It was me he’d described.
I knew.
And I thought Dalton and Jocelyn knew it, too, because they kept looking at me like a puzzle they had to put together. The woman behind the conundrum.
It hadn’t been about them being swingers. Well, maybe not all about them being swingers—they’d stared at me trying to connect dots, not our genitals.
Maybe both? Pluck no.
And it had only just hit me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’ve been cockteasing me all evening and it’s high time we do something about it. Where’re the elevators?” Cruz muttered. He was lit like a Roman candle, looking left and right frantically while holding onto my hand like I had immediate plans to disappear.
We passed by Brendan and a group of middle-aged guys who cackled on their way into the casino in a uniform of Hawaiian shirts and beer bellies.
“Lookie, here. Today they are lovebirds,” Brendan whistled as he strolled past us. “Tomorrow, who knows?”
“It was me Dalton described. What the heck was that about?” I trailed behind Cruz, trying to keep up.
“You’re not the only blonde in Fairhope.”
“Hazel eyes? Weird name? Questionable personality?”
“I meant Taylor Cunningham.”
“Taylor’s not a weird name.”
She wasn’t a blonde, either, and had a perfectly pleasant temperament, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt since her hair was light.
“You think?” He took a sharp turn to the right, after trying to find the elevators to his left. “I think it’s a guy’s name. Used to be, anyway. It’s all gender fluid these days.”
I wanted him to stop.
I wanted to talk about what it meant.
But…I wanted him in my panties more, so I put a pin on the conversation.
“Where are the damn elevators?” Cruz seethed.
It was the first time I’d seen him even remotely flustered, wanting something instead of having it automatically given to him, and it gave me a lot of pride and joy to know it was me who made him that way.
“Not sure, but there’s a maintenance room about a hundred feet from us.”
“Good enough.” He made an actual beeline toward the door. “I can’t chance you changing your mind on me again. No time.”
A second later, we were huddled in the maintenance room. It was nestled in a corner of the deck, unseen by others, full to the brim with tool bags, brooms, a ladder, toiler paper rolls, and cleaning products.
Cruz locked the door behind us and pinned me against it, his arms resting on either side of my shoulders as he looked down at me. His breath skated down my face, sweet and alcoholic, hitting all my systems, giving me goosebumps.
“I—”
I started to say something to fill the unbearable, tension-filled silence, but his mouth crushed against mine with force before I could take a breath.
“No, Turner. You’re not going to sass your way out of this one.”
This kiss was way different to the one yesterday.
To put it mildly, Cruz Costello went for broke and pulled out all the stops.