Three
Keaton held back a moan of pleasure as Brooke leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his waist, but he closed his eyes, squeezed her shoulders, and pressed his face to the top of her head, inhaling the sweet scent of her shampoo.
Then asked, “Which way? Where are you staying?”
“Right. Four Seasons.”
He let one of those “aren’t you fancy?” sounds roll from his throat as he turned that direction down the sidewalk and strolled past the darkened commercial businesses toward the river. “Certainly coming up in the world, Miss Dempsey.”
“If I could work for someone like Ellie again, I’d take a Motel 6 in a heartbeat.”
He’d noticed that she’d shied away from any kind of negative conversation tonight. And he still couldn’t believe they’d sat there and talked for three hours. Three freaking hours. He didn’t talk to anyone for three hours. Not even his Renegade buddies. Not even about their jobs. Which were like a religion to them. Yet the time with Brooke had flown by. Just as if the year since they’d seen each other had never happened.
Keaton couldn’t remember the last night he’d enjoyed as much as this one. If they only had more time. Or lived closer. Or…shit. He didn’t know. So he stuck with safe subjects.
“Your boss is that bad, huh?” he asked.
She didn’t answer right away, and when Keaton looked down at her, she had her face twisted up in a way that made him laugh.
“Shut up.” She laughed. “I’m trying to think of something good to say.”
“Stop trying and just say the first thing that comes to your mind.”
Brooke groaned and said, “She’s a crazy fucking bitch.”
Humor exploded at the center of his chest, and Keaton burst out laughing. He laughed so hard, he stopped walking and pressed his free hand to his thigh to stay upright. He had the perfect image of the woman Brooke worked for in his mind. And he knew exactly why Brooke was so miserable. It wasn’t funny. It was just so damned ironic.
“What did I say?” she wanted to know, half laughing at him as he caught his breath.
He shook his head and straightened. “Oh, this industry. I think it exposes us to more than our fair share of the crazies.”
“Amen.”
They’d reached the end of the street, where the pavement gave way to a trail leading along the river. One that also connected their hotels. He took her hand and started down the stairs.
“Hmmm, the river trail at night.” Her hand tightened in his. “I wouldn’t do this with anyone but you.”
That made a few of his male feathers fluff. “Our hotels are only a quarter mile apart. With all the exterior lights between the two, the path is lit up pretty well.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Radisson.” He pointed down the trail on the right. “Can’t really see it, but it’s just right there. I’ve been running the trail in the morning.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs, and even though the path was well lit, she released his hand and slid both arms around his waist, cuddling into his side. “I’d still feel better closer to you.”
Damn, she felt so good. All soft and warm and curvy. She smelled like flowers and vanilla and honey. And then she tilted her chin up and the smile she gave him was so beautiful, it made Keaton think about things he’d never thought about—like more of these quiet walks along the river. Made him want things he’d never wanted—like the same woman to take those walks with every day.
“Baby,” he said, “you definitely feel better closer to me.”
She laughed and stroked one hand over his belly and up his chest. The move was innocuous in his world of casual sex with highly sexed women. But right now, with Brooke, the touch opened a floodgate of fire through his body. And even though he kept telling himself he wanted something different, even when his soul ached for more connection and more meaning, his body pushed lusty thoughts into his head.
After years of sex with uninhibited, wild, inventive, kinky, risqué women, Keaton’s mind twisted toward adventurous sexcapades with Brooke, right here, right now—out in the open, up against a tree, at the risk of having anyone walk by. Sitting her on the dock railing, lifting that pretty skirt and burying his face in her pussy until her screams broke the night’s silence. Letting her ride him on a bench along the path—
“Keaton?”
“Hmm?” He jerked himself out of the fantasies. “Sorry, what?”
She was standing in front of him, her body pressed against his in the sultry night. It was no wonder his mind had drifted that direction. She felt delicious against him. Like he-wanted-his-mouth-all-over-her delicious.
“Where were you?” she asked, her voice soft, laced with desire.
Or was that his imagination? He couldn’t tell anymore. “Oh, you know. The end of filming, I’m a little brain dead at this point…”
“Are you? Because tonight sort of reminds me of our last night together in California.” She grinned. “If, you know, you take away the humidity and the bugs…”
Keaton laughed.
Her hands trailed up his arms as she stretched up his body and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Keaton’s arms automatically circled her, pulling her close, and he groaned at the feel of her curves pressing against him.
“Mmm, baby.” Fire spread between his legs, lit up his spine. He dropped his face to her shoulder. “You’re going to blow my circuits.”
Her fingers combed into his hair. The scrape of her nails on his scalp made his eyes roll back in his head.
“Do you remember?” she asked at his ear. “That night?”
“Can’t forget.”
“Is that where you were a minute ago?”
He shook his head.
“Then where were you?”
He shook his head.
“If you weren’t there,” she said, “where’d this come from?”
She rocked her hips against his erection, and the direct pressure pushed lust through his system. The kind of ecstasy that made him needy and hungry and a little crazy.
He growled and fisted his hands in her dress.
“Where?” she whispered at his ear. “Tell me.”
“Right here, thinking dirty thoughts about you.” He lifted his head, gripped her waist, and stepped back. “Which is why you need to go up to your room now.”
Keaton looked at the winding stone staircase that led to a patio and an entrance into the Four Seasons. He knew because he sprinted these stairs in the morning.
“Those will take you to the lobby.” He released her waist and fisted his hands to keep the hunger in the pit of his stomach from driving him to grab her back.
She stared at him as if he’d spoken a foreign language for a moment, then extended her hand. “Come with me.”
The offer was so…sweet. It encompassed everything Brooke was—real and loving and warm and caring and honest. It encompassed everything Keaton thought he wanted.
“I…” He raked a hand through his hair, struggling against his habit to give in to desire whenever it suited him. “I can’t. You’re too…”
Her hand dropped, and a little frown creased her brow. “Too…?”
“Too sweet. Too good. Too important to me. Just too.”
She exhaled, closed the distance again, and pressed her body against his.
Keaton closed his eyes on a moan.
“Some men say,” she told him, her voice a sultry hum, “that there’s nothing like a good girl with a dirty mind. Where you’re concerned, my mind is good and dirty.”
Fire flared through his groin, and he forced his eyes open.
She was looking up at him with a gaze like the sparkling Caribbean rimmed in thick black lashes. Eyes he wanted to see in every stage of pleasure. He wanted to watch her eyes light with fire as he teased her with the promise of wicked excitement. Soak in the need drenching her expression as he pushed her past her comfort zone until she begged for him. Lose himself in the wild passion unleashed inside her when he drove her to ecstasy. And finally, the shock and awe of bliss as she recovered.
But this was Brooke, not a casual hookup. If their situations were different…
But they weren’t.
“Stop fighting yourself,” she said. “I can see your thoughts battling behind your eyes. If you aren’t interested, just say you aren’t.”
“I am,” he said immediately, vehemently. “I’ve wanted you since I met you in Vegas. I wanted you in California. I want you now. But I’m backing off for the same reasons I did then. Because I’m me, and my life is this, and you’re you, and your life is…”
He heaved a sigh, disgusted that he could talk endlessly and flawlessly about shit that didn’t matter, but now, when he needed someone he cared about to understand, his words got all tangled.
“Okay, stop,” she told him, her voice compassionate. Then she pressed her cheek to his chest, tightened her arms, and said, “Just stop talking and hold me.”
He closed his arms around her and laid his head on hers, his gut aching with regret. “I’m sorry—”
“Shush.” She cut him off. “Now count to twenty slowly.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
She had to be the sweetest drill sergeant ever. So he did it. But somewhere around nine, her hands found their way under his tee, and her nails scored gentle patterns on his back, draining the stress from his body. And he lost count.
After another moment, she pulled back to look up at him. “Let me put something into perspective for you. We haven’t seen or spoken to each other in a year. After tonight, I won’t see you again for a long time. Neither of us knows how long. It could be another year. It could be longer. So the idea of not being together now to keep a vital friendship intact isn’t very realistic.”
He frowned, mulling that over.
“I think the reason you’re twisted over coming upstairs with me is because you’re a really good person and you don’t want to hurt me. But I’m a big girl, Keaton, and I’ve been navigating my way through hookups for years. I may be sweet, but I’m very open to being whatever you want or need for the night.”
Holy shit. Keaton’s mind strayed deeper into those sexual thoughts again—undressing her, getting his hands on her bare flesh, pushing his hips between her thighs, having her completely and totally wrapped around him…
His resistance slipped a notch.
He lifted one hand and rubbed his face, hoping to pull himself from this haze. “I can’t think.”
“That’s a good thing.” Her hand slid down his chest, his belly, rested on the waistband of his jeans. “You’ve been thinking too hard.”
And she flipped the button open.
Excitement stoked his blood, but Keaton’s hand dropped to cover hers. “Brooke, slow down—”
“Is that really what you want?” She tugged her hand from his. “I think the best thing for both of us would be to push this, see where it takes us so neither of us spends another year wondering.”
And she slipped her hand inside his jeans, beneath his boxers and covered his erection. Pressure, heat, contact—it all coalesced and flooded Keaton with lust. His eyes rolled back and closed.
And he and Brooke moaned at the same time.
The sound of her pleasure at the feel of him snapped Keaton’s control.
He released her hand, cupped the back of her head, and held her steady as he kissed her.
She felt even better than he remembered. Her lips were full and plush and velvety soft. As soon as he eased the pressure, she didn’t just open, she tilted her head back offering her mouth. And when he took her up on that offer, stroking his tongue into her warmth and circling it with hers, she instantly gave back with a purr so rich and so wanton, Keaton had to fight the need for instant gratification.
Just when he thought he had himself under control, she sucked on his tongue at the same time her hand made some sort of twist on his cock. The combination shot sparks off behind his lids and lit off warning signs in his brain.
He pulled out of the kiss and dragged her hand from his pants. But Brooke pushed up on her toes, leaned close, and rasped, “I’m hungry,” against his neck, kissing him there and sending shivers over his skin. “I need a midnight snack. And I don’t want to wait until we get inside.”
She did have Keaton’s dirty mind. How fucking dangerous was that?
“Jesus Christ.” He was out of breath. The man with nine percent body fat, who ran five miles a day, worked out fighting twelve out of a sixteen-hour day, six days a week, was out of breath, all because Brooke had been kissing him, what, sixty seconds?
And what had happened to his brain? He couldn’t find it in all the haze filling his head. The man who was always on, always focused, who could make split-second decisions on the fly couldn’t even figure out what to do with her now.
“Brooke—”
“I have been dreaming about getting my mouth on you for so…long…” The way she moaned the last words made Keaton’s cock surge. “Let’s go out on the dock where no one can see us.”
“No.” Finally, some decision-making skills had returned. This was too much. He needed her too badly to walk away. She was right—he didn’t want to go another year regretting not taking this chance with her. But he was going to do it right. “I need you in bed. Damn, I seriously need you somewhere private where I can focus on nothing but you.”
Brooke stepped back and held out her hand. “I can arrange that.” She smiled, a sultry, sexy smile he’d never seen on her gorgeous face before. One that showed him a whole different side of her. “And I will do my best to fulfill any other requests you have tonight, Mr. Holt. So, I hope you will make them, because it would absolutely thrill me to please you.”
He took her hand and followed her up the stairs, watching her short skirt bounce around toned, creamy thighs.
When they reached the landing, he paused and pulled from her grip. “I probably shouldn’t walk into the freaking Four Seasons with my pants tented and undone.”
“You certainly wouldn’t be the first.”
His hands froze, and he looked up, brows lifted. A laugh bubbled out of him. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve seen plenty.”
He smirked and finished securing his pants, then grabbed her and swung her around in his arms, making her squeal and laugh. “Seen plenty, huh?”
“Uh-huh.”
He kissed her. Kissed her again. Loved the way she framed his face, pressed her forehead to his, and smiled into his eyes. “Did you cause any of them?”
“Would it matter if I did?”
A distant pinch tugged somewhere deep in his body. A completely foreign sensation that he still somehow identified as jealousy.
And wasn’t that a conundrum?
He cupped her cheek and gave her the only possible answer. “As long as what you’re doing makes you happy, no, it wouldn’t matter.”
“Hmm.” She kissed him. “I’m not the only sweet one around here.” Then she turned and started toward the lobby with an extra sassy sway in her step. “But it wasn’t me. Must have been another tramp stirring up the hopes of some celebrity loser staying—”
He caught up with her before she finished the thought and slung an arm around her waist. She was already laughing when he pulled her off her feet and hauled her back up against his chest. “Did you just call me a celebrity loser?” She giggled in answer. “Because I am no celebrity. And don’t you forget it.”
She laughed so hard, he had to put her down so she could catch her breath. Only when he opened the lobby door for her did he think of the security cameras. “I’d better behave, or we might get a visit from Austin’s finest over a misunderstanding.”
She followed his eyes to the security cameras. A soft gasp pulled Keaton’s gaze to the alarm in her eyes. “Oh, my boss would not be pleased if I were involved in anything that could reach the public.”
He squeezed her waist. “Don’t worry. I’ll be good.” He pressed a kiss to her neck below her ear and whispered, “In public.”
She shot him a sidelong grin and crossed the lobby to the elevators. The hotel was quiet, with just one desk clerk on duty as they passed. Keaton moved behind her and pressed his body against hers. He loved the way she leaned into him.
“What floor?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
“Nine.”
“Mmm. After you get on and the doors close,” he said at her ear, “take off your panties.”
She turned her head just enough to lift a brow at him.
“I’d do it,” he told her, “but…cameras.”
She grinned. “But it’s okay if I do it.”
“You’d be way more discreet. I’d get…distracted.”
The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. When they entered, Keaton waited for Brooke to meet his eyes, then darted his gaze toward the camera’s location. Grinning, she moved to the corner mostly hidden from view. And Keaton leaned back against the opposite wall, crossed his arms and watched this sweet thing inch her hands beneath her skirt, showing a little more of those luscious thighs. With her lip between her teeth and her beautiful eyes shining with the most adorable mix of both mischief and nerves, she tugged a pair of ocean-blue lace panties down her thighs and let them fall around her feet. Then exhaled and closed her eyes a second, as if that had been the biggest feat ever.
And Keaton softened to her just a little more. Which he couldn’t afford—as she’d so accurately pointed out. He was leaving, and they didn’t know when they’d see each other again.
But she was definitely his tonight. And he was definitely going to reward her for whatever that little escapade had cost her in dignity.
He pushed off the wall, dropped his arms, and crossed the elevator. He put both hands on the railing behind her and looked directly into her eyes. “Knowing you’re standing here with nothing on under that dress is unspeakably sexy.”
She smiled. A giddy, I’m-so-glad-I-pleased-you smile. The experience was so fresh, it shot a thrill up Keaton’s spine.
He lowered the hand out of the camera’s view to her side and slid it to her hip as he kissed her. “Are you wet, Brooke?” He kissed her again, not waiting for her answer, letting his hand drop until his fingers skimmed her thigh. “Can I feel you?”
That was something he did wait to get permission to do.
Her eyes darted over his head, then back. “Cameras?”
“I’m blocking the view.”
She licked her lips. “Then, yes. Please.” Her eyes closed briefly in a look of need, and one hand closed on his tee. “I ache.”
Emotion surged through his chest. Desire, affection, things he couldn’t name. She could make him feel so much with such little effort, it floored him. On some level, it scared him. But he’d think about that later. His physical need was too intense to worry about it now.
He held her gaze as he found the edge of her dress with his fingers. Delighted in the quickening of her breath as his fingers skimmed up the inside of her smooth thigh. Drank in the sight of her lips parting at his first touch between her legs. Savoring the heaviness in his gut as he eased two fingers between her closed thighs to stroke her.
Warm. Silky soft. And when his fingertips found her center, she soaked them.
“Fucking beautiful.” He dropped his forehead to hers and lost himself in the slick feel of her, swollen and soft beneath his fingers. He didn’t have room to do much more than stroke and rub and slide his fingertips between her warm folds, but she still clenched and gasped and moaned, making him high.
“Keaton…” She kept whispering his name, pulling at his shirt.
He followed every cue, tested out slow versus fast, steady pressure versus teasing, whispering touches.
“Jesus…Keaton… Oh God…”
“Are you a talker, Brooke? I hope so. I want to hear every little sound.”
In the very short ride, her clit swelled beneath his thumb into a perfect plump pea. Her teeth worried her lips, turning them puffy and slick. Keaton’s mind strayed toward pushing his cock between those lips, watching her suck and pleasure him. But when a surge of need shot up his spine and exploded at the base of his brain, blinding him with stars, he tore his thoughts away.
Plenty of time for that. All night, in fact. He needed to focus.
“You’re so perfect,” he murmured. “I can’t wait to get you under my mouth.”
“Oh my God.”
“I can’t even count how many times I’ve imagined tasting you.”
“Keaton…I’m—”
She pressed her face against his shoulder, and a sound rolled from her throat. The arm around his neck—when had she put an arm around his neck?—tightened, and her body quaked while her pussy clenched.
The floor button dinged, and the elevator doors slid open. Keaton felt like he’d been thrust into the light from a dark cave. He’d been so lost in her sweet body, he’d not only lost track of where they were, but he’d missed the fact that Brooke had just climaxed in record time. And still hung on him, shaking and panting.
The elevator doors started to close, and Keaton stuck his foot out to block them. At least some of his brain was still functioning.
He drew his hand from between Brooke’s legs and gripped her waist. “I’m gonna pick you up.”
Her head wobbled as she tried to lift it from his shoulder. “What?”
“What room, baby?”
She wrapped her legs around his hips, laid her head on his shoulder, and sighed, “Nine-oh-nine.”
Keaton might have been aching and tired when the night started out, but he couldn’t have been wearing a bigger smile or sporting a heart filled any fuller right now. And Brooke had just given him the energy to run all fucking night.