Best Man with Benefits

Luckily, her speed flagged after the first fifty meters. He closed in, enjoying the slap of the cool night air in his face, the smell of the pine trees that grew thick on the peaks surrounding the resort, and the sound of his blood pumping in his ears…and some other sound now. A familiar click followed by a “shhh” noise he couldn’t quite place, but for some reason made him think of the manicured landscape surrounding the Defy Gravity headquarters in Boulder. Oh crap, it was—

Sophie shrieked as their race route turned into a minefield of timer-deployed sprinkler-heads, blasting water from every direction. Cold water.

He quickened his pace with the idea of catching up to her and serving as her sprinkler shield, but just as he came up behind her, she slipped in the slick grass and fell forward. Changing direction was out of the question. He was momentum’s passenger at this point. Reflexes he hadn’t relied on in months kicked in, and he hurdled over her. He landed a few feet in front of her, his system awash in adrenaline. Laughing, wiping streams of water off his face, he turned to Sophie, who sat in the grass now, hissing like a wet kitten while the sprinklers doused her with another wave of cold water.

“You okay?”

She scrubbed at the grass-stained knees of her jeans. “Never better.”

He didn’t notice the dirty pants as much as the way her drenched shirt molded to her chest. The sight made him want to peel the damn thing right off. Instead he thrust the champagne bottle into her hands, and then turned, crouched down, and patted his back. “Hop on.”

“No…there’s no need—” Another wave of freezing water oscillated over them and cut her off.

He shrugged and started to stand. “Okay, but if they’re having a wet T-shirt contest in the lobby, you’re going win first place.”

“What?” She glanced down. “Oh my God!”

The next thing he knew, he had one hundred and twenty pounds of soaking wet woman scrambling onto his back. He stood, hefted her higher, and sprinted toward the resort, trying his best to dodge sprinkler spray and ignore the feel of her thighs clamped around his waist and the soft weight of her breasts bouncing against his back. With those distractions in play, he barely noticed the champagne bottle thumping against his chest.

He could have carried her like that all night, but by the time he burst through the lobby’s automatic doors they were both out of breath from laughing. The few guests and hotel personnel wandering the lobby turned and stared with varying degrees of amusement or irritation. Logan dashed to the elevators.

“Floor?” he asked when the doors closed and they were alone in the wood-paneled space.

“Six,” Sophie whispered, and then giggled when he used her toe to hit the button.

“You can put me down now.” She loosened the arms she’d wrapped around his neck and shifted her hips to signal she was ready for the drop, and he found himself reading the fine print on the elevator inspection certificate to stop from groaning out loud at the feel of her squirming against him.

“Sophie?” He mimicked her hushed voice.

“What?”

“Why are you whispering?”

The question pulled another giggle from her, slightly self-conscious this time. “I don’t know,” she admitted, still whispering. “I don’t want to attract any attention.”

“God forbid.” He loosened his hold on her legs, used his hands to stabilize her descent, and let her slide down his back until her feet reached the floor. The process offered him a highly detailed, but mostly accidental tour of her denim-covered backside. He bit back another groan, waited until they’d achieved touchdown, and then turned to face her.

Bad move. The elevator lights turned her wet shirt into a transparent second skin. He could easily see her white bra, and the truly awe-inspiring curves it supported. Shy, adorable, strictly off-limits Sophie, he mentally recited, while his brain attempted to signal his eyes to look away. His eyes told his brain to fuck off. As he watched, the chill of air-conditioning—or maybe the heat of his gaze—turned her nipples to hard little points and he pressed his lips together while he imagined testing their resilience with his tongue.

Not to be outdone, the show-off south of his navel perked up and demonstrated its talent for getting hard, too. An odd, slightly breathy sound from Sophie had his guilty gaze jumping to her face.

What he saw there did nothing to alleviate the discomfort of his dick swelling against the zipper of his shorts. Her wide eyes roamed all over him, eventually homing in on his fly, which made him realize his own waterlogged clothes revealed more than normal. Her cheeks grew pink, and her lips parted to accommodate fast, shallow breaths. He envisioned backing her up against the wall, tearing her shirt open, yanking her bra up, and letting those opulent breasts spill into his hands.

The elevator came to a halt. Her body swayed toward him, almost imperceptibly, bringing her erect nipples infinitesimally closer. The muscles in his chest tightened in anticipation. Would her eyes drift closed and a sigh of pleasure fill the small compartment if he—

The doors whooshed open. She jerked upright, blinked, and then turned beet red. “I have to get off now.” Impossibly, as soon as the words left her mouth, her cheeks turned even redder. “I mean”—she hugged the champagne bottle to her chest like a teddy bear—“this is my floor.”

“Yep. Mine, too.” He pulled his shoes out of his pockets, tossed them on the floor, and slid into them, never once taking his eyes off her. Then he put his hand across the door to keep it open and gestured her to precede him out of the car.

She walked past him, headed down the hall, and produced her card key from her back pocket. He patted his front hip pocket for his own. Uh-oh. Nothing. He reached into his pocket and dug around. Still nothing. Frowning, he tried the other pocket and came up empty again. The key hunt had him so distracted he nearly barreled into her when she stopped in front of one of the doors.

“This is me. Room 612. Here”—she handed him the champagne—“you won.”

“You’re going to make me drink this all alone?” He took the bottle in one hand and continued his key quest with the other. Calling it a night was probably for the best, considering the struggle he was having remembering the Sophie-Is-Off-Limits rule, but still, disappointment landed heavy in his gut. He’d had fun tonight. Hell, when was the last time he’d run barefoot in the grass under a full moon? No clue, which meant it had been too long, he thought as he dug through his back pockets. Goddammit, where was his key?

“Is something wrong?”

“No. I’m just”—he sighed and gave himself one last, fruitless pat-down—“losing my mind. I can’t find my room key. Again.” Heat crawled up his neck.

“You’re not losing your mind.” She bit her lip and he had the funny feeling she did it to keep from laughing.

“Okay, divulge. Where’s my key?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I suspect you have a…ahem…surprise waiting for you in your room right now.”

“What kind of surprise?”

“Um…a bridesmaid.”

“A what?”

She lost her battle with her laughter. “You heard me,” she managed. “Keep this to yourself, but the girls called dibs on the groomsmen, and, yes, someone plans to bag the best man. Don’t look so shocked. You should be flattered. They’re all incredibly beautiful. Anyway, sights were set, strategies devised, and room keys slipped from the pockets of unsuspecting victims. Since your seductress apparently failed to make her move last night, my guess is she’s taking another shot at claiming her prize.”

The beginning of a headache settled in behind his eyes again. He liked fun and games—and recreational sex—as much as the next guy, but for whatever reason the idea of going back to his room so a bored bridesmaid could use him like a personal toy sounded about as appealing as, well, it didn’t sound unappealing, but it sounded superficial, and meaningless, and a little too much like a stripped-down version of his current love life. Since Defy Gravity had taken off, the women he

met tended to look at him as the human equivalent of a Louis Vuitton bag. Serving as a “prize” in the battle of the bridesmaids only took matters to a new low.

Then his thoughts turned in an even more uncomfortable direction. “Which groomsman did you pick?” And why did he suddenly want to pound the crap out of Reed, Brock, or Tyler?