Rendezvous (Renegades 5)

He hadn’t decided if that was good or bad, but he was leaning toward the latter.

“Stop with the gloom and doom,” Cam said before tossing another few kernels of gourmet popcorn in his mouth. “Cruella DeVille is probably punishing her by forcing her to polish all her shoes or making her clean out the chimney or something.”

“That’s only one of the options I’m afraid of.”

“When she calls, she’ll be a whimpering mess, and you can bring her to your room and make her feel all better. Think about that and stop pouting.”

“I’m not pouting. I don’t fucking pout.”

Cam laughed, turned his head to the woman sitting next to him, and said, “Hey, gorgeous. Do you have a mirror I could borrow for a second?”

The woman grinned, her eyes bright. She’d been waiting for an hour for one of them to notice her. “Um, I think so…”

When she started looking through her purse, Cam said, “Good. I want to show this idiot what pouting looks like.”

“God, you’re an ass,” Keaton told Cam. Then said to the woman, “He owes you a drink.” He glared at Cam. “Buy her a drink, you idiot, and apologize.”

“That’s okay,” she said, drawing Keaton’s gaze. “I was really more interested in you. But I was hoping you weren’t quite so…nice.”

A hoot of laughter rolled out of Cam and fisted in Keaton’s gut.

He turned on his stool and faced the woman. “What the hell is it about me that makes you think, at first glance, I wouldn’t be nice?”

The sweet exterior melted away as the woman pulled out her attitude. She slid off her stool, crossed her arms, and tilted her head as she approached. When it was obvious she had no intention of stopping until she was between his legs, Keaton put out a hand and stopped her at arm’s length.

“That rock-hard body. The grungy jeans and boots.” Her hand took a fold of his light leather jacket between her fingers and rubbed. “The way you wear leather. The way you walk, the way you sit, the way you drink. Your scowl, those dark, intense eyes.” She laughed softly, sensually, with a small shake of her head. “A better question would be what about you doesn’t make me think rough, hard, screaming-great sex? Mmmm, and these scars. God, I love the scars…”

She lifted one hand toward his face.

Keaton grabbed her forearm, and her eyes widened a little. “Did I give you permission to touch me?”

A low laugh bubbled up from her throat. A hot, I-knew-it, you’re-exactly-what-I’m-looking-for laugh that added fuel to Keaton’s anger and hurt to his impending loss. Because if he couldn’t work things out with Brooke, this was what waited for him.

Superficial, hedonistic fucking for physical release.

After experiencing the kind of connection he’d craved for years yet not even known he’d needed until he’d found Brooke, the thought of hooking up with strangers again left him absolutely hollow. The fact that his past and his actions today might have pushed him closer to that barren place tested his temper’s limit.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice low and hot. “Just like that. But let’s do it upstairs—”

He shoved her hand away and opened his mouth to tell her to go to hell.

“Mr. Holt.” A man approached, breaking Keaton’s focus and defusing his frustration. He looked into the very familiar face of a desk clerk named Leroy. The man’s dark eyes held Keaton’s purposely, but the easy Southern air he always had was still in place. “A word?”

Cam took over with the woman, buying her a drink. Keaton turned his back to the others. “Hey, Leroy. What’s up?”

“You okay, son? You looked like you were about to start a fight off the set.”

By now, Keaton was on a first-name basis with everyone at the hotel from the managers to the maids. Leroy might have been a decade younger than Keaton’s own father, but the man still called him son. “It’s just been one hell of a long day. What’s going on?”

“This was just dropped off for you.” He held an envelope. “I saw you come in here, and I was on my way out, so I thought I’d swing it by on my way to the car.”

Keaton exhaled and frowned, taking the envelope from him and looking at the smooth, swirly handwriting on the front. Even though the hotel was filled with movie people—production assistants, crew, minor cast members—only key people had his cell number. This could be anything from an interview request to a schedule change to a script modification someone wrote down at the last minute and asked their assistant to hand off to him.

Even though there was only one assistant he cared about right now, Keaton pulled open the unsealed flap and drew out the folded paper inside. “Know who it’s from?”

“Pretty little thing. She came into the lobby, asked to leave it for you, and…”

Leroy’s words faded as Keaton scanned the note and focused on the signature: Brooke. A lick of alarm burned in his gut, and he was on his feet, turning toward the hotel lobby, even while he read the note.