Nate woke with a start, the familiar nightmare jolting him into awareness. His breath sawed in and out of his chest. A sheen of sweat beaded his skin. The deafening thunder of mortar shells exploding pinged around inside of his brain, and he gave his head a violent shake as though it would dislodge the memory that would live with him until the day he died.
There was no fucking way he was going to get through the day. Meetings with his dad’s lawyers and his board of directors and then a family meeting with his brothers so they could discuss Miranda and what in the hell they were going to do to keep her pestering ass off their backs. He’d be a basket case by dinner and everyone would see firsthand what Nate had known all along: that he wasn’t even close to having his shit together and probably never would.
He needed a distraction from his own goddamned thoughts and memories. Something to take the edge off …
Nate reached for the piece of hotel notepad paper and stared at the number scrawled across it. It had been a couple of days since his one-night stand with Chloe and he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She’d left the next morning while he was still asleep, which usually sent a pretty clear message. But then he’d found her number scribbled on the notepad with her name below it.
Relationships weren’t really Nate’s thing. He used sex as a distraction. A form of self-therapy to keep him level. One-nighters and casual encounters with no strings attached got the job done. He hadn’t even gotten Chloe’s last name and that’s how he liked it. Hell, he wouldn’t have needed her first name to have fucked her that night. They’d had a good time, parted ways, and that should have been the end of it. Chloe was different, though. Her confidence, her brazen passion, and the fact that she was unashamed of wanting pleasure heated Nate’s blood. He’d violate his one-time rule for her. He had to have her again.
Nate grabbed his cell from the bedside table and dialed her number.
“Thank you for calling the Youth Sports Foundation of Dallas. How may I direct your call?”
He pulled the phone away from his ear and compared the number to the one scribbled on the hotel notepad. “Is Chloe there?”
A pregnant pause answered. “Can I tell her who’s calling?”
“Nate Christensen.”
“Oh!” The receptionist’s tone perked up instantly. “Just a moment please.”
Her reaction was one of the reasons why he hated giving out his full name to people. He was immediately connected to his family’s—well, his dad’s—money and clout. Even in basic, they’d gone easy on him. Until Nate developed an attitude that gave the drill instructors no choice but to go even harder on him. Some frilly top 40 hit played through the receiver as he waited.
“This is Chloe Benson.”
Nate found himself smiling at her professional tone. As though she didn’t know who was on the other line and the dirty things he’d whispered in her ear only a couple of days ago. “I want to see you.”
“I’m sorry, who is this?”
He heard the smile in her voice and it stirred something in his chest, not to mention his cock. “You know who this is. I want to see you. Today.”
“I don’t know…” she said wistfully. “Usually when a guy waits longer than a day to call me, I write him off. I’ve got a pretty full schedule today.”
“So do I,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I’m not willing to move a few things around. I’ll order room service.”
“Oh, will you? You think that’s enough to get me to come over?”
“No,” he said simply. “You’ll do it because of the way your body trembles when I make you come.”
She let out a rush of breath and that whisper of sound was enough to make Nate hard as stone.
“Eight o’clock.” She cleared the breathiness from her voice. “I have a late meeting tonight.”
Before Nate could respond, she hung up. He tossed his cell to the mattress beside him. He’d dreaded the trip to Dallas. Didn’t know how he’d get through the next couple of weeks. But thanks to his feisty little eavesdropper, there was a light at the end of his very bleak tunnel.
His? Not even close. But maybe he could make her his for a few days at least.
A knock came at the door and Nate took stock of what was going on down south before he made the decision to answer the door. He wasn’t interested in dealing with company while his cock was flying at full mast.
He opened the door to find Carter waiting in the hallway, his shoulder propped against the wall. “Jesus, you’re just now getting up?” Without waiting for an answer he plowed into the room leaving Nate to stare after him. “We’re meeting with the lawyers in a half hour.”
“I told you, you don’t have to go. I can handle it.” Christ, did everyone in the family think he was incompetent? “Where are the girls?”
“Babysitter. And I know I don’t have to go. I want to go. If anything to convince you not to hand off the money you deserve to a deceitful viper who’ll be moving on to her next seventy-year-old fat cat before the year is up.”
Nate snorted. “If I’d wanted this life, I would have gotten my MBA.”