Four
Brooke dug her hotel key from the outside pocket of her purse. Keaton swept it from her fingers and opened her door, all while carrying her. And he did it all with the same grace and ease and expertise he did everything—including bringing her to the quickest orgasm of her life the first time he touched her. In an elevator for God’s sake.
She should have known he wouldn’t have to ask any questions. Should have known he would be a master at everything involving women and sex and pleasure.
When she’d first moved to LA and stayed with Ellie and Troy, Brooke had listened to their stories about Keaton’s exploits with lurid unable-to-look-away-from-a-train-wreck fascination. Back then, she’d been half-grateful she hadn’t slept with him in Vegas and become just one more story, half-disappointed she hadn’t gotten the chance to experience him.
But after a few days of hanging with Keaton along with the rest of the group, it was clear women were drawn to him. Not a surprise. Women were drawn to all the rugged, sexy Renegades. But according to the stories, the women who flocked to Keaton were all at the extreme end of the rough, risqué, and wild scales. The Renegades joked that the women Keaton had dripping off every limb were every man’s fantasy—ridiculously hot, overtly willing, and eager to be wickedly naughty.
The real surprise had been learning Keaton had been wanting Brooke, little Miss Vanilla, the same way she’d been wanting him.
The door closed behind them, and Brooke rolled her head on his shoulder to press her lips to his neck. Tonight, vanilla was going to blend with rich, exotically spiced rum from some remote corner of the world where women like her rarely tread.
“I think this is bigger than my place in LA.” His voice vibrated beneath her lips, and his view of the suite made her smile. She always left a light on somewhere in her hotel rooms, because she never knew what time she’d be back. This morning, she’d left on a small side table lamp, which was barely enough to throw a shadow.
“Probably costs as much for a night as you pay for a month,” she said.
“Why?”
She laughed, knowing he was asking why anyone would need to stay somewhere so extravagant, not why it was so expensive. And she loved the way he didn’t dwell on what just happened in the elevator. She hated men who were so insecure, they had to constantly check in for reassurance on their performance. Or worse, gloat over it.
She glanced over the living area, complete with a dining table and four chairs, a sectional sofa big enough to seat six, and a sixty-inch flat screen covering the wall over the fireplace. “Because this is where the high-maintenance stay. You have to pay people well to put up with annoying eccentricities.”
“Well then, you…” He eased her to her feet, slid his hands up her back, under her hair, and cupped her head, “should stay everywhere free, because I’ve never met anyone easier to be around.”
And he kissed her. “Can’t believe how lucky I was to find you here.”
And kissed her. “You’re so beautiful.”
And kissed her. “God, I love your mouth.”
He made her feel like she was floating. Made her mind disconnect from everything but him. And with all the stress and turmoil in her life, that was the biggest gift anyone could give her right now.
When he pulled back again, she said, “Good. Because this mouth is going to be all over your body in about sixty—”
He growled and kissed her again, licking into her mouth with a strong, skilled, hot, playful tongue she couldn’t help but want between her legs.
Inch by inch, he pulled her skirt into his hands, until his palms found her bare ass. He gripped her with both hands, and her skin tingled and heated beneath his fingers. A fresh wave of desire flooded her sex. His hard erection and rough jeans rubbed against her sensitive spots, covered in nothing but a thin layer of rayon.
She definitely needed to get him out of his clothes.
Pulling out of the kiss, she dragged at his shirt. “Naked, Holt. Now.”
He laughed and let the shirt slide off his shoulders, over his head.
She leaned in to press her mouth to his chest, but paused and pulled back, looking at all the ridges over his abdomen. She’d seen him in swim trunks at least a dozen or more times in the weeks they’d been in California together. When he wasn’t working, he seemed to live in them, but she’d given up hope of ever getting the chance to touch them or kiss them or lick them.
So she started by skimming her hands over his abdomen and experienced the unique sensation of warm skin over steely muscle…
Swoon.
God, she never swooned.
Over anything.
Or anyone.
After so many years in the music industry, it took a lot to impress Brooke. And Keaton knocked her for a loop in so many unexpected ways, she’d lost count.
His hands had found their way under her dress again, and stroked everywhere he could reach. His lips and tongue laid hot trails down her neck and across her chest as he stepped her backward until her thighs pressed the arm of the sofa.
With his hands at her waist, he leaned her backward over the arm.
“Keaton…” She laughed his name, clinging to his arms, but that didn’t keep him from laying her back.
With her shoulders against the sofa cushions, Keaton stepped between her thighs, pressing them wide. He looked down at her with such blatant and overwhelming desire, her belly fluttered and her chest tightened. His dark gaze followed his hands down her body. He cupped her breasts, then caught the hem of her dress already at her hips thanks to gravity, and moved it up to her ribs in a deliberate shove. Brooke pulled in a breath of surprise and curved her hands around his forearms as Keaton’s hot eyes raked her nakedness.
A long, low sound of hunger ebbed from his throat as he lowered his head and pressed his face to the soft space just beneath her ribs. The pressure and warmth, the intimacy, made her shiver. He pressed kisses to her skin in a direct line south. His earlier words echoed in her head—“I can’t wait to get you under my mouth”—and the fire in Brooke’s body flared into an inferno as she pushed her hands into his hair.
But he straightened, pulling out of reach to wrap his arms under and around her thighs. Without warning, he hauled her hips higher on the sofa arm and spread her thighs wider. His gaze remained rapt between her legs, and Brooke’s breathing broke into another sprint.
He lowered his head again, pressing a kiss to her belly right below her belly button. Then lower. And lower. And lower.
Brooke curled the fingers of one hand into the sofa cushion at her side and reached forward with the other, combing her fingers through his dark hair. Loving the thick, soft feel of it while Keaton’s kisses grew hungrier.
And he used his mouth like his hands, patiently, but with clear, deliberate purpose—to drive Brooke insane with pleasure. Each lick or swirl of his tongue made her tighten her grip on the sofa cushions. Every suckle made her arch and reach overhead, using the sofa to push toward him. Until he ate at her like he’d never get enough, driving her to a place where she bordered on insanity and writhed with need. Where the peak was so sharp, there was no way one orgasm would be enough to satisfy it.
When he drove her over the edge, Brooke fisted the cushions over her head. She arched and cried his name. The pleasure seemed to spike through her, ricochet, then hover, making it impossible for her to pull herself fully back to the present. To reality. To his fingers digging into the flesh of her thighs, his mouth eating at her with a ferocity that mirrored the hunger in her own body. But even when she was sure she couldn’t climb another peak, he led her there a different way, drawing more pleasure from her body than she ever fathomed it could even possess let alone exude. Brooke continued to rise and break. Rise and break. And each climax brought something different, something new, something she’d never experienced before.
Then she felt the exquisite pleasure of his fingers joining his mouth. The tips stroking and rubbing, shooting a fresh thrill through her sex while his tongue lazily laved her, adding heat and pressure and friction. She was already choking out a moan and writhing toward his touch when the pressure of his fingers penetrated her body. Then moved inside her. And, bam, ecstasy slammed her like hurricane winds, knocking the breath from her lungs.
“So good…” She arched, dropped her head back, and moaned, “Oh fuck, don’t stop.”
He did the opposite. He created more pressure inside, teasing her outside. The multiple sensations were too much for her brain to absorb all at once, and it felt like it took forever to rise to climax. By the time she did, she was absolutely delirious with lust, swamped in a depth of pleasure she’d never experienced, and—she already knew—addicted to it.
“Keat—” He closed his mouth over her and growled. The sound vibrated through her. So erotic, so wild, she was out of her mind. “Need…it. Keaton, please…”
He added suction with his mouth, movement with his hand, and launched Brooke into the stratosphere.
The pleasure was so intense, Brooke’s body exploded in a cluster of orgasms that wiped out her mind and ravaged her. She went limp. Her butt drifted off the arm of the sofa, and she sank into the cushions. Her breathing raced and her heart galloped. She had enough brain function to realize Keaton had moved away from her, but didn’t have the strength to make her mind think about where he went.
The rip of paper pulled her mind into the present and brought her eyes open. “Keaton?”
“Right here.” He bent over her, gripped her waist, and moved her up the sofa.
His jeans hung lower on his hips, and he pressed one knee between her thighs, shoving all the loose pillows to the floor. Then he lowered his hips between her legs and propped himself up on his elbows. Brushing the hair from her face, he kissed her, slow and deep.
His hips moved against her, and the feel of skin against skin made her moan. He pushed one hand between them, stroked her with his fingers, then with the head of his cock.
“I put a condom on,” he murmured.
Brooke tightened her arm around his shoulders. “I’ve waited so long for this.”
“Me too.” He dropped his forehead to hers. His eyes filled with lust, his kiss with affection and hunger. He brought his free hand to her breast, still covered in her rayon dress, stroked and squeezed. “I wish I could wait longer. I want to eat every inch of you, but you make me insane.” His voice was raspy and more serious than she’d ever heard the lightest of the lighthearted Renegades. “I need you now.”
His hips thrust, and his thick shaft penetrated her. A sound ebbed from Brooke’s throat before it closed. Before her body arched in both pleasure and pain. Her head fell back, her mouth dropped open. And she could only describe the sensation as searing pleasure radiating along her walls. Burning through her sex.
Keaton’s big body curved over her, every muscle taut beneath her hands where they dug into his shoulder.
“Ah, fuck, Brooke,” he murmured against her exposed throat, his voice rough and strained. “Fuck.”
She clutched at his shoulders with one hand, his hair with the other, caught up in the mind-bending thrill of all his sweat-slicked muscle sliding along her skin. Of his cock stretching her. Of his big body trembling with the effort to hold back.
He withdrew slowly, and the motion washed so much pleasure through Brooke’s body, she moaned, delirious. Keaton’s lips moved on her throat, and he kissed a path to her mouth, where his tongue dipped in to swirl and tease. Eyes open, tongues spiraling, he pushed back inside her. Stretching her until her breath caught. Then he held her gaze…and pushed even deeper.
The sound that rolled in her throat was almost animalistic. A sound she’d never heard come out of her mouth before. But she’d never been this…taken, this deep, this intimate with a man before. Because this wasn’t just about the sex. The way he looked at her, the way he held her, the way he owned her went much deeper than the physical.
He pressed one hot palm to her thigh, spreading her wider. Wound his arm behind her knee and leaned in, hitching her leg higher. Wedged his hips farther between her legs. And penetrated even deeper.
“Fuck,” she breathed, the word hardly a whisper.
“Too deep?” he murmured, showing no sign of backing off as a trickle of sweat slid down his forehead, hit his brow, and veered along the top until it reached his temple.
“Just…so…much of you.”
“You don’t have it all yet.”
“Jesus.”
“Before I ask if you want me to back off, let me show you something I think you’ll like.”
He lifted one brow in a silent request for permission. When a smile quirked her mouth, Keaton used his body weight to push until she felt like he was so deep, he was at the back of her throat.
“Ah God…” she moaned.
And then he did…something…with his hips. Some dip or rock or…something that made shards of ecstasy rip through her sex. Her mouth dropped open, and sounds rolled out of her. Hungry, oh-my-God-don’t-you-dare-stop sounds. She writhed toward him and dug her fingers into his skin, needing more of whatever he was doing.
“Keat…” She couldn’t talk, couldn’t think. Her mind and body were absorbed with seeking more and more of the intense pleasure. She tried to lift into him, but he had her pinned to the sofa.
“Brooke, baby…” His voice was a breathless rasp, and his micro-thrusts grew faster and stronger and longer until they weren’t micro anymore, but burning ecstasy through her with each stroke. “God…you feel like fucking heaven.”
Her orgasm grew inside her like a bomb. It was nothing like anything she’d experienced before. And her whimpers grew louder and louder…
“Don’t…stop…” She didn’t know what she was begging for, just knew she needed more. “Don’t—”
He drew farther out, then hammered a couple of full thrusts home, surprising a cry out of Brooke. But before she tumbled over the edge of ecstasy, Keaton changed the rhythm with one slow torturous deep drive into her.
“Oh my God… Keaton… Please…”
Reaching overhead, he threaded his fingers with hers and looked directly into Brooke’s eyes. “I’m only going to last…for one…” He dropped his head and wiped his brow on her dress. “But I promise…more…after you let me…rest.”
“Then give it to me.” She flexed and tensed her fingers around his. “Because the sooner you get rest…the sooner I get more.”
A split-second smile flashed across his mouth, before his lips crushed hers and his tongue worked her mouth the way his cock worked her body. He smothered her cry just before the climax hit, and Keaton pulled back, greedily drinking in the sight of her as the orgasm finally shook her to the core. Blinding light filled her head while wild pleasure zapped every nerve ending in her body. And for those extended seconds, Brooke lost herself in the absolute present—no future, no past, just that moment of utter bliss.
She was still clinging to Keaton when his orgasm swept through. The force of it, of the way it rocked his powerful body, humbled her. The way it drew guttural, savage sounds from a man she’d always seen as fun-loving and easy-going, surprised her. And the way it so completely took him over moved her.
Keaton released his grip on her hands and eased most of his weight onto one arm. He rested his face against her neck, and his hot breath came in quick, heavy pants. “Can’t remember…last time I…couldn’t fuckin’ hold myself…together.”
Her brain wasn’t fully functioning yet. And she loved the feel of him against her. His heartbeat against her ribs, his belly against her belly, his soft hair against her neck.
She combed a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I can’t believe we’re still dressed.”
He lifted his head, laughing. “That’s what I’m talking about. You had me so twisted around, I was too impatient to wait. You turned me into a fuckin’ teenager again.”
It took a second for his meaning to register. When it did, she turned her head, looked at him directly, and said, “Really?”
He propped his head on his elbow. “What do you mean ‘really’? Is sex always this passionate for you?”
A laugh bubbled out of her, and one of his dark brows winged up.
“I’m sorry. You make it sound like I do it regularly.” She stroked his face. “And I was asking because, honestly, I’m surprised I would be someone to instigate that reaction, considering who you usually hook up with.”
He brought a hand to her face, cupped her cheek, and stroked it with his thumb. “That’s exactly why. But…”—he winced a little—“can we not call this a hookup?”
“Um…sure.” She drew out the word. “Why?”
“It’s just… It doesn’t fit us. Whether we ever do this again or not doesn’t matter. You could never be just a hookup.”
That spot inside her that warmed every time she thought of him opened and ached. And the affection in his expression seemed to take on more weight, causing Brooke a little bit of alarm. “You’re right,” she admitted, then pushed some of the hardest words she could imagine from her mouth. “But, just so we’re on the same page, as much as the idea of something beyond a hookup intrigues the hell out of me, you know this can’t be any more than tonight given our responsibilities. Right?”
His mischievous grin appeared and sparked her playful side. The one she’d put on hold last year. The one that had to stay on hold for a while. “That intrigues you, huh?”
She laughed but gave him the we’re-adults-we-have-to-be-serious-sometimes look and repeated, “Right?”
He sighed, and his smile lost some sparkle. “I guess.”
She stretched up and kissed him. “Now go clean up so I can officially undress you.”
* * * *
Keaton was damn glad he didn’t have to work today, because he’d be fuckin’ useless.
He turned his head away from the sight of the sun rising over the Colorado River through the French doors of Brooke’s suite and focused on the strands of her hair he was twirling round and round his finger. Rich, chocolate brown, with an occasional streak of deep red. As soft as silk.
He was propped against the headboard, and Brooke had fallen asleep halfway on top of him, which gave him an incredible view. He could never get enough of the sight of her body from shoulders to ass. Of the white sheets tangled around her, framing her creamy skin. Of her chocolate hair spilling over her shoulder and down her back. Of her head resting on his belly, one rosy cheek, plump, pink lips, and long dark lashes accentuated in the morning light.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his entire fucking life.
He’d already taken so many pictures of her, his phone had run out of storage. He wanted some way to capture the night.
“Dammit,” he whispered, dropping his head back against the headboard and squeezing his eyes shut.
He didn’t want to go home.
No, that wasn’t right. He did want to go home. He didn’t want to leave Brooke. And who in the fuck expected that to happen?
He sighed and rubbed his eyes, shifting his hips to alleviate the nagging morning hard-on that obviously hadn’t gotten the memo that he’d had more sex last night than he’d had in the last three months.
And every moment of last night had all been a-freaking-mazing. He couldn’t say that about any of the sex over the last three months.
A phone rang, jerking Keaton from his thoughts. He sat forward, searching for the source, to silence it so Brooke wouldn’t wake. But her head popped up before the second ring.
“What time is it?” she asked, her words slurred, voice groggy.
“Five thirty.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She half crawled, half slid across Keaton to reach for the phone. “Crazy. Fucking. Bitch.” Then answered, “Yes?”
She listened for a moment. “You can call— I understand that, but you’re just telling me instead of—”
She hung her head, exhaled, rubbed her eyes. “Of course.”
Keaton stroked her back, following the curve of her spine that he’d been admiring while she slept. So warm. So soft. So beautiful.
With other women, it was one-and-done. But Brooke kept refilling his tank, making him need her again and again.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said into the phone.
She sighed and rolled her head, putting his erect cock directly in her line of sight. And even just having her eyes on him made his ache intensify. Brooke’s hand swept that direction, her small, warm palm stroking his thick length like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Before he knew it, Keaton found himself focusing on her nicely shaped, nicely toned ass, then dipping his hand between her legs and brushing his fingers across the sensitive skin at the tops of her thighs, teasing her until she lifted and wiggled.
“Yes,” she said, a little breathless now.
He rewarded her with a fingering treat that made her cover her mouth with her free hand.
His cock, standing at full attention now, drew her gaze, and she angled that direction so she could slide her free hand over his length. Sparks shot through his cock.
When he flinched, her bright eyes sparked, and she shifted position, sliding her belly down between his thighs. The little smile that turned her lips told him she knew he was hungry for her mouth. He’d become addicted to the way she gave head within two minutes of the moment she took his cock between her lips. Brooke was generous and erotic, and she loved it. And he craved her mouth the way she craved his fingers.
With her gaze on Keaton’s, she took hold of his cock like a joystick and pulled gently, drawing his sac up until she could take one side into her mouth.
And erotic shock jolted Keaton to the soles of his feet. While her hand stroked the shaft, her mouth sucked and licked the sensitive skin of his sac, and his hands fisted in the sheets. “Ah…God…Brooke…”
He tried to stay quiet, but he really didn’t have much control. Over anything.
She let him slip from her mouth, released his shaft, and Keaton experienced two seconds of relief from the intense pleasure.
Into the phone she said, “Okay.”
Then moved the receiver away from her mouth to circle his head with her tongue and suck the tip in and out between her lips until Keaton’s hands were tangled in her hair.
“Get off the phone,” he whispered. “I have more important uses for your mouth.”
She grinned, and into the phone she said, “Look, it’s really early. Can we talk about this at breakfast? Great. See you then.”
Brooke disconnected, tossed her phone on the nightstand, and took Keaton’s cock in both hands with a sigh. She stroked him with loving intensity, “Now this is where I really want to concentrate my focus this morning.”
She rocked to her knees, smiled into Keaton’s eyes with so much affection, his heart swelled. Then she lowered her head, plunging Keaton’s cock deep into her mouth.
Warm, wet heat. Pressure, friction, suction. They pushed pleasure through Keaton’s package. His whole body quaked. Moans rolled out of him on waves, and he let them come, knowing the sound turned Brooke on. His vision doubled and blurred. “Ho-oly fu-u-uck.”
She sucked. And sucked. And sucked. The amount of pressure Brooke could create with her mouth made his toes curl and his eyes cross. And she did it all while watching his reactions. All with affection and desire drenching her expression.
Keaton would drop to his knees and beg this woman to use her mouth on him. But she gave it willingly. Eagerly.
She closed her eyes and hummed, long and low, and the vibrations tore through Keaton’s cock. “Brooke…” He curled toward her and slid his hands up her arms. “Come here.”
She took her mouth off him long enough to say, “No more condoms, remember?”
“Ah, fuck.” And dropped back, forearm over his eyes. He’d never used all his condoms in one night.
Ever.
Brooke laughed and pressed her flat tongue along him from his balls to his tip. Keaton shuddered and slid his arm to his forehead to watch. Her hungry eyes stayed pinned to his as she loved his cock with open lust and erotic intensity.
The connection he found in her bright blue gaze tugged in the center of his chest, and it was more than physical. Pleasuring him was her gift. One she went to great lengths to give well.
Among other things he’d learned over the last six hours, Keaton had discovered how to let down a few walls during sex. One of those walls was expressing his pleasure. There had been too many times when women had used pleasure as a carrot or a bribe or even a weapon, so he’d learned to keep that physical thrill hidden behind a wall of lust.
But Brooke gained so much joy and excitement from Keaton’s pleasure that he did his best to show it. As a side benefit, the more excited he got, the more excited Brooke got. Which was why he hadn’t been to sleep, why they didn’t have any condoms left, why his cock hadn’t been fully soft since he’d set eyes on her in the café, and why he rose to climax too damn fast now when he wanted to savor these last moments with her.
But as the affection in her eyes and in her touch joined his own feelings and drove him too high too fast and too soon, he said, “Brooke…baby…I’m gonna—”
She slipped her mouth off his cock, surged up the bed, and covered his mouth just as his orgasm broke. His brain whited-out. She drank in his growl of release and kissed away his groans of pleasure while continuing to pump him.
Then kissed lazy trails along his neck and over his chest as he sank against the bed and caught his breath.
“Baby…” he panted, letting his eyes fall closed as he stroked his hand over her hair and down her back. “I’m…never gonna…be the same.”
He already wasn’t the same. And he didn’t fucking know what he was going to do about it. But he had about two hours before he had to head to the airport, which gave him very little time to convince Brooke to reconsider her “this can’t be any more than tonight” so they could figure out how to see each other again.
They showered together, something Keaton hadn’t done with a woman in eons. And the shower they’d shared was something Keaton had never done—a slow, drawn-out exploration of bodies with hands and mouths and finally soap, leaving them both starry-eyed and grinning.
While Brooke dressed, Keaton turned on the news and made coffee. He stood in the middle of the living area, looking out at the Colorado River, breathing in the scent of coffee. With the sounds of a woman getting ready in the other room, her voice touching his ears as she spoke with her boss, Keaton should be itching to get out of here. Should be feeling some sort of knot in the pit of his stomach over how he would end this cleanly.
But all Keaton felt deep inside was…
Stillness. Comfort.
Fuckin’ joy.
Jesus Christ. He couldn’t be more domestic or happier right this minute.
And who the hell had ever imagined that would happen?
“Are you a CNN guy?”
Brooke’s voice pulled his gaze. The sight of her knocked all his thoughts out of alignment. She was wearing a sleeveless little black dress that fit her curves perfectly and ended at least four inches above the knee. And her black heels made her legs look like they went on forever.
“Whoa.” He made a full turn and looked her up and down. “Hell-o, gorgeous.”
Her makeup was soft, but it made her beautiful blue eyes pop and added color to her cheeks and lips. All that gorgeous brown hair had been straightened, parted on one side, and smoothed into a sleek knot at the base of her neck.
Smiling, she came to him, wrapped her arms around his waist. “Hell-o to you too, handsome.” And she rose on tiptoe to kiss him. “Thanks for the coffee.”
She turned, pulled two mugs from the cabinets, and poured, repeating her question. “Are you a CNN guy?”
He glanced at the television and shrugged. “I don’t know, why?”
“Because I’m a FOX girl. I thought we might have finally found something to argue about.”
Keaton laughed.
“How do you like your coffee?”
“Black is fine.”
She handed him a mug, then slipped into a cropped taupe blazer with black piping. Damn, she looked stylish. She looked fuckin’ New York City stylish.
Shit, he couldn’t get used to this; Keaton was already used to this. “Those are some seriously hot work clothes.”
She giggled and sipped her coffee. “Well, thank you.”
“You have to dress up for this gig?” he asked, just holding his cup.
“Yes,” she said, sounding less than pleased. “Especially when we’re meeting a crew for the first time. Only after that will she let me dress down. Lately, she’s been easing up. Even said I could do casual Friday.”
She took another sip, then reverted to holding her cup as well. Their gazes held. And the gorilla that had been hanging on the chandelier all night, the one they’d successfully ignored until now, finally jumped down and faced them. It was time to say good-bye. And Keaton felt the physical drain of happiness as it slowly leaked from the room.
“You don’t want to say it any more than I do,” he finally said.
She pushed her mouth into a cardboard smile that lasted two seconds. Then glanced down at her coffee. “Sometimes we have to do things—”
Her phone rang. Again.
Brooke clenched her teeth and closed her eyes.
But Keaton’s frustration spilled over. “You don’t have to live like this, Brooke. Why don’t you find another job?”
“It’s not that easy. I—”
His phone rang. It was the first time the damn thing had made a sound since they’d been together, but it was still shitty timing.
“Sonofabitch.” He set his coffee down on a side table, rubbed his eyes, and drew out his phone. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “No, go ahead.”
He glanced at his phone with his hopes of seeing Brooke again plummeting and found Jax’s name on the display. “Guess it’s call-the-employee morning.” And answered, “Hey, boss.”
“Hey.” Jax sounded upbeat as usual. “Great job on the series. Talked to Drogan last night. They want you back next season. But you probably already know all that.”
“I do, but it’s always nice to hear it from you,” he told Jax while he watched Brooke wander to the kitchenette’s counter and lean her hip there, scrolling through messages on her phone. “What’s up?”
“Drogan’s jumping over to the Avengers movie that started up a few weeks ago there. He’s working with Copalli.”
“Uh-huh.” There were half a dozen series and movies being filmed in Austin at any one time. Keaton had run into crews and actors working on the newest Avengers film in town.
“You know Dupleaux, the stunt guy from France?”
“Uh-huh.”
“He took a bad fall yesterday. Drogan and Copalli want to know if you’ll step in until Dupleaux’s ready to jump back in.”
Hell yes. The reaction was instantaneous, and excitement bolted through his body. He darted a look at Brooke, who’d abandoned her coffee and was staring off into space, looking restless. A sliver of insecurity opened in his chest. Was she ready for this to be over? He pushed the split-second thought aside. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t say no to Jax either way.
But he answered with a far more subdued, “Of course.”
After agreeing to check in on the set first thing to run through the day’s stunts and meet with the actors and directors, Keaton disconnected.
Brooke looked over and smiled, but the sparkle in her eyes was gone. He hoped this news replaced it.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Better than okay.” He strolled toward her, hoping his heart didn’t get trampled in the next two minutes. At the counter, he pulled her into his arms. “Jax said another stuntman here hurt himself, and they want me to step in until he’s back on his feet.”
Brooke inhaled sharply. Her eyes brightened. Her hands curled into his shirt.
And just like that, Keaton’s heart grew wings.
“Does that mean…?” she asked excitedly, then pulled back. “Wait. What does that mean?”
“If that spark in your eyes is any indication, it means I’m going to have to invest in a very large box of condoms at some point today.”
Brooke broke into a smile and laughed. “So you’re staying? How long?”
“Don’t know.” And right now, he didn’t care. More time was more time. He cupped her face in his hands, kissing her. “I’ll know more after I work with the crew today.”
She pulled on his shirt to drag him into another kiss, her mouth open and warm. “Mmmm,” she murmured between kisses, her lips curved with a sweet smile. “So happy.”
Her phone rang. Her shoulders slumped. Her head dropped back. “Oh my God.”
Keaton laughed and kissed her neck. Then murmured in her ear, “Rendezvous with me at the steps on the trail after work, and I’ll make you forget all about her for the rest of the night.”