Chapter 5 - Veronica
“So what have you guys got planned for us tomorrow,” Carter asked, moving closer to me and draping his arm over my shoulder. My whole body hummed. Being this close to him was almost too much for me to handle. Every heartbeat sent waves of desire coursing through me.
“Oh, you know, the usual ‘rock star’ sort of thing. Bad boys, leather, black,” Lacie responded with a grin.
“The usual ‘rock star’ sort of thing,” Carter repeated. “I might be wrong, but it sounds like you might be making fun of us.”
“Not at all,” Lacie replied innocently. She grinned at me. “We’re just working with what you’re giving us.”
“And that is…?” Maddox asked.
Carter’s arm tightened on my shoulders and my heart beat a bit faster. I moved my hand to his knee, feeling like my chest was going to explode. I hadn’t been this nervous around a man since… I don’t know, ever? Since I was fourteen, maybe.
“You’re giving us the ‘bad boy rocker’ vibe.” Lacie, said, batting her eyelashes at Maddox. I grinned. She was a great flirt. “Trashing hotel rooms, bankruptcy, angry exes,” she teased. “We’ve all seen the papers.”
Carter growled beside me, and I looked over at him. His eyes drank me in, sending more shivers coursing through me. I felt like I could stare at his face for ages. My tongue darted out to moisten my lips, and Carter’s eyes followed the motion. They flicked back up to mine and I just about melted in my seat.
Maddox laughed and I jumped. “What if I told you that we were actually just three sensitive guys who were going through a tough time right now?”
“If that were true,” Lacie said slowly, “I would be very sympathetic. But I don’t condone any sort of trashing of any sort of room.”
“Maybe because you haven’t done it yet,” Carter laughed, tearing his eyes away from me. “It’s actually really cathartic.”
“‘Yet’ he says,” I grinned, rolling my eyes as he looked at me again. “As if you two will corrupt us so easily.”
“You never know,” Carter replied, leaning in closer to me. His scent filled my nostrils and it was all I could do to stop myself from leaning in and kissing him right there.
What was going on?
We were supposed to work together. We would be working together for months. And here I was, barely able to contain the lust in me just from sitting beside him.
I mean, I knew what was going on. I wanted him. Desperately.
But that didn’t mean I had to act on it. I just wanted to act on it really, really badly.
Maddox glanced at Carter, and I saw them exchange a knowing look. Maddox looked at me, and then swung his gaze to Lacie.
“What do you ladies say we get out of here?” He said. “Our place is only a short drive away, and I’m not going to lie, it’s a lot nicer than O’Grady’s.”
Lacie turned to me with a loaded look. I swallowed, a war of emotions waging inside me. I wanted to go with them. I wanted to have Carter’s arm around me, to feel his fingers sliding over my skin and to taste his lips.
I wanted those things, but was it a good idea?
Morgan would probably kill us if we did.
Lacie blushed, and I knew what she wanted. And you know what? Fuck it. Her mom was sick, My ex was stalking me, and we finally had the chance to have a bit of fun. Lacie saw me smile and turned back to Maddox.
“Sure,” Lacie said. “We’d love to. Never been to a rock star’s house before.”
“You guys live together?” I asked, arching my eyebrow at Carter.
He nodded. “Ever since we moved over from Colorado. I’ve know this guy since I was fourteen.”
“Kind of like us,” Lacie laughed. “Vee and I have known each other since grade school.”
Maddox slipped out of the booth and held out his hand to Lacie. She stuffed the rest of her papers in her bag, looking at me with wide eyes. I know she was thinking exactly the same things as me: are we really doing this?
And the answer was yes. Yes we were.
Lacie cleared her throat and nodded towards the washrooms. “Just gonna pop in there and I’ll meet you out front.”
“Sure,” Maddox answered, and Lacie glanced at me.
“Me too,” I said, knowing she wanted to talk, and I followed her to the washrooms.
As soon as the door closed, Lacie turned towards me with her hands up.
“What the fuck are we doing?”
“I don’t know,” I laughed. “Do you want to?”
“Yes,” she said. “So badly.”
“Me too.”
“But should we?” She chewed her lip, glancing at me with concern in her eyes.
I took a deep breath, looking in the mirror and pulling out my travel makeup bag to touch up my face. I took a deep breath, looking at my best friend in the mirror.
“Probably not,” I said. “I mean, if you think about it, we’re going to be working with these guys for a while, and going over to their house the first day we meet them probably isn’t the most professional thing we could do.”
“Uh-huh,” Lacie said, stepping up to the mirror to fix up her own makeup.
“Yeah, I mean, if we were thinking from a professional standpoint, it’s probably a bad idea.”
“Uh-huh,” Lacie repeated, putting a fresh coat of lipstick on.
“But then again, they are really, really attractive. And neither of us have gotten laid in way too long.”
“We don’t have to sleep with them,” Lacie said as if she were trying to convince herself. “We can just go for a drink, see their house, and then go home.”
“Right,” I answered with a nod. “Just because we go there doesn’t mean we have to do anything.”
“It would be rude not to go,” she said, glancing at me through the mirror and grinning.
I started laughing. “Exactly. Wouldn’t want to start this working relationship off on the wrong foot.”
Lacie tucked her lipstick back in her bag and smoothed her hair. “And plus, they are our future husbands, aren’t they? Didn’t we say that this morning?”
I grinned. “We did. Or at least our future exes, or future best-one-night-stand stories.”
Lacie laughed, biting her lip and looking at me. “I really want to go,” she confessed.
“So do I.”
And that was it. We walked out of the bar and into the evening and found the two sexiest men we’d ever met standing by the entrance.
I could feel Lacie’s nerves from just standing next to her. She took a deep breath and plastered a big smile over her face.
“We were thinking,” she said, “Since we don’t know the way to your place, that Veronica could jump in with Carter in your car, and I could drive Vee’s car with you.”
Carter was eyeing me up and down, and it was making my pulse speed up to dizzying levels.
“Sounds good,” Carter replied, never taking his eyes off me. We hadn’t discussed that particular plan, but it made sense to me. Being alone with Carter made my heart skip a beat.
Maddox walked over to Lacie, presenting my arm to her. “M’lady,” I said.
She laughed. “Wow, what a gentleman,” she said, rolling her eyes and hooking her arm in Maddox’s. “Come on, Vee’s car is just here.”
They walked off, and Carter and I were alone. His hand drifted down my arm and he interlaced his fingers in mine. “My car is this way, Veronica.”
“Call me Vee, please,” I smiled.
He nodded. The touch of his hand against mine was going to my head. We walked, our steps falling in sync as we made our way to his gleaming black car. He opened the passenger’s side door for me, and I grinned.
“I think we got the right end of this deal,” I said. “This is a lot nicer than my rusty old Chevy.”
“What, this old piece of junk?” He said, kicking the chrome wheel. The whole car was gleaming.
I laughed, getting in the car. I watched him jog around the front of the car, loving the way his muscles strained against his tee-shirt. What did he look like without that shirt on, I wondered?
He got in and grinned at me. “Let’s go.”