The Love Wager (Mr. Wrong Number, #2)(54)

His tongue tangled with hers and teased, his teeth nipping at her lower lip, and she felt herself rearing up, desperate to meet him kiss for kiss, and to do whatever it took to keep him from ever stopping.

She reached out and grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket, pulling herself closer to him, pressing her body against his. He grunted, and she felt his hands squeeze her waist, slide down to her ass, and it was her turn to let out a noise when she felt his hardness grind against her.

“Don’t you dare stop,” she breathed into his mouth, and she let her head fall back as his lips moved down to her throat.

“I have to, Hal,” he panted into her neck, sucking her skin as he pressed his body into hers. “Before we mess up everything.”

“Yeah,” she said, agreeing while also moving her hands so she could feel his thick hair between her fingers. “Good idea.”

“So . . . are we stopping?” He lifted his mouth, but she could still feel his breath on her throat when he spoke, and he sounded like he’d do whatever she said.

“Yes,” she said, letting go of his hair and saying on an exhale, “I guess so.”

“Thank God,” he replied, his voice a sleepy drawl. “Because I have a roll on my plate that I haven’t gotten to yet.”

“The rolls are trash,” she said, her hands still shaking as she fumbled to get herself together in the dark.

“Why do you have to ruin everything for me?” he asked, his voice teasing in the quiet darkness.

She touched her hair and said, “How are we going to exit the closet without looking like a couple of horndogs?”

“That’s easy. Just step out with authority, like we had every legitimate reason to be in here.”

Hallie touched her lips and then remembered she’d been wearing red lipstick. “Crap, can you see my face?”

Jack’s face moved closer. “A little . . . ?”

“I might have makeup smeared all over my face. Shit.”

“Here.” Before she could stop him, he raised his phone and took a picture from point-blank range, and the flash was blinding in the tiny closet.

“Gah, what are you doing?!”

“Trying to help—”

He didn’t finish the sentence, because he looked at his phone and started laughing. The display illuminated his face, and when he couldn’t stop laughing long enough to explain, he turned it around and showed her.

The picture of her was positively garish.

Her eyes were half-open, her lipstick was smudged, her nostrils were flared, and the photo was so up close that you couldn’t see more than her eyes, nose, and upper lip. She looked like the ghost of a drunk clown.

“I’m not laughing at you—” he tried, but couldn’t finish.

“I know,” she said, looking at the picture and losing it. She started belly laughing with him, and neither one of them could stop. He rested his forehead on the door above her while he tried to calm down, and she could feel tears ruining what was left of her smoky eye as she cackled.

She almost couldn’t breathe.

Every time she tried to stop laughing, she pictured it again.

She screamed when the door flew open behind them, dropping them both out of the closet and onto the lobby floor.

A housekeeper stood there, blinking at them with her hand on the doorknob.

Hallie quickly scrambled out from under Jack and into a sitting position as the bright lights assaulted her eyes. She looked at him, lying on the hotel floor with red lipstick smudged all over the bottom of his face and hair sticking up everywhere. He looked as shell-shocked as she felt.

He sat up, and then he looked at her.

That grin crawled all the way up his face before he threw his head back and started laughing all over again, even as the hotel employee stared blankly at them.

That was the moment she knew.





Chapter

TWENTY-ONE


    Jack


“So it’s cigars and scotch on the east patio for the gents and cosmos on the west patio for the ladies.”

Jack watched Hallie’s sister put the microphone back on the stand, and he thought it was interesting how different they were. Lillie seemed great, but Hallie was just so . . . Hal.

“Are you freaking kidding me?”

Speak of the devil.

He turned around as Hallie approached, looking put together again. No more eye makeup smears, no more red lipstick all over. He missed the mess. He played innocent on her remark and said, “Pardon?”

“Where are we—Victorian England? The gentlemen will retire for scotch and cigars while the ladies rest their delicate constitutions?” She watched as the rehearsal guests started heading for their respective patios. “What if I want a cigar?”

He looked at her lips. Couldn’t keep his eyes off them, all of a sudden. He asked, “What exactly is a constitution?”

Hallie shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m positive mine is just as strong as yours.”

“You wish.” He patted down a piece of her hair that was sticking up. “Do you even want a cigar?”

“Not really,” she said, smoothing down the same piece of hair while finally meeting his eyes. “But I don’t want a damn cosmo, either.”

“C’mon, Jack,” Chuck said, walking over and giving a chin nod toward the east exit. “Time for us gents to get our stogies on.”