“Wicked woman,” Aiden says by my ear. “You were going to let me get wet.”
“I was just coming back for you!”
“Uh-huh. Sure.”
“I swear. See, I’m facing this way.” But then I search his face, and while he’s not smiling and has a serious look about him, his eyes are again doing that stupid, twinkling thing.
He’s having to stoop to fit under the umbrella, so I raise it higher. The rain’s beating all around us in this grassy field, there’s a twenty-four foot potty chair behind us, but for some reason I’m standing here, looking up at him, and all I want to do is kiss him like whoa.
For a second, I indulge the fantasy. Pretend this hot man could actually be attracted to me.
When we’d gotten back in the car at the castle, there was a moment when I thought, holy cow, he’s going to kiss me. But then he pulled away.
I need to stop reading romance novels.
I’m not his type. I’m a book nerd. He’s a jock who owns a bar, for Pete’s sake.
He clears his throat and looks over my shoulder. “C’mon, let’s check it out.”
Right. Because that’s what we’re doing. He wasn’t about to kiss me.
Despite that potent reminder, I’m tingling all over. Must be an aftershock. As if just the possibility of a kiss under an umbrella in the rain was enough to reverberate through me.
Jeez, I need to get out more.
Even though we have an umbrella keeping us dry, we hobble-run for the shelter of the potty chair, our gaits erratic as we attempt to keep pace, stay under the umbrella, and not bump each other out of the way.
Under the giant chair, I lower the umbrella and shake it.
I look up. Because Aiden’s strangely quiet.
Yep, there’s a hole. It’s a twenty-four-foot-tall white chair with a hole in the seat.
“Hey, there’s writing,” Aiden says.
I squint past the late afternoon sun peeping through the rain clouds. Sure enough, printed on the underside, there are the words “Put Your Trust Here,” followed by a set of coordinates and then “Put Your Trust There” and another set of coordinates.
Aiden pulls out his phone. “Time for Google.” He taps away.
“True. It’s not cheating since we’re already here.”
He looks down at me with an amused expression. “Nope. It’s not cheating.” He peers back up. “I wish we could climb to the top.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course. Especially because according to this”—he holds up his phone—“if we were up on the seat, we’d be looking through the, er, hole at this.” He waves to the ceiling directly overhead. “And on that side, there’s a giant clown face.”
“Get out.”
He moves closer and holds out his phone.
I lean closer. Wow, yeah, there’s a giant clown, with his mouth where the hole is. “This is so weird.”
“Gets weirder. Check it out.” He scrolls the website up. “The artist calls it a HOHO chair, and it’s supposed to represent a wormhole portal to a Marcel Duchamp art installation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.”
I look back up at the underside. “Which is the second set of coordinates, I’m guessing.”
“Yep. He even has a video that’s supposed to simulate what happens if you drop something through the hole.”
We watch this mad scientist kind of video, complete with whirling colored swirls for the wormhole. While it’s pretty apparent, even at the start, that the video isn’t going to get much more interesting, I’m watching avidly, because, okay, it’s nice standing right next to Aiden. He’s warm, dangit. Standing close like this helps me pretend for a little while longer.
“Well,” I say when the video ends, my gaze still fixed on his phone.
“Yep,” he says. He pulls up another article on the HOHO chair.
“Humans are weird.”
He gives a low rumble of a chuckle, and because I’m so close, I can feel it transmit physically, from his body to mine.
Now the tingling along my skin starts to bunch around my lady parts.
Huh.
Never had that happen.
He pockets his phone and turns so he’s facing me but still just as close. I have to arch my neck to see his face.
I catch my breath—there’s a big grin there, beaming all of its hunky, charming glory right at me. How’s a lady supposed to resist?
His blond hair, darkened from the rain, is plastered to his forehead, with a little curl flirting with his right cheekbone. I flex my fingers because—gah—I really really want to reach up and slick his hair back for him. I glance at his mouth again.
The scene from the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice pops into my head, the one where Mr. Darcy is all yummy and wet, and he’s laying his heart out right there for Lizzy, and she’s all, “I wouldn’t marry you if you’re the last man on earth,” and he looks so devastated but also as if he’s dying to kiss her.
Except this man’s not proposing, and I’m under a giant potty chair and not in some garden temple thing.
Except, holy mackerel. He’s leaning down.
His strong hand cups my cheek. I hold my breath, my heart going omg-omg-omg.
Next thing I know, I’m clutching his wet T-shirt and yanking him down. I think because I was afraid it wasn’t actually happening and I didn’t want to be disappointed again?
Who knows, but our mouths bump into each other.
Smooth, Jane.
Just as mortification is about to yank me back to sanity, he groans and brushes his lips across mine. His face is warm but wet from the rain. He shifts his hand to the back of my neck and grips me tighter.
Holy heck. We’re kissing. His tongue makes a foray, and I welcome him, his mouth a warm contrast to his rain-wet skin.
And then something amazing happens—a warmth bursts in my chest and arrows down. I’ve kissed guys before, but I’ve never, ever, been turned on by a lip-lock. Not like this.
It’s always been just fun…or interesting.
But this? Sparks are a-sizzling, baby, all along my skin.
I angle closer, and his other hand grasps my hip and tugs me up against him. Oh jeez—my heart thumps—because there’s no mistaking the hard-on pushing into my lower belly.
He does a slow circle of his hips, groans, and breaks away.
My breaths are coming fast, so I breathe through my nose, trying to disguise how I embarrassingly sound as if I just ran ten laps.
“Jane?”
“Yes?”
“You realize what we were doing, right?”
“Um, kissing?” I’m still trying to get my breathing disguised and under control, so I can’t spare a lot for thinking.
“Yes. Under. A. Potty. Chair.”
We start laughing, and then our laughter feeds off each other as we trail off, and then start laughing again. It’s one of those good kinds of belly laughs, when your stomach feels as if it did a bunch of crunches.
“One for the books.” Aaaand… I release my death grip on his T-shirt because, like a dope, I was still holding on.
“I’ll say.” He gives me a sly wink.
I flush, because I’m like eighty-percent positive there’s a double meaning to that. Or maybe it’s just my imagination again.
I pick my umbrella up from where I’d dropped it. “Well, we better get going if we’re going to make it to Daytona Beach tonight.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Daytona Beach?”
“Yep.” I step out from under the potty chair and hold the umbrella high so he can squeeze in under, and we walk back to the car.
“Do I even want to ask?” His fist is gripping the umbrella, stacked above mine. We keep our strides in sync, him all casual, and me like ohmygodwejustkissed.
I match my tone to his lighthearted one. “The next site is actually a hotel. The Sun Viking Lodge. Claire booked a room.”
And then I stumble, breaking our in-sync stride—Claire only booked one room. Surely there’ll
be more available.
Aiden must think the ground made me stumble, because he turns into my side, placing his hand across my stomach as if he’s saving me from a face-plant. “You okay?”
I nod mutely because his thumb just did a little circle. God, that feels nice.
He moves back to the less mind-altering position of being by my side. “Sun Viking Lodge. Lemme guess—it’ll have Vikings.”
And because I don’t want to show I’m anxious about tonight, I play along. “Vikings in the sun.”
Yeah, there’ll be rooms.
Chapter 9
Aiden
“No rooms.” I blow out a breath and put my cell down. I scoured various travel sites trying to book a room for myself, and now we just passed Orlando.
The first place I tried, of course, was the Sun Viking Lodge, but they were booked. So then I tried hotels in ever increasing distances from there. No luck.
“How can that be?”
“Some gymnastics convention-competition thing with kids and families from all over the country.” I finally called the Viking Lodge in desperation to see if they knew of anything remotely nearby that might not be on the travel sites. The guy was understanding, told me the scoop, and that everything was booked.
I’m trying extra hard, because she’s getting more and more nervous about this situation. I can sympathize.
Holy hell.
That kiss.
I think it goes without saying that that kiss was unplanned. It’s just that…when she glanced at my mouth, for perhaps the third time today, the tension that’s been thrumming through me ever since we started this trip had me wanting to see—is there more here?
Her yanking me to her cleared that up.
I shift in my seat, but the damn woody I’ve been sporting since The Potty Chair Kiss will not go away.
She also went quiet following my bad news. She has different levels of quietness. One level, she’s right there with me in the moment and we’re enjoying each other’s company with no pressure to perform with jokes or conversation.
But then there’s another level, where she draws in on herself, and there’s a weight in the air surrounding her, shielding her, distancing her from everyone else.
This quiet now is a new level. There’s a trace of nervousness and vulnerability, as if she’s almost at the surface, but unsure if she can make an appearance.
I look out the windshield and don’t say anything. I’m tempted to coax her, but I have a hunch she needs to break through on her own, like those nature documentaries that show hatching babies and how they have to push through the shell on their own to gain the necessary strength to survive outside it.
Plus, there’s the not-so-small matter of her ghosting me.
She unclamps her fingers from the steering wheel and rubs her palms back and forth on the wheel. She grips it again. “Um, we can…can see if my room has a double, and we can share it. I won’t mind, if you don’t.”
Obviously that took a lot for her to say, so I don’t draw attention to it. No jokes. No innuendo. No teasing. Instead, I say, “Thank you. If not, rooms usually have a club chair I can crash in.” I fiddle with the air vent.
“Maybe they’ll have a roll-away bed we can have them bring up.” Her voice is a tad higher with false optimism.
“Sure. It’ll all work out. I know you didn’t plan for me to be along.”
She rubs her palms on the wheel again. “I’m glad you’re along.” She pushes the words out in a rush as if shoving them with a temporary courage that could disappear any moment.
I glance at her, and her cheeks are blushing. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Inexplicably, my whole chest gets warm. I nod and smile. I’ll do whatever will make her comfortable tonight, but a growing part of me—like, literally—hopes she’ll allow me to sleep in her bed.
I adjust my ass in the seat and stretch out my legs, giving a discreet tug to my jeans. Tonight’s potential pulses in the close confines of the car and feeds on the simmering pull that’s been a constant. I’m hyper aware of where she is and how close. Where her hands are. When they move and where. And it’s driving me batshit because none of the positions are where I want them to be—in my hand.
Fuck, that’s sappy.
But dammit, it’s true.
And that truth hits me like the strongest shot of whiskey—the jolt of surprise, the heat, the thrill.
We’ve got wicked chemistry, and sure, I’ve been an idiot thinking it would wane with road-trip familiarity. Instead, this trip has solidified my initial assessment—she’s awesome. Someone I enjoy being around. My words aren’t the stuff of poetry—I can’t explain it any better than we just fit. And it feels as if we’ve always known each other.
Another mile marker speeds by as I soak in this truth. And like a shot of whiskey, there’s the inevitable sobering moment—I’m good for hookups. I’m not relationship material.
Tuesday night, when Luke accused me of being a man-whore and said that I need to stop, I dismissed his advice. My meaningless hookups not only numbed me but also kept me from getting sucked into another long-term relationship.
Now I’m staring down the last years of my twenties, and the whole hookup thing just leaves me feeling like a shallow jackass. It’s done fuck-all for me. Except maybe help numb my pain so I could ferry myself from the Brittany-shore to…wherever I am now.
But… I’m here on this new shore, and that pain now seems so distant.
I glance at Jane, and again warmth fills my chest. Maybe it’s time I let go of that crutch.
Jane
Holy heck.
That kiss.
And now we’re going to share a room? I flush again for like the umpteenth time, the heat going into every nook and cranny of my body. It’s like I’m some blinking light, blushing over and over, since our kiss under the potty chair. I’m not fooling myself that this situation is anything more than what it is. He’s a player—I know that. And we’ve been in close proximity for over twenty-four hours, so of course he’d make a move on me since there’s no one else around. It’s not me me that he’s interested in—I’m just a warm body.
Warm body… Aiden’s warm body.
Another mile marker whizzes by as I, dangit, flush again, and my mind does a little side trip into fantasy land, picturing how, in an alternate world, he doesn’t sleep in the club chair and instead climbs into bed with me.
Then, as another mile marker passes, I straighten. Does it have to be fantasy?
Claire wants me to get out of my shell—and yeah, get over Aiden—so maybe part of my problem is that things are “unresolved” between us. At least on my part.
I know the whole “get him out of my system” thing is something that romance heroines—and heroes—use because they’re in denial. But here’s the thing. I’m not in denial. I know very clearly what I want and what I don’t want.
I don’t want a guy like him for the long haul. Playboys and charmers will always let you down. I learned that lesson well enough to not get fooled again. But I also can’t deny my attraction. Especially since it’s so rare. So if sleeping with him—if I’m reading the signals right—will help me realize he’s not as great as I’ve built up in my head, then that’ll be good. Right?
I nod my head, firm in my decision.
By now, we’re entering the outskirts of Daytona Beach, and GPS directs us through the beachy neighborhood that’ll spill us onto the main strip on the Atlantic side of the city. I’ve lived in Florida most of my life and never been here. But it feels familiar to other beach cities in its architecture. Just a different layout.
Surf shops, burger joints, and wacky signs here and there to draw in the tourists.
“There’s a Viking!” Aiden says, pointing to the left, and a beat later Miss Google says, “Your destination is on the left.”
Sure enough, a larger-than-life statue in blue pants with a round shield and horned helmet stands beside the front end of a longbo
at. We pull into the parking lot, and I realize the longboat’s doing double-duty as the entrance to a low-slung building.
After posing for pics by the Viking, we get checked in and head to our room. Other than the Viking and longboat, everything else seems pretty normal—like a Florida hotel on the beach a couple of decades out of date.
I open the door to our room. It’s a king. My heart does a slow thump, while my libido does a fist pump.
Aiden lets out a low whistle behind me. “The 80s called, and they want their decor back.”
“Right?” I put my hand up to shield my eyes—the bedspread’s a bright blue pattern with a red, tropical print bolster and matching spread folded at the bottom. A peek into the bathroom reveals a cream yellow counter.
I move deeper into the room. That king bed. I swear it grows in size as if perturbed I’m ignoring it. Or trying to. I quick-step past it. “But hey, we’ve got a view!”
Glass doors open to a small balcony. Below, a pool glows with underwater lights, revealing a twisting water slide. Beyond stretches darkness, obscuring the ocean. “Well. Tomorrow we’ll have a view,” I say, looking over my shoulder at Aiden. I still don’t see you, bed.
“Are you one of those crack o’ dawn types who’ll want to see the sunrise?” He tosses his duffel bag on the floor and plops into a chair at a small round table.
“Heck no.”
“Good.” He slides down the chair, extending his long legs. The denim stretches and bunches in enticing places. “You hungry? We can explore the bar area, see what Vikings might lurk about, and grab something.”
My “yes” might be a little too high-pitched. “Lemme just…freshen up.” Nervousness lays claim to my stomach again, because this feels a lot like a date, and I’ve also decided something.
Something big.
I’m going to take a risk.
Risk that I’m correctly reading the signals.
I nab my toiletries.
He’s a player, right? And it’s clear I need a little fun in my life. Thanks, Claire. So I need to look at this situation differently. Instead of pushing him away because he’s not a long-term guy, as well as being hurt that he wasn’t interested in me that night, I need to be all carpe diem on his cute butt.
Risking It Page 6