I don’t unhand her ass. In fact, I squeeze it harder, sliding one finger into the crevice between her legs, and I can hear her breath hitch when I do.
“Probably,” I say. “And I don’t think they’re used to their upscale inn being used like a cheap hourly motel.”
“You never know,” she teases, looking around, then glancing back at me. “Early Americana gets some people pretty hot.”
“Some people?” I ask, as we reach the first floor and I spin the key around one finger, looking for room 104, my other hand still on her ass. “It’s working, then?”
“Sure,” she says as we walk up to the door. “A hand-turned bannister really gets me going, you know.”
“I knew we were in the right place,” I tease, looking down at the key in my hand, then at the door.
It’s an old-fashioned, heavy skeleton key, because of course it is. I shrug and shove it into the keyhole, but it doesn’t turn.
“Come on,” I mutter.
“Maybe you need to be gentle with it,” Thalia suggests, her voice dipping low, her words sending an electric tingle up my spine. She’s leaning against the wall by the door, winter coat open, hips cocked, the curve of her body a tantalizing suggestion.
“You think that’s it?” I ask, pushing a little harder, twisting both directions.
“I’m just saying, make sure it’s good and ready for you,” she says. “Go nice and slow.”
I glance down at her, eyes dancing, a laugh tugging at her lips.
“And how exactly should I go about doing that?” I ask, matching her tone. “Do you want me to talk dirty to a door, Thalia?”
“Only if you think you might get it open that way.”
Now she’s definitely laughing at me, her voice husky, tantalizing, and there’s a moment where I think I might lose my mind. Then I take a deep breath, focus, take the key out, put it back into the lock slowly, carefully.
“Ooh, just like that,” she whispers. “Fill it up nice and deep. Mmm.”
“Do you imagine you’re helping?” I tease.
“No,” she laughs.
I reach out, grab her by the waistband of her jeans, her hip hot against my cool fingers, pull her in toward me.
“Well, you’re not,” I tell her.
“Try turning it real hard and slow,” she murmurs. “Make it beg.”
I let her go but her body is still pressed against mine, still standing outside this stupid shut door. I run my thumb across her bottom lip, and all at once I’m trying not to laugh and also trying to get this door open before I give up and tear her clothes off in this hallway.
“Quit it,” I growl, twisting the key again and motherfucking hellfire bitch-ass fuck, it still doesn’t turn.
Thalia grins, and now she’s got one hand underneath my shirt, slowly tracing shapes along my skin.
“Have you tried,” she murmurs. “Jiggling it?”
I jiggle the key, ever so slightly.
It turns the tiniest bit, and Thalia gasps. It’s the same way she gasps when I do something she likes, and the noise goes straight to my already-painfully-hard cock.
“Don’t stop,” she murmurs, looking up at me, teasing me even as her face flushes a shade of pink I’ve come to know well. “It’s so close, Caleb. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
I jiggle it again and the lock turns, slowly, then all at once and the bolt slides back.
I swear Thalia makes the quietest of moans as it does.
I shove the door open so fast it slams into the doorstop on the other side, the crack echoing through the hall so loudly I’m certain someone will come investigate.
I grab Thalia, laughing. I push her inside, slam the door, bolt it again, take her by the hips and walk her backward.
“Tomorrow everyone’s going to be talking about how the youngest Loveless brother tried to fuck a door, and it’s all going to be your fault,” I tease her.
“Oops,” she says, her arms already around my neck, her fingers in my hair, clearly not sorry. “But it worked, didn’t it?”
She backs up against a table and without thinking I grab her, lift her onto it. It protests slightly under her weight, and it’s probably hand-made from expensive wood, and I couldn’t care less as I grab her hand and press it against my cock, still straining at my zipper.
“Did it?” I ask, capturing her mouth with mine, her bottom lip between my teeth. “Did it work like you wanted, Thalia?”
I shrug my coat off as she wraps her legs around me, kiss her again, harder, groaning into her mouth as she slides her hand from tip to root.
“Because this is what happens when you suggest that I do anything slower and deeper and harder,” I go on. “But you knew that.”
“Well, I was hoping,” she admits, a smile in her voice.
“Liar,” I say, grinning. “You know exactly the effect you have on me and you enjoy every second of it. Get this off,” I tell her, pushing her coat over her shoulders.