On the Rocks (Last Call #1)(31)

I smile, because I know exactly what he means.





I wake up from a sound sleep and immediately roll over to see if Gabby has gone. The bed beside me is empty and cold, so I roll back over with a sigh as I stare into the darkness.

She’s come over for the last three nights… since that amazing, incredible sex we had on my desk. We lapsed into an easy relationship the last few days, with her coming over to eat dinner. We’d talk about anything and everything, mostly catching up on each other’s lives over the last five years. She’s insatiably curious about my surfing career, even making me show her some DVDs one night of some of my competitions. She ooh’d and aah’d, gasping if I took a spill, which I’m proud to say didn’t happen all that often. My chest and my head were swelling to epic proportions when she told me how proud she was of me, and even wistfully said she wished she could have seen me in action.

We laughed a lot, slipping back into the friendship we had enjoyed prior to that first kiss. It seemed so right, so natural, and it made me want to experience more with her.

Where we are truly compatible is in the bed though. And on the couch, the floor, the shower, and the kitchen counter. Gabby is an adventurous lover, and she now knows my body as well as I do. And let’s just say I’m on a first-name basis with all the parts of hers.

But it bugs me that the past three nights I’ve woken up to find that she’s slipped away. I’m not sure what she has against sleeping with me all night. It’s intimate, sure, and it speaks to something more than just sex. But what she and I do to each other… the way that we have no-holds-barred with our lovemaking… there’s nothing more intimate than that, so sleeping together shouldn’t be an issue.

I vow that I’ll talk to her about it tonight and, if I have to tie her to my bed, I’m getting her to stay.

But?

Fuck that… I’m going to haul her ass back here right now.

I jump out of bed, throw on my clothes, and grab my keys. Within minutes, I’m in my Jeep and headed to her apartment. I hope Savannah doesn’t mind too much when I barge my way in.

As I drive down the highway, I let my mind drift. My agent called me today under the guise of checking in, but then he finally laid it on the line. My sponsors were clamoring to get me back on the Tour next year, and they wanted a commitment. They were offering ridiculous new money as an incentive, confident that I could take the World Championship.

I wasn’t so sure, however.

True… I could probably be ready to get back in the game come next March. I could have the bar up and running, and Brody could run it probably better than I could. I had my doubts, though, about my own abilities. I was getting ready to turn twenty-nine and, while I was in the best shape of my life, there were always younger and better talent climbing the ranks. Self-doubt has never been a part of my make-up, yet here it was creeping in.

More than that, my first thought hadn’t been about the bar or even my abilities—it had been confusion over how I felt about leaving Gabby. Everything was so new and exciting right now, and if asked to make my choice today, I’m fairly confident I wouldn’t want to go. But I had no clue where this was going, and come this time next year, maybe we would be old news.

Unlikely, but maybe.

As I drive past Last Call, I give it a cursory glance. The parking lot is dark, but I make out a vehicle sitting in front of the building. I do a double-take and realize it’s Gabby’s truck.

With a curse, I put on my blinker and make a fast turn, thankful there’s not a cop around to see my wild move.

What in the hell is she doing here?

I unlock the front door, immediately recognizing that the alarm is off. It’s silent, so I make my way into the back bar area. I see Gabby standing behind two sawhorses, with a piece of wood laid between. She hears my footsteps, and her head immediately snaps up in fear.

When she sees me, she places her hand over her heart. “Geez, Hunter. You scared the shit out of me.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask, completely bewildered that she’s working at… glancing down at my watch… three AM.

“I’m working,” she says, pulling her tape measure out and marking a line on the wood with a pencil, which she slips back behind her ear when she’s done.

“It’s f*cking three in the morning. Are you crazy?”

She doesn’t even look up at me. “No, I’m just hard working. What’s got you in a snit?”

I ignore that question and ask another. “Is this where you’ve been each night?”

“Yeah,” she says as she picks up the circular saw that’s lying on the floor. She flicks the switch on and starts cutting through the wood.

I’m pissed that she’s ignoring me and pissed that she’s working at three AM. I bend down to grab the extension cord that has the saw plugged into the wall and yank it out, watching her glare up at me as the saw winds down to a dead stop.

“What the hell?” she asks in exasperation.

“You cannot be sane enough to think that this is okay,” I tell her. “You work all f*cking day here, and now you come back and work in the early morning hours. No wonder you fall dead asleep as soon as I’m done f*cking you.”

Her eyes narrow at me, and she stomps over to the wall outlet to plug the cord back in. “You hired me to do this job, but you have no f*cking say-so in how I do it, so just back off.”