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TWELVE
ELORA
The persistent ring of my alarm forced my eyes to creep open but proved leaden with sleep. Disoriented and abnormally, pleasantly warm, mouth dry, I blinked into the gloom of a resort room blacked out to the morning light and hummed appreciatively at the hard embrace of long arms and a firm body cocooned around mine. The sensation was exquisitely similar to coming home until my groggy mind made sense of the very firm?—
My eyes flew open, body fighting the desire to bolt upright as I realized Broderick’s impressively hard dick was pressed against the curve of my ass. His gorgeous, dark, vascular forearms locked around my waist, breath hot against the back of my neck as he nuzzled into me, emitting a deliciously rough, growl from somewhere deep in his chest. The amount of mortifying teenage dreams replaying through my mind sent my willpower skittering for cover as I launched myself away from him. But my feet were trapped in a web of twisted, tangled sheets, leaving me nothing to land on save for the palms of my hands as I attempted to yank my ankles and calves free from the boa constrictor of determined bed linens.
“What the fuck?” we both said in simultaneous confusion. Mine more of a mortified, muttered curse as the unrelenting white sheets landed me face first on the scratchy hotel floor, rolling away in my misguided attempt to flee. Broderick’s in an adorably groggy bout of early morning bewilderment.
“El?” he rasped, as I ab-curled up to tear the sheet from my limbs, only to yank it off his body, which was now boldly on display. The glorious top-half anyway—at some point he’d stripped his hoodie, and evidently kicked all the blankets off and onto my feet. He wasn’t kidding about the human space heater thing. A thin sheen of sweat covered my skin, and the dry, itchy spot on my chin convinced me I’d drooled the equivalent of a small pillow lake in the Broderick-induced comatose that had implanted this impenetrable fog of insanity in my brain. As for the second? Well…that enticing bulge he’d just had pressed against my all too eager ass was now pitching an impressive tent in the dark gray sweatpants draped low across his damn hips. Like Broderick junior was determined to salute the day. Or. Me.
My mouth popped open as I traced up that line of dark hair, fingers wondering how soft or coarse it would be beneath them, before shaking the sleep and lust from my muddled mind. Broderick was gorgeous in the way ancient statues were gorgeous. He wasn’t bulky, but long and lean, like a swimmer, or runner. Which made sense, since he first became a hometown hero in high school for his ability to fly down the field like a bird on the wind. A skill which came in handy when he beat the rest of us down the bank and fished that kid out of that frozen lake senior year. That was the day everyone forgot he’d ever been a football star.
But knowing he was an athlete and admiring the evidence usually hidden beneath tweed blazers or fancy vests were two very different things.
“I uh, sorry, just—um—woke with a start. Late. We’re late. Presentation day! It’s morning. I have to?—”
My incoherent babbling seemed immensely entertaining, as a slow, mischievous smile spread over his cheeks, stoking the inferno taking up residence in mine. His stupidly gorgeous, defined cheeks. Something glinted in his eye as I clumsily flew to my feet, running my fingers through disheveled hair and cursing as I bowed my forehead into my hand.
“I’m gonna get ready—shower, I need to shower—for my presentation. Your presentation. You finish first. I mean—” I shook my head, wondering when the hell I’d ever been this flustered, if ever. But God, he felt even more delicious than he looked. Of course, he had to be even better than my fantasies. “Your presentation is on the schedule first, so if you need to shower before me, that’s fine. I can wait. I showered last night, actually, so I’m fine. I can just. Um. I’ll be going now.” To my untimely grave, please God, just swallow me whole.
A low, breathy chuckle emanated from the side of the room I would absolutely not be glancing toward as I retrieved my clothing from the table. Jiminy Cricket on a camel. Could that have been any more humiliating? Good thing I’d gotten my fill of Mistyvale hikes because under no circumstances would I be returning to an enclosed, captive proximity to this man again in my life. Presidents of billion-dollar companies—no problem? Hell, I’d met Alice’s sexy-suit-daddy asshole of a boss, and immediately confronted the company’s carbon footprint. But sharing a bed with my brothers’ best friend, and I was a babbling, bumbling imbecile.
Broderick
Dad
How’s it going?
Broderick
So far, so good.
Dad
When will we know results?
Broderick
Finalists will be announced tonight.
Dad
I have no doubts you’re one of them.
Broderick
My competitors are all more than qualified for their causes, so I’m not getting my hopes up.
Dad
Your competitors might be qualified, but my son is too humble.
How’s Elora?
I blew out a heavy breath, wishing I could hear the tone of the question. Dad was the only person I’d ever confided in about my feelings for the guys’ little sister. How was Elora? Breathtaking. That’s what I wanted to say. Instead, I slid the device into my pocket as I tracked her through the space. Elora, in a sleek black jumpsuit with a diamond cut out of the back, whisking around the room, making introductions, and helping the first-time attendees was an insane turn on. She was gorgeous. But the polished version of my Pix held nothing to the sleep-disheveled, babbling beauty that tore me from bed this morning in a flailing, sheet-stealing fiasco. I’d never seen her so…frazzled. Some purely primal, male part of my brain took a fucked-up kind of satisfaction at her sudden onset inability to articulate. And even more fucked-up satisfaction as her eyes locked on my body, that mouth popping open. Like she didn’t hate what she saw. A woman like Elora noticing you was the highest kind of compliment, but for her to gape like that…my mind concocted very different uses for that mouth before I reigned in my rogue imagination.
Off limits.
