Best Man With Benefits

by Samanthe Beck

  Luckily, her speed flagged after the first fifty meters. He closed in, enjoying the slap of the cool night air in his face, the smell of the pine trees that grew thick on the peaks surrounding the resort, and the sound of his blood pumping in his ears…and some other sound now. A familiar click followed by a “shhh” noise he couldn’t quite place, but for some reason made him think of the manicured landscape surrounding the Defy Gravity headquarters in Boulder. Oh crap, it was—

  Sophie shrieked as their race route turned into a minefield of timer-deployed sprinkler-heads, blasting water from every direction. Cold water.

  He quickened his pace with the idea of catching up to her and serving as her sprinkler shield, but just as he came up behind her, she slipped in the slick grass and fell forward. Changing direction was out of the question. He was momentum’s passenger at this point. Reflexes he hadn’t relied on in months kicked in, and he hurdled over her. He landed a few feet in front of her, his system awash in adrenaline. Laughing, wiping streams of water off his face, he turned to Sophie, who sat in the grass now, hissing like a wet kitten while the sprinklers doused her with another wave of cold water.

  “You okay?”

  She scrubbed at the grass-stained knees of her jeans. “Never better.”

  He didn’t notice the dirty pants as much as the way her drenched shirt molded to her chest. The sight made him want to peel the damn thing right off. Instead he thrust the champagne bottle into her hands, and then turned, crouched down, and patted his back. “Hop on.”

  “No…there’s no need—” Another wave of freezing water oscillated over them and cut her off.

  He shrugged and started to stand. “Okay, but if they’re having a wet T-shirt contest in the lobby, you’re going win first place.”

  “What?” She glanced down. “Oh my God!”

  The next thing he knew, he had one hundred and twenty pounds of soaking wet woman scrambling onto his back. He stood, hefted her higher, and sprinted toward the resort, trying his best to dodge sprinkler spray and ignore the feel of her thighs clamped around his waist and the soft weight of her breasts bouncing against his back. With those distractions in play, he barely noticed the champagne bottle thumping against his chest.

  He could have carried her like that all night, but by the time he burst through the lobby’s automatic doors they were both out of breath from laughing. The few guests and hotel personnel wandering the lobby turned and stared with varying degrees of amusement or irritation. Logan dashed to the elevators.

  “Floor?” he asked when the doors closed and they were alone in the wood-paneled space.

  “Six,” Sophie whispered, and then giggled when he used her toe to hit the button.

  “You can put me down now.” She loosened the arms she’d wrapped around his neck and shifted her hips to signal she was ready for the drop, and he found himself reading the fine print on the elevator inspection certificate to stop from groaning out loud at the feel of her squirming against him.

  “Sophie?” He mimicked her hushed voice.

  “What?”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  The question pulled another giggle from her, slightly self-conscious this time. “I don’t know,” she admitted, still whispering. “I don’t want to attract any attention.”

  “God forbid.” He loosened his hold on her legs, used his hands to stabilize her descent, and let her slide down his back until her feet reached the floor. The process offered him a highly detailed, but mostly accidental tour of her denim-covered backside. He bit back another groan, waited until they’d achieved touchdown, and then turned to face her.

  Bad move. The elevator lights turned her wet shirt into a transparent second skin. He could easily see her white bra, and the truly awe-inspiring curves it supported. Shy, adorable, strictly off-limits Sophie, he mentally recited, while his brain attempted to signal his eyes to look away. His eyes told his brain to fuck off. As he watched, the chill of air-conditioning—or maybe the heat of his gaze—turned her nipples to hard little points and he pressed his lips together while he imagined testing their resilience with his tongue.

  Not to be outdone, the show-off south of his navel perked up and demonstrated its talent for getting hard, too. An odd, slightly breathy sound from Sophie had his guilty gaze jumping to her face.

  What he saw there did nothing to alleviate the discomfort of his dick swelling against the zipper of his shorts. Her wide eyes roamed all over him, eventually homing in on his fly, which made him realize his own waterlogged clothes revealed more than normal. Her cheeks grew pink, and her lips parted to accommodate fast, shallow breaths. He envisioned backing her up against the wall, tearing her shirt open, yanking her bra up, and letting those opulent breasts spill into his hands.

  The elevator came to a halt. Her body swayed toward him, almost imperceptibly, bringing her erect nipples infinitesimally closer. The muscles in his chest tightened in anticipation. Would her eyes drift closed and a sigh of pleasure fill the small compartment if he—

  The doors whooshed open. She jerked upright, blinked, and then turned beet red. “I have to get off now.” Impossibly, as soon as the words left her mouth, her cheeks turned even redder. “I mean”—she hugged the champagne bottle to her chest like a teddy bear—“this is my floor.”

  “Yep. Mine, too.” He pulled his shoes out of his pockets, tossed them on the floor, and slid into them, never once taking his eyes off her. Then he put his hand across the door to keep it open and gestured her to precede him out of the car.

  She walked past him, headed down the hall, and produced her card key from her back pocket. He patted his front hip pocket for his own. Uh-oh. Nothing. He reached into his pocket and dug around. Still nothing. Frowning, he tried the other pocket and came up empty again. The key hunt had him so distracted he nearly barreled into her when she stopped in front of one of the doors.

  “This is me. Room 612. Here”—she handed him the champagne—“you won.”

  “You’re going to make me drink this all alone?” He took the bottle in one hand and continued his key quest with the other. Calling it a night was probably for the best, considering the struggle he was having remembering the Sophie-Is-Off-Limits rule, but still, disappointment landed heavy in his gut. He’d had fun tonight. Hell, when was the last time he’d run barefoot in the grass under a full moon? No clue, which meant it had been too long, he thought as he dug through his back pockets. Goddammit, where was his key?

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No. I’m just”—he sighed and gave himself one last, fruitless pat-down—“losing my mind. I can’t find my room key. Again.” Heat crawled up his neck.

  “You’re not losing your mind.” She bit her lip and he had the funny feeling she did it to keep from laughing.

  “Okay, divulge. Where’s my key?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but I suspect you have a…ahem…surprise waiting for you in your room right now.”

  “What kind of surprise?”

  “Um…a bridesmaid.”

  “A what?”

  She lost her battle with her laughter. “You heard me,” she managed. “Keep this to yourself, but the girls called dibs on the groomsmen, and, yes, someone plans to bag the best man. Don’t look so shocked. You should be flattered. They’re all incredibly beautiful. Anyway, sights were set, strategies devised, and room keys slipped from the pockets of unsuspecting victims. Since your seductress apparently failed to make her move last night, my guess is she’s taking another shot at claiming her prize.”

  The beginning of a headache settled in behind his eyes again. He liked fun and games—and recreational sex—as much as the next guy, but for whatever reason the idea of going back to his room so a bored bridesmaid could use him like a personal toy sounded about as appealing as, well, it didn’t sound unappealing, but it sounded superficial, and meaningless, and a little too much like a stripped-down version of his current love life. Since Defy Gravity had taken off, the women he
met tended to look at him as the human equivalent of a Louis Vuitton bag. Serving as a “prize” in the battle of the bridesmaids only took matters to a new low.

  Then his thoughts turned in an even more uncomfortable direction. “Which groomsman did you pick?” And why did he suddenly want to pound the crap out of Reed, Brock, or Tyler?

  “None.” Her blush suggested otherwise, but she stood her ground. “Sneaking into some poor unsuspecting guy’s room, lying in wait until he gets there, and saying, Surprise! Please. I abstained.”

  His headache backed off a bit. “I don’t know about you, Soph, but between the hotel laundry and the sprinklers, I’ve had all the surprises I can handle tonight. Let me hide out in your room until the key-snatcher gets bored and leaves. We can pop this champagne and you can help me write my best man toast.”

  She stared up at him as if he’d just handed her another big surprise, but then swallowed and unlocked her door. “Stay as long as you want. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be as a speechwriter, but—”

  “Invaluable help.” He held the door for her and then followed her into the room. “You’ve got all the embarrassing childhood stories.”

  “Maybe, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy. The thing about older brothers is they have equally embarrassing dirt on their younger sisters. There’s a little something called mutual assured destruction that prevents me from talking.”

  He held up the champagne and shot her a deliberately calculating grin. “Have a drink, Sophie.”

  She took the champagne bottle and grinned back. “The vault stays locked, no matter how hard you liquor me up.”

  There was no way she realized it, but she stood directly under the recessed light in the entryway of the suite, which put a spotlight on the front of her damp shirt. He looked his fill, imagining he could see the dusky outline of her nipples through the layers, before his conscience piped in with a helpful “note to self.” Stop staring at her tits like a fucking pervert.

  He forced his eyes to keep moving and his attention strayed to her hands. One gripped the base of the bottle, while the fingers of her other moved restlessly up and down the foil-encased neck. Holy shit. If she kept fondling the bottle, she was going to jerk him off by proxy.

  “Why don’t I take that?” He reached for the champagne. “I’ll pop the cork while you change into dry clothes.” Baggy, shape-concealing clothes I’d need X-ray vision to see through, because I can’t stop fantasizing about getting you naked, draping you across the bed, and finding out if you prefer soft kisses along the underside of your breast or my teeth grazing the sweet curve of your ass—or both.

  “Deal.” She handed over the champagne and scurried into the bathroom so quickly he wondered if she’d read his mind.

  When the door closed, he quickly adjusted himself, and then headed to the cabinet containing the minibar. He found two flutes, popped the cork, and filled them. Effervescence fizzed and subsided, leaving him in silence. Except for the slap of a wet garment hitting the tile floor in the bathroom. Her shirt? Her pants? An image of Sophie standing in the bathroom in nothing but underwear formed in his mind. Would she reach behind her back to unclasp her bra and then lean forward to shimmy it down her arms? Once the bra hit the tile, would she bend over a little more to step out of her panties?

  The sound of the shower invaded his musings, and next thing he knew, he was picturing her under the spray, tipping her head back and letting warm water run in rivulets down her chilled skin. His mind’s eye filled with the vision of drops beading at the tips of her breasts, his hand cupping one perfect white globe, guiding the peak to his mouth and catching the droplets with his tongue.

  The water shut off abruptly and he realized he stood in the middle of her room with a glass of champagne in each hand and a boner the size of the Cathedral Spires in his shorts. His wet clothes felt like steam on his body. He downed one of the glasses. No help.

  An empty ice bucket sat on the top of the cabinet. He put the glasses down and picked up the bucket with the idea of doing something useful and, hopefully, cock-softening, like making an ice run…to Siberia.

  He took a step toward the entryway when the bathroom door swung open. Sophie stepped out in a sugar-scented cloud of heat, wearing a white terry cloth “Beaver Creek” robe that, thank you God, covered her from chin to toes. Still, propriety had him lowering the ice bucket to a strategic waist level.

  Her eyes found his. She offered him a hesitant smile. One that, for some inexplicable reason, grabbed him right by the balls. Then her lips parted, and that low, soft voice said, “Would you like to get out of those clothes?”

  Chapter Four

  The stunned look on Logan’s face had Sophie replaying her words. Holy crap, she’d just asked him if he wanted to get naked. “I-I mean, there’s an extra robe in here.” She pointed behind the bathroom door. “You’re welcome to it…and the shower.”

  He cleared his throat and looked down at the ice bucket in his hands. “I was about to go get some ice—”

  “I’ll do that. You go get”…naked… “cleaned up.” She hurried to the side of the bed and slipped her feet into the matching white Beaver Creek slippers the hotel supplied. Then she walked back to where he stood and held out her hand for the ice bucket.

  His chest expanded as he inhaled and it took all her restraint not to flatten her palms against his pecs and revel in the strength emanating from him even when he did something as unconscious as breathe. He exhaled and her attention moved to his diaphragm, and then to his hard, flat abs. What would it feel like to run her hands down his torso, over those ripped muscles, and under the waist of his shorts? Would his breath catch if she released the button and pulled the zipper down?

  His voice echoed in her ears, but she was so distracted by the mental picture of him reclined on her bed, with his head back, his eyes closed, and his breathing choppy as she slowly kissed her way past his unbuttoned, unzipped shorts…she completely missed his words. Had he muttered something about a cold shower?

  She jerked her eyes back to his face. “What?”

  He gave her a blank look and then shook his head. “Nothing. Here.” He handed her the ice bucket and strode toward the bathroom. At the door, he stopped, glanced back at her, and said, “Thanks, Soph. I’ll be out in a second.”

  The door clicked shut. She stifled a groan and resisted the impulse to stuff her head in the ice bucket like an ostrich. Instead she picked up the champagne flute resting on the cabinet and downed it in two gulps.

  The bubbles tickled her throat, her nose, and her useless brain. Yes, a part of her had wanted to try her hand at seducing the best man, but, come on. Would you like to get out of those clothes? She cringed and poured herself another glass of bubbly, drank half in an effort to wipe the stupid blunder out of her mind, and then picked up her key and headed down the hall to get the ice because standing there like an anxious puppy while Logan showered would do nothing for her nerves.

  The chore took no time, and soon enough she was back in the room, sipping champagne and trying to look casual and relaxed. She wandered over to the reading area, sat in one of the two cushy armchairs, and placed her feet on the ottoman. The chair seemed to swallow her. She felt like a four-year-old sitting in her father’s recliner. Not sexy. Not seductive.

  She climbed out of the chair, opened the curtains, and attempted to look absorbed by the natural beauty on display through the floor-to-ceiling French doors. Unfortunately, even with the enormous moon glowing down on the pine-studded peaks, there wasn’t much of a view at night. The pose felt contrived.

  Her gaze wandered to the bed. Did she dare? She glanced at the bathroom door. The sound of the shower pattered behind the wooden barrier. Give it a try, her inner vixen insisted. She put her glass on the nightstand, shucked off her slippers, and crawled onto the bed, then leaned back against the pile of pillows stacked at the headboard. Okay, that felt fairly normal. She looked down at herself. Her arms lay by her sides and her legs stretched stra
ight out in front of her. More virgin sacrifice than va-va-voom. She adjusted the front of her robe so it wasn’t bundled up all the way to her throat, and bent one leg until the robe draped to either side and left everything from mid-thigh to ankle exposed. For a minute she wished for a mirror on the ceiling, so she could see if she looked sexy or just plain stupid.

  She took a fortifying gulp of her champagne and considered the room. Maybe she’d feel less on display if it wasn’t so darn bright in the suite. The entryway light burned, plus the nightstand light, and a standing lamp by the chair in the reading area.

  The shower stopped.

  All right, she couldn’t reach the entryway light without getting out of bed, and she might not have enough time to get over there, flip the switch, and jump back into bed looking casual and relaxed before he came out of the bathroom. The nightstand light was too small to make much difference either way. The standing lamp had a switch on its cord. If she stretched her arm, maybe she could—

  The lock on the bathroom door clicked as the knob turned. Okay, don’t panic. Maintain the pose, just stretch a little farther. Hurry. Her fingertips brushed the cord, made a grab…and missed.

  The bathroom door opened.

  Gravity tackled her and dumped her onto the floor.

  Ohmigod! So much for seductive, unless Logan had a thing for Humpty Dumpty. Of course he was at her side in an instant, all careful hands and concern, but the only thing she could think of was the sight she made, facedown on the low-weave, with rug burns on the heels of her hands. She started to push up onto her knees, but Logan got a grip on her upper arms and in one smooth, seemingly effortless move, lifted her and plopped her down on the bed. The tie around her waist failed in the face of all the movement and her robe gaped precariously.

  The instinct to hide a part of her that had been the bane of her existence since puberty asserted itself, all the stronger because Logan crouched in front of her, his eyes basically level with her chest. She scrambled to pull the front of her robe together. He did, too, and their hands tangled for a minute.