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“In all honesty, I’m in grad school at BU,” I told him. “But my friend works at the hotel here, and she sometimes gives me a room when I need a break from my apartment mates.”
“Nice friend.”
“Exactly.”
“Was she the one who was checking you in earlier?”
I liked that. He wasn’t trying to pretend this was the first time we’d noticed each other.
“I’m going to plead the Fifth. And what about you? Are you a master of the universe or something?”
“Ha, no. I’m actually president of this hotel chain. We heard a report of staff giving away free rooms and I came to investigate.” As soon as he saw my eyes widen, he raised a hand and smiled once more. “Hey, just kidding. Your secret is safe with me.”
He turned and said something softly to the bartender, who’d come to collect his card, and a few seconds later he was scrawling his name on the bill. I felt a pinprick of disappointment.
“Enjoy the rest of your night,” he said.
“You, too.”
“And I hope you get a nice break from your apartment mates.”
I trailed him with my eyes as he left. Would there be men like him in my life one day?
I ended up staying about an hour longer, nursing the second glass of wine and simply chilling. Surprisingly the bar got even quieter, as if something was going on somewhere and almost the whole world was there except me, but that was okay. When I went to pay, the bartender told me the guy had taken care of my entire bill. Wow.
The lobby was quiet, too. I strode to the elevator, pushed the button, and stepped in as soon as the doors parted.
And then there he was again, standing inside the elevator as if he had been conjured up by a magician. It took me a second to realize that when he’d returned to the hotel, he must have come in through the rear entrance, which led to a smaller lobby one floor below.
“Hello, again,” I sputtered.
“Hello.” He held my eyes with his, which reallyweredeep, deep blue. “What is it they say? Third time’s the charm?”
My heart skipped, and my eyes drifted to the shiny brass panel with the buttons for each floor. I could tell from the one lit button that he was going to the seventh floor, too, but I pressed the button, anyway, so it wouldn’t look like I was planning to follow him back to his room.
The car stopped and he motioned for me to go first, and I stepped out into the sage green hallway. It was empty and silent, except for the whooshing sound of the elevator shooting back to the lobby.
“Well, good night again,” I said, standing stock-still. My pulse was racing, and I felt desire I couldn’t explain shooting through me.
“Good night. I’m C.J., by the way.”
“Skyler,” I said.
He stepped closer to me, cupped my face with his hand, and kissed me softly on the mouth.
And then we were kissing deeper, so close I could feel his heartbeat.
He asked if I wanted to go to his room, and I told him yes. Once there he explained he didn’t have any protection but was happy to run out to a drugstore, but I told him I had condoms in my purse. We began peeling off each other’s clothes, and his body turned out to be exactly how I’d imagined it might be. Strong, fit, the body of a man and not some college student.
The sex began kind of languorously at first, an erotic slow burn with deep kisses and an exploration of each other’s body, but soon things became greedier and more urgent, like a fast-moving wildfire. He seemed so eager to please me, with both his hands and his mouth. I’d slept with one guy in high school and several in college, but none of them had come close to being as skilled as C.J., and at moments I had trouble catching my breath.
Afterward, as I lay in the crook of his arm, I felt almost high from the sheer pleasure of the past hour. I knew I should let myself savor the experience, but at the same time I felt sad that it was allbehindme now. I wanted nothing more than to be going toward it for the first time again.
It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when I got up to use the bathroom, that Chloe drifted back into my thoughts. I was still pissed that she’d left without saying goodbye, but if I hadn’t been desperate to unwind after the stress of looking for her last night, I might have passed up Tess’s offer of a room. Which means I would still be in the dark about how staggeringly great sex could be with the right man.
And then she was gone from my thoughts once more. I didn’t think of her again until the next morning. Just before everything went to ruin.
10
