And that means I have to let go of my wife.
Freaking Lucas.
“Hey,” I say, bumping his fist. They all cram in, and I angle Kayla away from the guys, mostly to avoid them dripping pool water on her. Fletch gives me a nod. “What floor?” I ask him.
“We’re all on the top. With you,” Fletch mutters, almost apologetically. “They have a strict curfew, but I can’t promise they won’t be idiots.”
Kayla and I share a glance. My room is on the fourth floor, not the fifteenth, with them.
Heat bubbles in my chest, feeling less like excitement and more like anxiety. Kayla bites the inside of her cheek.
“So how was the pool?” Kayla asks.
“I was in the sauna,” Fletch says. “The yahoos were swimming. At least at first. Then they all decided to join me.”
“Team bonding,” one of them jokes.
“Come on, Coach,” another says. “You act like you didn’t love every minute.”
Fletch closes his eyes like every word hurts.
The elevator stops at the top floor, and everyone files out. Kayla and I hold hands and walk down the hall, but it feels different with people watching. We have to think about what they’re thinking. The team. We’re being watched by at least eight red-blooded males, and every one of them would be all over Kayla if they had the chance.
And I’m just holding her hand?
Kayla’s room is at the end of the hall, so as we pass room after room, guys enter them. But they don’t stay there. They prop their doors open and walk in and out of each other’s rooms.
“We have an audience,” I say, hoping she understands I’m not trying to cross a line.
Even if I happen to like crossing this one.
As she pulls out her key card, I stand behind her and put one hand on her waist. The other sweeps her hair away from her neck, and I press a kiss to the smooth ivory skin just above her collarbone.
Oh, man.
Oh.
Man.
Her skin. It’s addicting. It’s so soft, so smooth, it shouldn’t be legal. It’s all I can do not to let my lips make a trail up her neck, to her ear and jaw. It’s taking every ounce of willpower I have not to spin her around and kiss her until she can’t see straight.
But I keep my lips there, in that same spot above her collarbone, waiting for her to open the door.
Except, she isn’t opening the door.
She’s stopped.
She’s stoppedeverything. Moving. Breathing. It’s a total stillness, like she physically cannot move.
My hands tighten on her waist. “Sorry,” I whisper. “Too much?”
Her face leans against mine, like it’s reflexive, like my breath and lips against her neck have tripped her breaker. “Ask me when my brain starts working again,” she mutters.
I chuckle, and she shivers.
And Lucas yells, “Get a room!”
And as she finally gets the door open and we walk into the room, I can’t stop myself from popping my head out and calling back, “We did.”
