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Seriously? First the phone, and now this?
Chloe knew when she was beat. With a sigh, she turned off the shower. She reached past the curtain to pull one of the white hotel towels off the metal rack above the toilet. Like all mass-laundered hotel towels, it was scratchy and barely reached the tops of her thighs when she wrapped it around herself.
The TV went silent as she stepped out of the tub. There were some muffled noises she couldn’t quite place, and then the squeaky floor betrayed Ben’s presence.
Chloe froze.
He was walking toward the bathroom.
Her hand flew to her chest, gripping the tiny towel in a tight fist. Her skin buzzed. Her heartbeat picked up. The light seeping under the bathroom door was interrupted by his shadow. There were only two inches of ramshackle door and a threadbare towel separating them. He was right...there...
“Chloe? You okay?”
Oh, man. His deep voice hit her right in the estrogen and her body picked up where it had left off in the shower. All that delicious heat flared back up. “Fine. Dropped something.” The ability to form full sentences had deserted her.
“Okay. Well, good news. According to the weather forecast, the storm’s moving quicker than they thought. It’s already stopped snowing out there. We should get out of here on time tomorrow.”
“Great.” She hoped the word didn’t come out as breathy as it had sounded to her own ears.
“I’m going to head downstairs and see a man about a cot. Or a woman. I’m not picky. Judging by the ominous ‘no one’s available to take your call’ message I just got when I phoned the front desk, it might take a while. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck.” Yep, pretty breathy. Now she felt guilty for forming such a dark opinion of Stewardess Barbie. Maybe the poor girl couldn’t help it. Maybe it had been Ben’s fault the whole time.
Then the hotel room door shrieked open and banged shut.
Chloe exhaled a shaky, disappointed breath.
What had she expected him to do? Bust open the door, profess their chemistry was undeniable, and ravish her like the hero in some old romance novel her grandma kept hidden at the back of her bookshelf? Well, kind of. But dudes got arrested for that kind of stuff nowadays.
With a sigh, Chloe wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at her blurry image.
Barefaced. Plain brown hair.
Maybe it was for the best that Ben hadn’t broken down the door after all.
She barely recognized herself. She wasn’t even in Buffalo yet and she was already reverting to the old Chloe. The one who’d been so desperate to escape. It was as if the closer she got to home, the more of her identity she was losing.
Her mother always said she wore too much makeup. It didn’t matter how many strangers complimented her, or how many friends asked for a quick lesson. Her mother wouldn’t be impressed that she’d worked her way from sales associate to manager of her local Titanium Beauty store in less than two years. Or that customers loved her makeup recommendations, and that the job afforded her a decent apartment and a means to pay her bills. To Fiona Masterson, it would never be more than a menial labor job at a makeup store in the mall.
And sure, her life wasn’t as posh as her childhood had been, but she had a position in an industry she loved, and it was a great learning experience that was going to help her when she finally launched her own business and became a full-fledged makeup artist. She’d even started a YouTube channel where dozens of people thanked her for her tips and tricks on a weekly basis. It wasn’t netting her much money yet, but she’d broken the five-hundred-dollar mark two months in a row. Not bad for a fledgling channel that relied on word of mouth.
Besides, making money wasn’t the reason she had a YouTube channel. Mostly, it was a place for her to indulge her passion for makeup, for teaching women how to apply it, for investigating and reviewing products. Makeup wasn’t just about vanity, it was about confidence, and she loved reading the comments of her subscribers as they discovered their best selves.
She grabbed the tiny blow-dryer that hung on the bathroom wall and attacked her wet hair with the renewed resolve of a woman with a plan. She was done feeling crappy about herself. She had a video to make for her regular Sunday night upload, anyway, so why not kill two birds with one stone?
First she was going to do her makeup.
Then she was going to do Ben.
3 (#u0d14a43b-fbe8-521a-8f21-f2a7101e22f1)
ONCEHERHAIR was under control, Chloe pulled on some sexy underwear—a black satin push-up bra with matching panties—and added a black T-shirt for modesty’s sake. And socks.
Then she grabbed the cosmetic case and headed back into the room. She set her bag on the desk and liberated her laptop from her giant purse.
While it whirred to life at the touch of a button, Chloe took a seat and turned on the lamp beside her. She rummaged in her bag through the familiar jumble of eye shadow pots, Q-tips, brushes, eyeliners and mascara, making her selections as her computer booted up.
Once she’d settled on her makeup choices, she set to work, using the mirror hanging on the wall to make sure her concealer, foundation and powder were blended flawlessly into her skin. A little blush finished off her base, and she was ready for the fun stuff.
She went for a relatively simple daytime-appropriate look of blue-grays and soft purples.
Once she was happy with how her left eye had turned out, she pulled the laptop in front of her and opened the programs she needed. With the press of a button, her image appeared on the computer screen. She tucked her hair behind her ears and clicked Record.
“Hi, guys, Chloe here. I’m on the road this week, and as you can see,” she motioned at the disheveled bed behind her, “my accommodations are not the most glamorous. But that’s no reason not to look like a million bucks! So here’s a quick makeup tutorial for all you jet-setters out there. A lot of you have been asking me for tips on what to bring with you on a trip. So my first recommendation is to pack a great eye shadow palette. With a palette, you get a lot of variety without taking up a lot of space, plus, all the colors are guaranteed to go together.” She flipped the case full of blues and purples open and angled it toward the camera. “I’m going to be using this eye shadow palette by Jeweled Web—it’s called Suburban Storm.
“For this look, I’m also going to be using an eyelash curler, my trusty brow gel, my favorite drugstore liquid liner, and the Lashes for Days mascara from Titanium Beauty.” Chloe held each product up to the camera as she named it, and the routine of it all calmed her.
“As always, I’ve already done the left side, so you have an example of what we’re aiming for.” She turned her head a little and closed her eye. “So now that we’ve amassed the troops, I’ll show you how to recreate this effect, and then we’ll amp it up so you can see how an eye shadow palette can take you from business meeting to nightclub, even when you’re away from home.”
She fell easily into the rhythm of her makeup routine, chatting confidently at the camera, noticing from the corner of her eye that she was just approaching the five-minute mark as she finished up with her mascara wand. Perfect. Her under-six-minute videos always seemed to pull more views than the longer ones.
“So that’s it.” Chloe angled her head to the side, closed her eyes, opened them and leaned toward the laptop screen. “A dramatic look for a night out, or if you’re like me, any given weekday. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. Thanks for watching. I’m Chloe and as I always say, ‘makeup, not war’. Until next time.”
Chloe clicked a few settings in the program, saved the video file, and set her laptop aside. Her weekly makeup tutorial was ready to post to her YouTube channel on Sunday night, as scheduled.
And she was ready for Ben.
* * *
BENSTOPPEDINfront of the door and liberated the key card from his pocket, taking a moment to notice that his Prada dress shoes had fallen victim to the weather. The snow and salt had left streaks on the usually-gleaming black leather. He’d need to clean them before the big meeting tomorrow. The day he’d bought them, the salesgirl at the Bellevue Neiman Marcus had oohed and aahed over them, assuring him they were top-of-the-line, as comfortable as they were stylish, but if he was being honest, he still preferred the beat-up Converse shoes he used to wear.
Dress for the job you want, he reminded himself. It would all be worth it when he was hanging out at his cabin. He might even enforce a strict Chucks or bare-feet-only policy there.
He unlocked the door and strode inside. “Chloe, they’re out of cots, so...”
He stopped. Blinked. Tried to process the delectable sight before him.
“That’s okay. I don’t think we’re going to need the cot, do you?”
“You’re not wearing pants.” It was an inane thing to say, but in his defense the blood was rushing away from his brain at an alarmingly fast rate.
Chloe’s laugh was low and sexy. “You’re a real charmer, Masterson, but your powers of observation are a little off,” she chided, glancing down at herself, “because I’m— Oh, shit!” When she looked back at him, his seductress was frowning. “I meant to take the T-shirt off before you got back.”
She reached for the hem and tugged her black shirt over her head, dropping it to the ground. Ben didn’t think he’d ever been as deeply in lust with someone as he was with this woman in her sexy black-satin lingerie and a serviceable pair of black socks.
He wasn’t sure if she’d awakened some weird sock fetish he’d never known he had, or if it was just damn adorable that she’d heeded his warning about cellulitis, but her brand of sensible sexuality had made him so hard it was a wonder his fly was still intact.
And that was before she walked over, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and kissed him like she’d been thinking about it at least as long as he had.
His arms came around her, pulling her closer. They both groaned at the full-body contact.
He kissed her again, licking into her mouth until he drew a sigh from her sweet pink lips. “You changed your makeup,” he said, and the pleased expression on her face made him glad he’d mentioned it.
“I’m surprised you noticed.”
“Well, in my defense, I’m a guy, so no pants trumps purple eye shadow every time. But that doesn’t mean I won’t get around to noticing how soft and pretty and touchable you look.” He reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “So different than the badass green and black from earlier.”
She tightened her grip on his neck, pulling him down for another kiss, and they were both panting when their lips parted again.
“I’ve wanted this since the moment we shook hands on the plane,” he confessed, kissing her jaw and running his fingers over smooth, warm skin and cool black satin.
“That’s pretty presumptuous, Masterson.” Despite her words, she tipped her head back so he could continue trailing kisses down her neck. He walked her backward to the bed.
“How is it presumptuous?”
“I just decided this was going to happen while I was in the shower. Sex definitely wasn’t on the table before that.”
“Sure it was,” he countered, placing her on the mattress. “Ask Spider.”
Chloe’s laugh was full and rich as she scooted up on the bed so she could recline on the pillows. “I can’t believe you just said that! I share my tragic past with you and you use it against me?”
He pulled off her socks. “Face it, Chloe. This was meant to be. The plane? The hotel mix-up? Fate’s practically begging us to have sex.”
Her smile was decadent. “I think you may have misunderstood the difference between fate and hormones.”
“No way. This is definitely fate.” Ben joined her on the bed. “I mean they don’t call it a layover for nothing.”
“Stop that,” she said with a breathy giggle that drove him wild. Ben was enchanted, no doubt about it. And very turned on. “Stop what?”
“Stop making me laugh.”
He kissed her collarbone. “Why?”
“Because one-night stands aren’t supposed to be funny, they’re supposed to be torrid and sexy and raw.”
“Oh, I can do torrid.”
* * *
COULDHEEVER.
His expression darkened seconds before he caught her mouth in a scorching, wet kiss that convinced her they were both wearing way too many clothes.
She reached for the buttons on his dress shirt, fumbling them open with lust-clumsy fingers. When she’d finally popped the last one, he rewarded her with a shift of his hips that brought their bodies into perfect alignment, and the pleasure that streaked through her made her gasp.
Damn he felt good. Hot and hard. Her fingers curled against his skin, and her hips bucked to get closer. He groaned, grinding harder against her, squeezing her breast with a large, warm hand. She wanted Ben, naked and panting, thrusting inside her until she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t care less about her mother’s disappointment, or her sister’s wedding, or her exile in Chicago.
She felt alive. And sexy. And desperate for more.
She ran her palms across his beautiful shoulders and down his back. When she reached the waistband of his pants, she let her fingers follow the material around to his stomach and traced the reverse path, up his ridged abdomen and hair-roughened chest.
“Oh, God,” he rasped, pulling away a little, but she rose up, catching his mouth as she ran a thumb across his nipple, delighting in the shudder that quaked through him at her touch. “Chloe, stop for a second.”
“Make me,” she growled playfully, nipping his bottom lip, loving the way his muscles jumped at her touch. He groaned. “Jesus, you feel so good.” He kissed her back, hot and frantic, before tearing his mouth away again.
“Chloe, are you sure about this?”
Ben was staring down at her, hair mussed, eyes dark, looking like the answer to all her sexual frustrations. “I need this, Ben.” She was desperate to experience more of the buzzing current running between them, to block out the shitty stuff and lose herself with this man.
She might as well have said abracadabra, her words had such a magical effect on him. That last little bit of concern that had lingered disappeared in a wolfish grin. “I meant are you sure about the bed,” he lied. “Because I’d be happy to move this over to the table if you want to be able to tell a better story at the stagette.”
“I already missed the stagette,” she responded, pressing a kiss against his jaw, “and the family brunch,” she kissed his neck, “the reception for out-of-town guests,” the hollow of his throat, “the rehearsal,” his collarbone, “the rehearsal dinner—”
“Oh, okay, now who’s being funny? This bed is a joke-free zone, Masterson. Your rule, not mine.”
“You’re right,” she conceded. She leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “You’d better take off your clothes and get me on track again.”
His mouth hitched up at the corner in a devilish half smile. “Yeah, baby. I got your torrid right here,” he said, and her laughter betrayed her change of heart. Maybe funny did have its place in the bedroom after all.
Ben got to his feet and pulled his shirt the rest of the way off.
She’d never been into male strippers—way too cheesy for her taste—but watching Ben strip was a study in seduction. There was no teasing or coyness, just a man taking off his clothes.
And then, finally, he stood naked and aroused in front of her. All sinewy muscle and powerful limbs. And she wanted him. All of him.
“Your turn,” he said, his voice so low and raspy that she shivered.
Chloe pushed onto her knees, reaching behind her back to unhook her bra. She peeled the material away slowly and air rushed against her skin, doing nothing to cool the heat that raged inside her.
Then there was nothing left between them but her underwear. She tucked her thumbs into the waistband, inching them down her thighs. It was one of the sexiest moments of her life, revealing herself to him this way, and his predatory stare raised goose bumps on her skin.
“You’re so beautiful.”
And she believed him in that moment because she felt beautiful. Powerful. Tonight she was daring and sexy, an erotic fantasy. With a grin that was pure siren, she slipped her panties off the rest of the way and tossed them to the floor. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“Oh, I’ve got a couple of ideas,” he promised with a wicked smile. He grabbed protection from somewhere inside his suitcase. Chloe kept her eyes on him as he ripped into the package. She was surprised by how sexy it was, watching him handle himself, roll the condom down the length of his shaft.
She’d never really paid much attention to this part of the process before. She was usually too far inside her own head—How did she look? How did he think she looked? How could she make her boobs seem bigger and her stomach seem flatter?—to pay much attention.
She was paying attention now.
He was big, deliciously so.
She was all damp heat and wanting. When she licked her lips, he practically pounced on her, pressing her back into the mattress. Then he shifted and his erection was between her legs and it was so perfect having him there, just where she wanted him.
When he started circling his hips, applying more pressure, Chloe nearly cried out. “Deeper,” she whispered, burying her head in the crook of his neck. “Please.”
