Page 42 of Wild

The check marks turned blue almost instantly, and Barry started typing.

Barry

Maybe not, but you're funny without trying to be, Dooley. Dry and weird, but it works for me.

She smiled again, replied with an emoji, and slid her phone into her side pocket. She checked the time and saw fifteen minutes had passed—enough for Mia's heart rate to have settled—so she stepped out into the hallway and headed straight for her dressing room. It struck her as odd that the door wasn't fully shut, just barely ajar, but Mia's bodyguard was standing right next to it, keeping watch, so nobody was sneaking in.

Erin nodded at him and he turned to say something, lifting a hand to signal her to wait, but she'd already nudged the door open—just enough to see Mia standing by the vanity. It took her a few seconds to process what was in front of her, because the singer hadn't showered yet, she was still in the same clothes she'd finished the show in, and her palms were pressed against the waist of a woman with ash-blonde hair, that woman's hands on her ass and her tongue in Mia's mouth. Mia was kissing her hungrily, stumbling backward with her toward the couch at the far end of the room.

The doctor stepped back and pulled the door shut, then turned to the bodyguard.

"Why is it open?" she asked, irritated—as if she were only concerned about Mia's privacy and nothing else.

"She left it that way. Why?"

She gave him a look like he was an idiot and shook her head, moving away from the dressing room door with one hand in her pocket and the other twisting her ponytail between her fingers. She went into the medical room and sat on the exam table, trying to process the burning inside her and control the tightness in her chest. She felt stupid for every second she'd spent thinking that maybe Mia felt something more than the urge to add her to a list. The answer was right there, a few yards down the hall, where the singer was probably already undressed.

"What are you thinking about, with that face on you?" Lexie's voice from the hallway made her jump.

The journalist had been walking past and stopped when she spotted Erin. She didn't hesitate to step in without being invited, or to ease the door shut behind her.

"Are you okay?" Lexie asked.

Erin's gray eyes were like a storm cloud when they lifted to the journalist, who felt an involuntary pulse between her legs nudge her a couple of steps closer.

"Perfectly fine," Erin replied, her voice low and rough with something like anger.

"You look like you want to murder someone, but I'll take your word for it," Lexie said with a small smile.

Erin didn't smile back, and that only stoked the heat spreading through the journalist's body—especially in the middle of it.

"My hotel's close by," she said softly, not needing to add anything more, because the gray-eyed woman had already caught on.

"I can't leave Mia's hotel—I need to stay nearby and available in case—"

"Yours works too," Lexie cut in, taking two more steps until she stood between Erin's legs. Erin lifted her eyes, held her gaze, and did nothing to push her away.

She didn't move when Lexie took one more step and got close enough that Erin had no choice but to part her thighs a little wider, and she didn't stop her when the journalist tilted her head and pressed a soft kiss to her ear that sent a shiver through her.

"Is your silence a yes?" Lexie whispered, dragging her nails lightly along Erin's neck, who barely held back a sharp breath.

"Yes," she answered, and she decided not to ask herself whether she was giving in out of pure revenge for something she couldn't quite name, or because Lexie was attractive and easy to be around, and she'd gone months without sex.

She grabbed her things and walked out of the medical room with the journalist beside her. Erin moved at a fast clip, as if she were suddenly desperate to get out of her clothes and let Lexie do everything she seemed to be promising with her eyes. She spotted Noah at the far end of the hallway and picked up her pace to catch him.

"I'm heading to the hotel now, Noah. Make sure she eats something, or—" Erin turned and, for some reason, glanced toward the dressing room door, "—or at least make sure she stays hydrated when she's done with whatever she's doing. I'll stop by her suite in the morning."

"Yeah, of course." Noah scratched his messy hair and dropped his eyes a little, and Erin realized he already knew what was happening in his friend's dressing room right now. "Have fun."

For a moment she didn't know what he meant, but then she remembered Lexie was right beside her and it was pretty obvious she was leaving with her.

"You too."

Chapter 16

Erin is lying on her back, awake for about twenty minutes. She's naked, the sheet pulled up only to her waist, one arm resting across her stomach and the other tucked under her head, staring at the floor-to-ceiling window she forgot to close the curtains on last night, letting the morning light wake her without mercy. Lexie is beside her, lying on her side with her hair fanned across the pillow and her expression completely relaxed.

They didn't waste time. They didn't stop for a drink when they got to the hotel, and they barely said more than a handful of words in the cab that brought them there. When they walked into the room, Lexie backed her against the wall and kissed her while pulling her shirt out of her pants and sliding her hands underneath the fabric. It didn't take Erin long to get into it. Lexie is attractive, close to her own age—that was one of the few things she'd managed to learn on the way over—the journalist is thirty-four, not Mia's twenty-six, which sometimes feels like an uncrossable distance.