He grinned. “Hope you didn’t try to take advantage of me.”
Disappointment hit me. He doesn’t remember. I’d known there was a good chance the entire night would be a blackout for him, but I hadn’t expected to feel hurt that he didn’t remember the things he’d said.
But of course, it was better this way. “You got confused which room was yours and passed out when I went to put a sweater on and show you to your room.”
I felt my face start to heat from my lie. Shit.
“Gotta run. Talk to you later.” I abruptly walked away and went to hide in my office with the door locked before he could notice.
Later in the afternoon, I spent some time tweaking Bennett’s Bianchi Winery campaign. The copy he’d written needed work to reflect that the winery was family owned and not part of a large corporate conglomerate—something Matteo took great pride in. Other than that, I changed a few colors on the labels for the new line of rosé that Mom wanted brightened up and replaced the proposed late-night radio air buys with evening slots.
I had plans to hit the gym on my way home tonight—to avoid running into Andrew in the morning—so I cleaned up my desk at a reasonable hour and packed files to work on for the Star Studios campaign afterward. I grabbed the revised Bianchi art and copy to drop off at Bennett’s office as I passed on my way out. Only my hands were full, and right before getting to his door, a few of the papers from the top of the pile fell. I bent to pick them up and overheard Bennett talking.
“I’m not angry. This is just my face ever since Annalise arrived.”
We’d had our share of arguments and name calling, but that was between us, and it’d felt more like a game of cat and mouse—not truly insulting, even when we were flinging insults at each other. But him talking shit about me to someone else felt worse than if he’d said that same thing to my face, for some reason.
“She seems nice enough to me,” a man’s voice said. I thought it could’ve been Jim Falcon. “Smart, too.”
That made me feel a little bit better.
“Sort of a shame you had to meet the way you did, in competition for the same job and all. If you’d met at a bar, I think the two of you would have hit it off.”
“She’s not my type,” Bennett snapped.
Yesterday, I was beautiful. Today, I wasn’t his type. I wanted to be annoyed, but instead all I felt was hurt.
“Yeah. Guess you’re right. Smart, nice, and beautiful
…what man would want that shit?”
Thanks, Jim!
“Fuck off, Falcon.” Bennett’s voice turned terse. “If I’d met her in a bar, I’d have kept my distance after spending three minutes with her. Trust me.”
I’d never actually been in a fistfight, yet I suddenly knew what a punch in the gut felt like. My insides felt a hollow pain. What had I been thinking? Allowing myself to believe his drunken words were a confession of feelings of some sort and more than incoherent drivel? Worse, I’d let myself start to think that beneath the arrogant Beast was some sort of misunderstood Prince Charming.
Sometimes a beast is just a beast, no matter how many layers you peel back.
The sound of footsteps snapped me out of my momentary pity party. I turned around and started to walk in the other direction. Jim had moved closer to the door, so I could still hear him as I put distance between us.
“It’s been a while. Let’s do happy hour Friday night. We’ll find you someone mean, ugly, and stupid to drag you out of this mood.”
***
The hot-and-cold relationship I had with Bennett took a turn into the tundra by midweek. Only this time it was me doing the instigating.
Jonas had assigned the second account the board planned to judge us on, Billings Media, and we were both in the thick of working on early drafts of our separate Star campaigns. Near the end of our weekly meeting, I mentioned to Jonas that I had an appointment scheduled for next week with one of the VPs from Star. I knew that would piss Bennett off. He glared at me, but said nothing, and I ignored him and continued talking to the boss.
When Tobias had originally offered to look at any early designs, I’d assumed both Bennett and I would take him up on it. But that was back when I was an idiot who thought the playing field should be fair so the true better person could win.
After the crap Bennett pulled in L.A., and overhearing how he really felt about me, I no longer had any doubt that the better person was going to win—me.
I’d just returned to my office and picked up the phone to return some calls, when Bennett barged in without knocking.