Chapter Two

“You just gonna keep letting that go to voicemail?” He narrowed his eyes on my cellphone buzzing on top of the center console. The damn thing was going off every half hour or so, but now the break between calls had shortened to ten minutes.

“Yep.” It stopped dancing around, and I offered no further explanation. I’d thought maybe he’d let it go.

Of course he didn’t. Five minutes later it buzzed again, and Chance grabbed it before I realized what he was doing.

“Harry’s calling.” He dangled my phone between his thumb and pointer, swinging it back and forth until I snatched it out of his hand.

“It’s Harrison. And it’s none of your business.”

“It’s a long ride, Princess. You know we’re gonna talk about it eventually.”

“Trust me, we won’t.”

“We’ll see.”

Only a few more minutes passed, and my phone was at it yet again. Before I could stop him, he had it in his hand once more. Only this time, he swiped and held it up to his mouth.

“Ello.”

My eyes bulged from my head. I almost swerved off the road, yet I sat there like a mute.

“Harry. How’s it going, Mate?”

The hint of Australian accent that lingered in the background was suddenly front and center. Harrison’s voice rose through the cell, although I couldn’t make out the words. I glanced over at Chance’s cocky face. He shrugged at me, smiled, and leaned back into his seat, quite enjoying himself. At that moment, I decided our little road trip was over. As soon as we got to the next exit, his ass was getting kicked to the curb. That perfectly round mass of muscle could walk through bumfuck Nebraska for all I cared.

“Yeah, sure. She’s here. But we’re kinda busy right now.”

I heard the next question loud and clear. Chance pulled the receiver away from his ear as Harrison roared, “Who the fuck is this?”

“Name’s Chance. Chance Bateman. Some of my friends call me Cocky,” he said with the perfect melody of intonation that I visualized causing the vein in Harrison’s throat to throb a deep shade of purple.

“Put. Aubrey. On. The. Fucking. Phone.” Each word was a short staccato burst of anger. Suddenly, I was no longer mad at Chance for answering the phone. I was livid that Harrison had the audacity to be angry at what I was doing.

“No can do, Harry. She’s…indisposed at the moment.”

Another growl of expletives came through the phone.

“Listen, Harry. I’m going to tell you this man to man, because you sound like a good chap. Aubrey has been avoiding your calls to be polite. The truth is, she just doesn’t want to talk to you.”

My anger was rapidly bouncing between the two men. Yet… AH-BREE. I wanted to strangle Chance, although at the same time, I really wanted him to say my name again. What in the hell was wrong with me? I missed Harrison’s response, busy replaying the sound of my name spoken with an Australian accent. The way it rolled off that cocky bastard’s tongue made my belly do a little flutter. I might have had a momentary lapse in time as I imagined it being whispered in my ear with a throaty strain. AH-BREE.

I blinked myself back to reality as Chance released an exaggerated sigh into the phone. “Okay then, Harry. But you’re going to need to stop now. We’re taking a nice long trip, and your constant buzzing is getting our girl’s knickers in a twist. So be a good mate and knock off the interruptions for a while. Yeah?”

Our girl. That vein had to be ready to explode in Harrison’s neck.

Chance didn’t wait for a response before disconnecting the call.

For a full five minutes, neither of us said a word. He must have been expecting the tirade to come.

“You’re not going to lay into me about my chat with Harry?”

My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “I’m processing.”

“Processing?” His voice was almost amused.

“Yes. Processing.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I don’t say the first thing that comes to my mind. Unlike some people, I think about what I’m feeling and verbalize it appropriately.”

“You filter shit.”

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do. If you’re pissed off, say it. Scream it if you have to. But bitch once and get it over with, and stop being a bitch all the time.”

The road was pretty barren, so it wasn’t hard to slam on the brakes and pull over to the side of the road. I crossed three lanes and jerked to a stop. It was dark, the only light from my headlights and the occasional car passing. I got out and walked to the passenger side of the car and waited for him to join me.

Hands on my hips. “You have a lot of nerve. I save your ass at the rest stop and you proceed to get in my car, eat half my food, change my radio station and then, to top it off, you answer my phone.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “You didn’t save my ass, I ate one popcorn chicken, your taste in music sucks, and Harry with the stick up his ass was upsetting you.”

I glared at him.

He glared right back.

Oh My God. The light from a passing car lit his face, and there it was. Number thirteen. His angry eyes were exactly the color of number thirteen. I used to have to peel the paper off Cadet Blue in the Crayola sixty-four pack before the other crayons had even lost their points. I liked it so much, it wasn’t just the color I’d shaded the sky. There was a whole year of my life when all the faces in my coloring books were that beautiful blue with a mysterious touch of gray. I’d never seen the color in real life on anything, especially not eyes.

I was half gone. And then he took the other half.

“Aubrey.” He stepped forward

AH-BREE.

Damn him. I didn’t say a word. I was busy…processing.

“I was trying to help. Harry needed that. I don’t know who he is to you, but whoever he is, he’s obviously done you wrong. And you don’t want to hear his apologies anymore. They’re bullshit, and you know it. Let him stew on the thought of you taking a trip with another man for a while. Woman like you, he should know men would be circling. Shouldn’t need reminding.”

Woman like me?

I tried to keep up the façade of being pissed off, but I just wasn’t feeling it anymore. “Well, don’t touch my phone again.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

I nodded, needing to feel some sense of victory. I couldn’t just let go of my anger because he had a sexy voice and number thirteen eyes. Could I?

“How about I drive for a while?”

My night vision wasn’t great to begin with, and I was starting to get a little blurry eyed. “Okay.”

He opened the passenger side door and waited for me to get in, then closed it and jogged around to the other side. Before slipping into the driver’s seat, he bent down and picked something up from the street, dropping it into his bag in the back before adjusting the seat where he wanted it.

“What did you pick up?”

“Nothing.” He blew off my question. “Driver picks the music.” We pulled away from the curb.

“You changed the station every five minutes while I was driving.”

He shrugged and smiled. “It’s a new rule.”

Being in the passenger seat gave me an opportunity to study him. God those dimples were deep. And the bit of stubble starting to shadow his chiseled jaw worked for me. Really worked. There was a good chance he’d be driving an awful lot.

Three hours later, it was almost midnight when we decided to stop for the day. We’d made it as far as I’d planned, even with having to waste a few hours getting a new tire.

The woman at the reception desk of the hotel was busy playing a game on her phone and barely looked up at us when we approached.

“We’d like a room for tonight, please?” Chance said.

“Ummm…two rooms, please,” I clarified.

“What? I was going to get one with two beds.”

“I am not sharing a room with you.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” And turned his attention back to the front desk clerk. “She’s afraid if we room together, she won’t be able to keep her hands off of me.” He winked at her. She had dark skin, but I could see her blush anyway.

I rolled my eyes, too tired to fight with him again and spoke to the clerk, “Can you make my room facing west, not on the ground floor, and an even number, if possible?”

“I’d like mine with a bed, toilet and television, if that’s possible.” He grinned, bating me.

“I can give you rooms 217 and 218. They’re right next to each other.”

“Perfect. She likes to be close to me.”

I wasn’t sure if his egomaniacal sense of humor was growing on me or if I was just slap happy from so many hours in the car, but I actually laughed a little.

He looked pleased.

The clerk handed us our keys along with a warm chocolate chip cookie each. On our way to the elevator, I offered him mine. “Want my cookie? I’m not going to eat it.”

“Sure. I’ll eat you.”

“What did you just say?”

“I said I’d eat yours.”

I really needed to get some sleep. And perhaps a nice cold shower.

He toted both our overnight bags to our rooms, and it wasn’t lost on me that he let me in and out of the elevator before him. Cocky Bastard had manners to go with his arrogance.

“Night, Princess.”

“Night, Cocky.”

I was glad he didn’t say my name; I was bothered enough just sleeping next door to him.

Fifteen minutes later, I’d completed my bedtime ritual and slipped into bed. I took a deep breath in and out and let myself sink into the softness of the mattress.

A knock at the door made me jump.

With a huff, I got out of bed and stood on my tiptoes to look out the peephole. Why were those things always so high on the door anyway? I was surprised to find no one standing on the other side. Maybe I’d imagined it.

Another knock.

I flicked on the lights. The sound wasn’t coming from the entrance door. It was coming from an interior door I hadn’t even noticed before.

Chance’s door.

I unfastened the top lock and cracked it open just enough so I could see what he wanted. And there he stood.

Shirtless.

Wearing only dark gray boxer briefs that hugged him like a second skin.

It took a minute to understand what he was doing there, even though he was holding up a toothbrush in question.

“I thought we had established I wasn’t a serial killer already.”

I opened the door wider.

He smiled.

Oh lord. Stop that. Right now.

“I must have left my toothpaste in my saddlebag in the car.”

I swallowed hard. “Uh huh.”

He cocked his head to the side, and his brows dipped in. “Can I borrow yours?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

He walked past me and let himself into my bathroom. I waited at the door.

“You got an awful lot of girly crap in here for one night,” he said with a jumbled mouth full of toothpaste from the bathroom. “Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia.”

He was reading my Estee Lauder perfume bottle.

I heard him rinse and spit. Then there was a gargling sound. He used my mouthwash, too. Sure, help yourself.

He walked out and flicked off the bathroom light. “Is tuberose a rose?”

I shook my head, still confused by the whole situation going on.

“That’s why,” he murmured.

“Why what?”

“I couldn’t figure out what you smelled like all day. Not sure I ever smelled a Tuberose before.” He shrugged and walked back into his room but not before turning back. “Even those little black lacy underwear smell like tuberose.”

My eyes bulged. I’d taken off my bra and panties and left them on the bathroom counter.

“You…you—”

“Relax. I’m teasing. Do I look like an underwear sniffer to you?”

Yes.

No.

Maybe?

“Night, Aubrey.” He graced me with a dimple and disappeared.

AH-BREE. Damn him.

I locked the door and checked it twice, unclear if it was for my safety or his. His voice saying my name was on audio replay inside my head, getting softer and softer like a soothing lullaby with each breath as I drifted off to dreamland.

Until the knock came again.

I think I might have actually fallen asleep for all of three seconds before getting up to open the door. Again.

“Wanna watch a movie?”

My room was pitch dark; he had every light in his room on. It took my eyes a minute to adjust. And when they did, they focused right on his underwear. Instead of saying no and shutting the door, I argued with him. Again.

“I’m not watching a movie with you in your underwear.”

He looked down and back up at me. “What? It’s not like I have an erection.”

My eyes widened at the inappropriateness of his comment, but then I started picturing him in his ridiculously tight underwear with an erection. Suddenly, I had no place to look. If I looked down, I was staring at his package. If I looked up at him, he’d surely see what I was thinking.

He chuckled. “I’ll put shorts on.”

I had no idea why I was even negotiating, when I really had no desire to watch a movie. He disappeared and came back a minute later with a pair of loose hanging shorts. I could still see the rim of his Calvin Klein underwear band sticking out. And now that there were no tight undies to focus on, I realized the shorts actually made it worse. They hung from the valley on his narrow hips where a deep V was carved. Covering up his tight buns only left me to pay more attention to the details of his chest. And his ridiculous abs.

“Your turn,” he said.

My eyes asked for clarification.

“If I can’t be in my underwear, you have to change out of that night shirt.”

“What’s wrong with my shirt?” My voice was defensive.

His eyes dropped to my chest and the corners of his lips curled to a delicious wicked grin. “Nothing at all. By all means, keep it on.”

I looked down, having forgotten that I was wearing a thin white shirt with no bra. My nipples were standing at full attention, trying to pierce through the sheer fabric.

We argued over what to rent for twenty minutes before deciding on a horror movie I didn’t really want to watch. Five minutes later, wearing a sweatshirt over my nightshirt, I fell asleep with Chance sitting on the twin bed next to me.

The next morning, he was back in his own room when I woke up, the interconnecting doors left open on both sides. I overheard him on his phone telling someone his plans for the day. Clearly, the entire day of activities was a lie, since I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be staying within Los Angeles County all day.