Butterface

Finally, she asked in a soft voice, “Do you want me to leave?”

“Hell no.” Like he had to think about that.

She laughed. It was a smoky alto—one question answered—that went straight to his dick. “Then what’s there to talk about?”

Not a damn thing. He wrapped the towel around his hips and reached for the door.

Chapter Three

With the music from her phone filling up the dim space of the hotel room, Gina pushed past the adrenaline and anticipation pumping through her veins with enough force that she could practically hear it and reached her hands behind her back, making a desperate grab for her dress’s zipper tab. Maybe it was the pressure of the moment, maybe it was the fact that Satan had designed her dress, but she had to use all of her yoga stretching skills to reach the damn thing. Then, she had to not have an anxiety attack while in the process of inching the zipper down using only the very tips of her fingers.

She kept an eye on the bathroom to make sure Ford didn’t walk out and catch her looking like a twisted-up Cirque du Soliel reject.

Stress-induced perspiration curled the hair near her temples into frizzy ringlets. Okay, she couldn’t see they were frizzy because she’d turned off the lights, but she knew that’s what had happened.

Finally, she got the damn zipper down far enough to slide the dress over her hips right as the bathroom door started to open. Shit. She wasn’t prepared. She needed five more minutes. Didn’t he still need to condition his hair? Did guys even do that?

Shut it, Regina, this isn’t the time for stupid questions.

Right. She was right. A nervous giggle escaped. God, she was not only talking to herself, she was confirming her answers.

From her spot near the end of the bed, she could just see into the bathroom. That gave her a perfect view of Ford as he completely opened the opaque glass bathroom door. Or it would have, if total and complete panic hadn’t sent her flying onto the foot of the bed, where she scrambled on her hands and knees like a deranged gazelle on speed to the top of the bed and slid under the covers. Of course, her underwear went up her butt in the process.

She groaned out loud and squeezed her eyes shut. She’d worn her evil granny panty stomach minimizers. She hadn’t been planning on getting laid. Didn’t men know a woman had to plan for these types of things? Like, what if she hadn’t shaved in a week or was on her period? Didn’t they even consider the possibilities?

“Hey there,” Ford said, the pitch of his voice giving it a sexy gruffness.

Her belly fluttered, and her nerves melted away in the onslaught of hot desire that flooded her limbs.

“Hey yourself,” she answered as she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties and used the kind of strength they talk about mothers having when they lift cars off their children to shove them down and then fling them over to where her dress lay in a puddle on the floor. Palms sweaty, she ripped off her bra before Ford stepped out of the bathroom, pausing in the pool of light coming out of the open door.

Thanks to her brief moment of sanity when she’d walked into the room and killed the lights, she had a better view of him than he did of her. Outlined by the light behind him, he stood silhouetted in the door. Broad shoulders, defined arms, and narrow hips that had a towel slung low around them. Wow. Ford was the exception to the looks-better-with-clothes-than-without rule, even when she could only see him in outlined form. She tried to think of something flirty to say, but her brain had checked out—right up until the moment when he reached for the light switch outside the bathroom door that would turn on the bedroom lights.

“No,” she said, slinking farther down under the covers. “Leave it off.”

Hello, this is your subconscious calling, and I know why you’ll only do this in the dark.

Yeah, because it was harder to notice her face this way. Oooff. That hit like a solid punch to the gut. However, before self-doubt could grab hold, Ford turned off the bathroom light and the room plunged into near darkness, thanks to the hotel’s mostly closed blackout curtains. Thank God enough light from the streetlamps snuck through the space between the curtains that she could watch as he walked toward her, unwrapping the towel as he did.