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Her expressive eyebrows shot up. “Are you delusional?”
He shrugged. “There’s a skull and crossbones on the pack, man. I gotta have it.”
She rolled her eyes, but her gaze shifted to the floor, and then to his neck before returning to her battered Chucks.
He swallowed down the instinctive flood of saliva in his mouth. She kept glancing at his chest and neck. Normally that would be a green light for some serious flirtation, but this was Denver.
She didn’t flirt.
At least not with him.
He’d caught her getting slightly friendly with a guy on a Harley after one of their shows once. Though Ryan was fairly certain she was drooling over the guy’s chrome and leather, not the biceps be kept showing off. Didn’t mean Ryan had liked seeing her show interest in some bullshit motorcycle club dude, but he didn’t have any hold on her.
And most of the time he didn’t even think about her that way. “Most of the time” being the operative words. He was a red-blooded male, and Denver filled out a pair of jeans like no other. Add in the paper-thin plaid shirts she wore—just like tonight—and he’d had a stray thought or seven about her naked.
Okay, maybe seventeen.
He punched the correct number and the condoms dropped to the bottom like a stone. Now buying them felt fucking weird. He retrieved them and stuffed them into his pocket.
She jammed her fists into her denim jacket and headed up the next flight of stairs without a word. The three-pack burned against his thigh. He had a fourth tucked behind his license in his wallet—maybe even a fifth.
It had been a while since he’d had to dig in and look. Most of the women he’d been with lately had a stash in their purse. They went into one-night stands with a purpose and safety first.
He couldn’t say that wasn’t hot. He always appreciated a straight-forward woman. Probably why he liked Denver so goddamn much. And why everything about tonight was dangerous. Even with bruised ribs and a sore jaw, he had way too many ideas about what he could do to, and with, her.
He adjusted his buckle and groaned as he faced the next flight of stairs. This time a whole different ache was prohibiting his climb.
By the time they got to the eighth floor, his chest was tight and he was cursing the fact that he hadn’t grabbed that bag of Cheetos. Or a Coke—especially the Coke. Fuck, his mouth was dry and the metallic tinge of blood still lingered around his molars.
She didn’t wait for him. Instead she went right for their door, and the rattle of the key in the ancient lock made him wince. Yeah, secure-as-fuck place.
Good thing there wasn’t anything in his wallet.
Though he wasn’t especially happy about the wad of money he’d seen in Denver’s Wonder Woman wallet. A chunk had been given to the front desk, but there was still a good stack of tens and twenties in there.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d carried cash with him. The green at the poker game had been the most he’d seen in a long while. Most of his life was lived by his phone and the Apple Pay app, or his credit card.
“They can’t be serious.”
Ryan’s eyebrow rose at Denver’s voice. His gaze tracked to the next door down the hall. Roof access. Figures.
He followed her inside. “Penthouse, ha.”
“What?” Her huge eyes were wide with shock.
“The next door over says roof access.”
She peered out the window. “Bet a few wanted to hurl themselves off the roof after seeing this room.”
The place was shabby, but not terrible. No, her reaction was to the biggest piece of furniture in the room. Naturally the large, round bed had a blood-red comforter with a hummingbird and black flowers stitched on it. The wrought-iron headboard that curved around half of it was the real clincher.
Holy fuck.
Ryan snickered. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
Matching red blinds covered part of the neon light barging into the room. The black hummingbirds and silhouette flowers were probably supposed to show a little class. Instead they made the place look even shabbier with a side of ridiculous.
“Who the hell designed this?”
