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I watch with interest when the redhead cruises past the concierge desk with a shy grin and a wave before she accepts a recently encrypted hotel room keycard from Lesley without handing over a single form of ID.
Just before she reaches the guest elevator, she stops her shadow’s follow by fanning her hand across his chest.
My clipped nails dig into my palm better than the heavy bags’ woven handles when she peers up at him, blinking and with hued cheeks. They appear friendly.
“I’ve got this,” she assures him, her voice as sugary sweet as her ageless face.
I’ve never been good at guessing ages, but I’m confident she would have been in junior high when I was incarcerated. That makes her only a couple of years younger than me since I was charged my senior year. The difference in our age seems like more since you age two years for every one behind bars.
The brute denies her assurance by folding his chunky arms over his chest and briskly shaking his head. “I’d rather make sure you arrive in one piece.”
A vein in the man’s forehead presents as fast as my confusion when she replies, “And run the risk of losing the girls’ tail?” She looks past him, her expression hard to read. “They’re probably already halfway to Hopeton by now.”
My brows stitch together. Hopeton will never hold the stigma of sex and intrigue like Ravenshoe. It’s somewhat like my hometown, Johnston Bay, the equivalent of Ravenshoe’s seedy half-brother. It is expensive and upcoming, but its services are more for hire than long-term investment.
It is usually the town men visit when wanting the services of a prostitute.
I take a startled step back when a theory trickles into my woozy head. Knox said the concierge keeps the room next to mine empty for professional services, and every time my floor number was mentioned tonight, someone’s face turned the color of beets.
Could that be the reason for the beauty’s visit?
Is she here to work?
It makes sense that the hotel staff know her. She didn’t give Lesley anything but a smile to gain access to the guest-only elevators. She breezed in like she owned the place—a common trait for the women Knox was notorious for associating with my first year of incarceration.
My focus shifts back to the redhead when her promise that she can take care of herself causes hesitation to harden her shadower’s features. He contemplates for half a second before an engine revving outside the hotel sees him issuing a stern warning. “Straight to your room.”
The redhead’s salute is adorable and condescending at the same time. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m not joking, Nicole,” he snaps back, as distrusting of her answer as I am.
She couldn’t lie straight in bed if paid to do so, and playfulness is all over her face.
It truly appears as if her night is only just getting started.
When tires shrieking add to the commotion outside, the brute mutters under his breath, “I don’t get paid enough for this shit,” before he hotfoots it out of the hotel, leaving Nicole alone and me with a chance.
4
NICOLE
As my thumb jabs the door close button, a muscular, tattooed-to-the-elbow arm shoots between the almost-shut doors, halting their closure with only a second to spare.
“That was a close call,” murmurs a dark-haired man with a cropped beard, bulky jacket, and jeans that leavenothingto the imagination.
Although I shouldn’t be looking, even a nun would be tempted to drink in the outline of the beast in his pants. The bulge is ginormous, and it dries my mouth in an instant.
When I snap my eyes to the side, mortified I’m acting like the harlot I’d tried to portray earlier tonight, the unnamed gent I’m eyeballing like dessert enters the generously spaced car. The span of his step is impressive, but it has nothing on the smell radiating off his ruggedly handsome outer shell.
He smells like freshly laundered sheets and another scent I can’t quite work out.
Too curious for my own good, I lick my lips to soothe their dryness before dragging my eyes from the elevator wall to the stranger’s face.
The beat of my heart grows even wilder.
His rugged yet polished features are as captivating as his scent. His jaw is tight and covered by a few days of scruff. His light-brown, almost transcalent eyes put my head in a tizzy. Although his sense of fashion is a little off for this decade, not even a full-blown clown suit could detract from his sexiness—and that’s saying something because I can’t look at a clown without wanting to pee my pants.
He is gorgeous, and his panty-wetting voice makes the heat in the elevator car even more noticeable when he thanks me for the opportunity to ogle everything he has on offer. “Thanks for waiting for me.”
