Shit.
She’d been casual about the hotel night since it’d happened because she’d been mortified by her poor decisions. She’d teasingly acted like she only had fleeting memories because it was easier to blow the whole thing off, but the truth was that she remembered all of it.
Every. Single. Hot. Minute.
She cleared her throat and said, “Um . . . all of it?”
“Wait.” His eyebrows went straight up. “What?”
She bit down on her lip and nodded.
“You lying little shit,” he said, laughing, tugging on a strand of her hair. “Well, then you have to know what I mean.”
She did. She knew exactly what he meant. But she wanted him so badly that she said, “I don’t, actually.”
His eyes narrowed, calling her bluff without saying a word.
“What?” she said.
“Okay. Y’know what we’re going to do instead of having sex tonight?”
She rolled her eyes. “Sleep, like sex-hating losers?”
He moved his face a little closer and nipped at her chin, then pulled back. “We’re going to talk about that night. In great detail.”
“Why would we do that?” She watched her hand as it reached out, seemingly of its own accord, and wove its way into his hair.
“Because when we’re done, you’ll concede my point that if we sleep together again, we’ll start sleeping together all the time until we die.”
“Cocky much?”
He put a finger over her lips and said, “It all started in the kitchen. You remember? You were sitting on the counter and you said ‘My lips are cold from the Rumple Minze,’ and I said—”
“?‘Let me warm them up.’?” She remembered his charming grin. “And then you said, ‘God, please.’?”
His lips slid into a flirty half smile. “Instead of answering, you climbed onto my lap.”
Hallie’s cheeks warmed as she thought about that moment, about how charmed she’d been by Jack. “I did.”
“Swear to God, I nearly lost it right there,” he said, looking sexy and sweet all at the same time with his head on the fluffy pillow. “You were so fucking hilarious, but then you pulled some wizard shit and turned into a damned seductress.”
“Shut up,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Seriously.” He looked up at the ceiling, like the scene was being replayed for him. “Just like that you were on my lap, in my hands, and my tongue was on your minty lips.”
She felt like closing her eyes and just listening to the sexy bedtime story, but instead she added, “Which was great until you tripped over the box of bananas.”
They’d started kissing and he stood, holding her while she wrapped her legs around his waist. He’d started walking, intending on taking them somewhere, but then he tripped.
“I could’ve crushed you,” he said around a quiet laugh.
“But instead you recovered and stumbled your way to the service elevator.” Hallie closed her mouth, positive she couldn’t talk about the elevator without spontaneously combusting.
“Finally. The service elevator.” Jack gave her a wolfish grin before scooching just a little closer to her on the bed. “I would really like to hear it from your point of view, Tiny Bartender. Tell me about the elevator.”
Jack
Jack would never forget what’d happened.
Between kisses, they’d joked that they should just stop the elevator and go at it. He’d had her pinned against the wall, kissing the hell out of her, and then she’d done it.
She’d hit the button and stopped the elevator.
“We were grinding like teenagers,” Hallie said, grinning, bringing him out of his flashback. “And I stopped the elevator. That’s it. We kissed in that elevator for a very long time.”
“Really.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding.
“That’s your recollection,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, laughing.
“I think it’s more of a matter of what we kissed, don’t you?”
“Oh, my God, Jack!”
“That’s what you said in the elevator,” he said, laughing, “when I was kissing your—”
“No.” She put her hand over his mouth, her cheeks red as her eyes danced. “That’s enough.”
He moved his face from behind her hand. “Are you ready to admit that we would become friends-with-benefits addicts if we slept together?”
She rubbed her lips together. “I will concede that you might have a tiny point.”
God, why was he suddenly obsessed with her mouth? All of a sudden, he was like a predator and her lips were his prey.
He prompted, “And . . . ?”
“And fine. No sex.”
“Are you sure?”
“Am I sure?” She looked at him like he was crazy. “What are you doing here?”
“I just mean if you want to discuss this further, I’d be more than happy to talk about sex against hotel room walls, and sex on hotel room desks—which, if I recall, was your absolute favorite—”
“Why can’t you shut up?” Hallie moaned, shoving her hands over his mouth. “I said you were right, so stop talking!”
He tickled under her arm to get her to let go, and then he rolled on top of her. Instant mistake. He’d done it to remind her he was the winner, to lord his victory over her and pin her down, but the feel of her body underneath his was too much.
She blinked up at him, looking like she felt exactly what he was feeling, and whispered, “It was really, really good, wasn’t it, Jack?”
He looked down at her face, her funny, stubborn, beautiful face, and he couldn’t find his voice.
So he just nodded.
Chapter
TWENTY-FOUR
Hallie
Hallie leaned over the bed and whispered, “Jack.”
He opened his sleepy blue eyes, and she wanted to rub her hand over the morning scruff on his jaw. The blanket had ridden down to his waist, and she was having trouble focusing with his half-naked torso laid out before her.
“Quit dripping on me,” he said, rubbing his eyes and sitting up.
“Sorry.” She moved her head, but that just dripped more water on him. “Just got out of the shower.”
“Did you? I couldn’t tell.”
“Are you always grumpy in the morning?” She sat down on the edge of the bed and thought he looked like an adorable little brat as he was waking up. “This is fascinating.”
“I’m only grumpy when I find myself in a real-life only-one-bed trope.”
She laughed at that. “Don’t blame me. If we’d railed last night, you probably would’ve slept like a baby.”
“I don’t think ‘railed’ is the proper derivative of getting railed,” he growled, and she thought it was funny how much deeper his voice was in the morning.
“If you’d railed me—is that better? If we’d railed the hell out of each other?” She snorted at that and said, “Ooh, that’s a good one.”
“Why are you so perky this morning?”
“Well,” Hallie said, and paused. She was ridiculously peppy because she’d had a blast spending the night with Jack. Had they shared a night of passion? Nope, not even close, really. But sleeping in the same bed as him, hearing the snuffly sleeping noises he made, waking up to his arm resting over her in his sleep—she’d loved every bit of it. “There are donuts in the lobby.”