A shocked Chase drops the stack of clothes he’s holding, presumably for me, and reaches out to keep me upright.
I realize too late that with my hands otherwise occupied on Chase’s chest, there is nothing holding my towel up. In slow motion, it slips, then slips some more.
“Eeeep!” I squeak, trying to catch the falling fabric.
I catch it halfway down my body. My full breasts are out there—hanging wild and free and unencumbered, like two party girls.
I make a noise that’s somewhere between a squeak and a squeal and jerk my towel back up.
He swallows audibly.
“Th-there was no robe,” I stutter.
“Sorry.” He pulls his gaze from my chest. “I was just coming to bring you this.” He leans down and picks up the fallen clothes, which brings his head dangerously close to my almost bare bottom half. When he straightens, his breathing seems accelerated. He clears his throat. “A T-shirt and some shorts,” he holds them out to me. “They’ll probably be too big, but it’s the best I can do.”
“Thanks,” I mumble. Can someone die of embarrassment? I fumble with the clothes, still holding the towel as best as I can.
“I’m just going to go back to the bathroom to change,” I say, with as much dignity as I can muster.
“Okay.” His gaze slides back to my body and snags on my chest again. He blows out a deep exhale and glances away abruptly. “I’ll take a shower when you’re done.”
“I know it’s a hotel and all, but I think I might have used up all the hot water.”
He shakes his head, as if coming out of a trance. Something in the way he looks at me causes the heat of embarrassment to turn into heat of another kind. I’m acutely aware that I’m wearing nothing beneath this towel. I open my mouth, but there are no words. I lick my dry lips.
His smile is slow.
“It’s okay. A cold shower sounds like a good idea,” he says in a growly voice that I feel at the very center of me.
CHAPTER 18
Olivia
I’m having one of those surreal moments. Where I stop, look at my life, and wonder how the heck I arrived here. What amalgamation of sliding doors, missed opportunities, and quirks of fate somehow added up to this here and now?
Because lying on a couch snuggled up to superstar, super-hot Chase James is just not in the context of a normal life. At least not my life.
We still haven’t talked about the towel incident. I’m highly grateful for that.
We decided to watch a movie, which is how we ended up sharing a blanket on the couch, an uber-popular sci-fi flick on in the background. I hold the giant bowl of popcorn on my lap.
Chase and I keep making up alternate dialogue for the film.
This day has been all laughs and butterflies, which is a blessing and a curse, because no guy will live up to the standard Chase has set. The only one who’s come close to making me fall this hard is Remington, but he doesn’t count because I’ve never been able to couch-snuggle with him.
Chase and I are playing a drinking game with whiskey. Well, he’s playing it with whiskey. I’m taking tentative sips of Bailey’s, which is a little more my speed. Chase called down to the concierge, and miracle of movie-star-miracles, the bottles of alcohol arrived at his door twenty minutes later, along with what looks like really good champagne. Had I known his hotel was privy to this kind of service, I wouldn’t have gone to the corner store for soup ingredients last night. I would have used the concierge fairy.
So we drink every time someone says, “Transport,” in the movie.
They say it a lot because it’s the teleport command, which means we’ve been drinking constantly, and explains why it’s such a popular game on college campuses. I’ve taken a lot of sips—not enough to get drunk, but enough to make me feel soft and fuzzy around the edges.
Chase nudges me. “You’re not paying attention to this masterpiece of modern cinema.”
“Oh, sorry. Am I missing something super good?” I ask dryly and throw a piece of popcorn that lands in his hair.
He takes the popcorn and pops it into his mouth.
“Ew.” I laugh, lightly slapping him.
He grabs my hand, speeding up my heart rate.
We started out the night sitting next to each other on the couch, a respectable distance apart. But over the course of the movie, inch by agonizing inch, we got closer. A shift here, a move there, fingers closing the distance until they touch.
Eventually, we got so close that we give up the pretense of this being accidental. At least, I don’t think it’s accidental. Definitely not on my side.
“Watch. You’re gonna miss the best part,” he orders.
“And what part is that?” I ask.
“The kissing part,” he murmurs into my ear.
The only sound is the movie—the romantic score, the sound of lips locking.
“She’s pretty,” I comment as casually as I can manage. It’s an understatement. The actress is stunning and another woman rumored to have dated Chase. I learned that in my internet-stalking research.
I shift slightly, and as I move, my breasts brush against him. The contact only lasts a moment—it’s there and gone, but I can’t help letting out a little gasp. It’s the fault of my sensitive nipples and braless state since my clothes still haven’t arrived back from housekeeping. I’m in one of Chase’s oversized T-shirts and a pair of his boxers, which hug my curves. His clothes smell like his detergent, and I never want to give them back. When he first saw me wearing them, he got all quiet, which I’m not sure how to interpret.
He clears his throat. “She’s okay, I guess,” he finally answers, his voice low and rough.
We both say nothing as the couple on the screen gets down to business. Moaning sounds fill the room. The two stars have evolved from kissing to getting naked. It’s excruciating to watch with Chase so near. A cold sweat prickles my body.
“That must be fun for the actor—getting paid to kiss pretty girls,” I say.
I feel his gaze on me instead of on the screen. “You’d think doing those scenes would be sexy, but it’s just awkward,” he says. “There are dozens of people watching, and you’re worried about how your costar feels, getting so intimate with you. You’re thinking about your lines, your angles, hitting your marks, making it look good. I’ve done more than a few now, and it’s always uncomfortable as hell.”
“But in The Wanderers, your romantic costar was your girlfriend, right? Or is? That had to make it easier.” I can’t help asking. Subtle, Olivia.
I need to know, though, because here I am on the couch with Chase, dreaming of him kissing me again, which I shouldn’t be doing if he’s another woman’s man. He doesn’t act like it, but then again, cheating in Hollywood is probably not as big of a deal as it is in the rest of the world.
“She was for a while.”
Was. As in past tense. Good.
“What happened?” I glance at him. He’s not watching the movie anymore. And I give up the pretense of it as well, focusing all my attention on him.
“We were young and in this weird bubble where we had no time for an outside life. We just filmed the movies and promoted them. We’d go from city to city on the tour, but we were mostly trapped in hotels. We had a lot of time alone together, and we helped each other through an experience that no one else could understand.” He shrugs. “It was convenient, I guess, until it wasn’t.”
He looks away, so I turn back to the screen, relieved that the movie has moved on to a fight scene. I can’t help my curiosity, though. Blame the nosy writer in me. “What changed to make it inconvenient?”