Bait: The Wake Series, Book One(20)

There wasn't a winning side in this game. I would likely lose. But not that night. The next day I'd walk home with my tail between my legs and I'd pretend like it never happened. I'd be the one thinking of her when someone touched me. When I pushed toward a climax, with whoever it may be, Blake's name would be the one on my tongue. And when I'd stroke myself off, it would be her I was picturing for months to come.

But that night, I was going to make her mine one more time. One touch. One kiss. One lick at a time.

I watched her for a few more minutes from down the street. I saw her warring with herself, or me, or him, or life in general. When I got to the doors of the hotel, I decided not to run up the stairs like I had before. I rode the elevator and tried to come up with a good reason for her to let me in.

The shit of it was, I didn’t have one. There was no rational reason for any of this. Even I knew that. But I wanted her. That was a fact.

At her door, my hand knocked on it before I told it to.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I shook my hands out and steadied my nerves. She might have told me to f*ck off and I'd have no choice but to do just that.

I heard her lean on the door and it creaked as she pressed to look out the peep-hole.

“Casey?” she asked. Then I heard the thump of her head against the wood. “What are you doing here?”

“Please, let me in.” I wasn't messing around. I wanted in and I saw no point in f*cking around about it.

She said through the door to me, “It's late.”

“I know what time it is. Let me in.”

“Casey, this is a bad idea.”

“You leave tomorrow. Don't you?”

“See? This isn't right. I have a boyfriend and you clearly still have a girlfriend. Last night was—” Then she stopped.

“I don't still have a girlfriend. I don't know why she showed up. And honestly, right now, I don't give a shit about your boyfriend. Open. The. Door.” I walked a thin line. I never talked to women like that usually. To tell you the truth, I‘d never had a reason to. None of the chicks I'd dated ever had this effect on me.

I lightened the mood and clawed my way toward a miracle, I pulled out what I hoped were the big guns. “Betty, please?”

I heard her laugh a little and hiccup. Her fingers fumbled around with the lock. It rattled the door as she tried to get the mechanisms to unlatch. When she got all the way to the top, she huffed and kicked the door.

She was frustrated. I knew the feeling.

“Almost there, Lou,” she sang. When the last lock slid from that bally thing and met the face of the wooden door, I reached and turned the knob myself.

She swayed, stepping backward at the same time. The back of her knees hit the luggage stand and she stopped, flinging her arms out to her sides and carpet surfed the whole way back to her equilibrium.

“Are you okay?” I shut the door gently, not wanting to startle her when she was already having a difficult time standing.

Her flimsy hand washed past her face, narrowly missing her bright red nose. It was so cute. It had gotten like that when she was flushed from sex, but I didn't notice it when she was drinking. A sane person’s brain would say, “Oh, it probably does that when she's drunk.” But I wasn't sane at the moment. I was looking for any reason that I was doing the right thing. I stood there internally debating why the f*cking perfectly pink nose glowed like Rudolph.

“I'm fine,” she said, pinching her lips together like a duck.

A conniving voice in my head said it was pink for another reason.

“Are you drunk?” I walked around her, straight to the couch. I wanted her to come to me. Sure, my intentions weren't the purest when I’d decided to come back to her hotel. But being there, I wasn't as interested in sex as much as I was about getting information out of that mind of hers.

And maybe some sex, too. Sex with her was dynamite. Who wouldn’t want more of that? But that wasn’t what this was about.

“Yes. I am. We should sleep together. At least I could blame this time on the booze.” She laughed at what she was trying to pass off as a joke, but it went flat.

I didn't think it was funny.

“Is that what last night was? Your drunk mistake?”

Again, she picked at her f*cking nails and I fought the impulse to slap them away from her and make her look at me. “Come sit by me, Blake. I won’t bite.”

She looked at me and then her face flushed, coloring her grin.