Chapter Eleven

Wes closed his eyes and willed the punishing spray of cold water to bring him back to his senses, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d shown him what she liked, how she guided him through what felt almost more intimate than if they’d had sex.

He hadn’t wanted to leave Annie passed out on the bed all alone, but he needed time to think. Fuck. He was hard again. So he switched the water to hot since he was going to be in there longer than expected.

Release came easily. All he had to do was recall the sounds Annie made for him or the way her body moved when he touched it. The way her lips felt on his cock. He’d intended tonight to be about her, to prove… He didn’t know what the hell he was trying to prove. It started with the book, but he knew it had quickly turned to something more. But what that was he couldn’t define. The writer was once again at a loss for words.

He stepped out of the shower and onto the cool tile of the Blissful Nights bathroom floor. “Huh,” he said aloud, rubbing the fog from the mirror to get a good look at the guy staring back at him. He was smiling, which—yes—was fucking weird. As self-involved as he was when it came to his writer life, he wasn’t one for grinning at himself like an asshole. Yet here he was.

Quite the predicament.

He wrapped a towel around his hips and peeked out the bathroom door and saw that Annie had found her way to one of the pillows and was curled up on her side. His smile widened.

Shit.

He needed to get his head back in the game. This was Jeremy’s sister. Jeremy—who’d not only given him a temporary place to stay but also a temporary job while he figured his shit out. He could not afford to fuck that up. Then there was Annie. She just got out of a relationship. She certainly didn’t need a guy with the emotional maturity of the teenage boy she used to know thinking that he could feel something for her.

“You are a fucking joke,” he said softly to himself. “You can’t even make fictional relationships work. You think you deserve a shot at someone like her?”

Excellent. Now he could add mildly insane to his list of datable qualities.

Annie rolled to her other side and let out a sweet moan.

Tonight. They had tonight. He could keep any and all baggage from infiltrating whatever time they had left together. So he pulled his boxers back on and padded over to the bed, sliding in next to her and pulling her back to his chest. But as much as he tried, he couldn’t ignore that sweet smell of home.

He lasted an hour with her pressed against him, a sweet yet agonizing hour where sleep wouldn’t come. He’d eventually gotten up, intending on jotting down a few notes as a distraction, but he was on page twenty of the hotel notepad, said pages strewn across the small table at which he sat. Some would call it a mess, but Wes liked to think of it as organized chaos. If he didn’t take a break soon, his hand would cramp up completely. But the words wouldn’t stop, so he kept writing.

“Do you have any idea how sexy it is to watch what I assume is a book in progress? Total book lover porn.” She stretched her arms over her head and yawned. “It also helps that you’re almost naked while writing. Seriously. Nothing hotter.”

He kept writing for several more seconds, needing to complete the thought before he forgot it. Then he glanced up to see Annie awake in bed, her red hair adorably disheveled and the bedsheet barely covering her breasts.

He dropped his pen, massaging his cramped hand.

“I was inspired,” he said, unable to hold back his grin when she looked at him like that, not just like she maybe wanted to devour him, but also like she was genuinely interested in what he was doing.

Max was interested because he was Wes’s agent, and to him words were money. For both of them.

Joanne, his editor—sure. She was interested, too. But it was her job.

But Annie had no ulterior motive. Okay, maybe, if he really thought about it, if he wrote another bestseller and she put it on her store’s shelf—yeah. Money, money, money. But that was far beyond the scribbled sheets that lay before him now.

“Can I read?” she asked, then bit her bottom lip.

Shit, she could ask him for all his earthly possessions, and if she did that little lip-biting thing after, he’d give her everything.

“I’ll massage your hand when I’m done,” she added. “And—maybe massage other things, too?”

This time her teeth grazed that full, pink lip, and Wes’s mouth went dry. He swallowed hard.

No one read his rough drafts. Hell, Down This Road was basically his senior thesis, and even after he polished it and turned it in to his professor, he still spent a year after graduation editing and reworking the piece until he couldn’t stand it any longer. It was the only way he survived his mom’s death—throwing himself into his work so completely that everything else didn’t seem real. Was this chemistry between him and Annie real? Or was it just another way to drown out the noise? Whatever it was, it seemed to be working.

He surveyed the table before him, pages everywhere, some crumpled into balls and others still intact. But even the ones he was keeping—to take home and try to use as a start to fifty pages his editor might not laugh at—they were in no shape to be read. By anyone, especially Annie.

“Oh my God, Wes Hartley. I just offered various types of massaging, and you are still trying to think of a way to let me down gently, aren’t you?”

His eyes met hers again, and her brows raised at him in accusation. She crossed her arms and held his gaze, fierce and unrelenting.

“Seriously?” She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. “Well, it is two o’clock in the morning. I suppose I could just go back to sleep—have a nice, cozy lie in until late checkout…”

He groaned. “You hated my book.”

Annie rolled her eyes. “Maybe hate is too strong of a word. I just had some issues with the choices your main character made—like choosing to be alone and miserable. Like, refusing to say three simple words that could have brought him happiness. Okay, I had some major issues with that, but whatever. I never said your writing wasn’t brilliant. So what do you say? New book. New main character. New choices. Maybe I’ll love it?”

He leaned back in his chair and eyed her for a long moment.

“You hated my story…but you think my writing is brilliant? I might be able to get behind that.”

“Narcissist.”

He laughed. “I’m a writer. Have you met me?”

She held out her hand, palm turned up. “Gimme.”

Hell, he could not resist this girl.

He gathered up the pages, putting them in some semblance of order, and headed for the bed.

“They’re all yours,” he said. Then he grabbed his clothes and threw them on before making his way to the door.

“Wait,” Annie said. “Where are you going?”

He slid into his boots and shrugged.

“Crossing my fingers there’s a bar still open downstairs. Otherwise I’ll just wander the halls for the next twenty minutes. Letting you read doesn’t mean I have to stay and bear witness.”

He winked at her and slipped out the door before she had a chance to respond—and before she saw him go into panic mode. He paced for a good ten minutes in front of the elevators. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, he had too much energy and hoped he could burn it off before heading downstairs. He was wiping his palms on his pants when he finally pressed the button. His pulse quickened every second he waited for those freaking doors to open.

“Come on,” he said aloud. Being out of the room wasn’t enough. He needed off this floor. He needed something cold in his palm other than his own sweat. He needed reality to be altered just a fraction enough for him to be able to shrug it off when she told him his words were shit. Or better yet, when she flipped out at the likeness of his fiery-haired love interest, Evie, and threatened to sue him for—for—for what? Embellishing life? Wasn’t that what fiction was—a fantastical version of what happens in the normal day-to-day? Not that what happened between him and Annie in that room a few hours ago resembled anything close to normal, but still.

Where the fuck is the elevator?

He’d returned to pacing by the time he heard the tell-tale ding, but before he could step foot inside, he heard the click of a handle being turned, heard the soft whoosh of the door sliding open over the carpet. He could still step into the vessel that would lead him to safety—albeit temporarily. Or he could turn toward the sound. Because somehow he knew that open door was for him.

Elevator. Hotel room. It was like he was in the Matrix. Blue pill—he’d find an open bar and make himself forget how much was at stake, that his whole career hinged on the words in her hands and what he was able to turn them into by Monday. Or the red pill. He could go back to the room, take the criticism he knew was coming, and be a better writer for it. Jesus. He was already a bestseller, but somehow the opinion of this one woman meant more than spending ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

The elevator doors closed, and Wes still stood outside them. He shoved his hands in his front pockets and pivoted back toward room five-eleven. When he got there, Annie stood in the open doorway wrapped in the sheet, the pages clutched against her chest—against her heart—beaming.

She was beaming.

At him.

After reading his words.

“She’s not you,” was the first thing he said, which of course made him sound like a dick. “I mean there’s truth in all fiction, right? But Evie is—”

“Plucky,” Annie said with a grin. “I like her. Smart girl with a good head on her shoulders. Though that soda gun incident does sound familiar…”

He laughed softly.

“You have to admit it would be a crime not to memorialize that in fiction.”

She shook her head. “I’m not arguing with you there, sir. But—we need to talk about Jack. The hero.”

Here it was—the big blow. He braced himself. Literally. One hand on each side of the doorframe.

“He’s hopeful, Wes.” Her voice was soft and sweet, just like it should sound if she was breaking bad news to him. But he was pretty sure what she’d just said was a compliment.

“That’s a good thing, right?”

Hope was new to him. New to his writing.

She nodded, pages still held firmly in her hands.

“It’s a really good thing. For Jack. Who certainly isn’t you, right?”

Her smile turned playful, and Wes wasn’t sure how to answer. Was the hope Jack’s alone—a fantasy version of his own life—or was there more of himself in Jack than he knew? Jack wanted to believe in the possibility of a happily ever after with the blind date he was on at a wedding. Because he’d never met a girl like Evie before.

“No,” he said, his voice firm. “Jack isn’t me. Not one little bit.”

Her smile faltered for a couple of seconds, but she masked it quickly. Then she thrust the pages toward him, pressing them to his chest so he was forced to hold them the same way she had.

“It’s a really good start. I think your agent and editor are going to be really happy.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, after I write about thirty more pages and clean it all up.”

She hooked a finger into the top of his pants and tugged.

“Say thank you,” she said. “Take a damned compliment and believe it.”

He nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said with a self-satisfied grin. She gave his pants a little yank, and he crossed the threshold back into the room.

“So, do you try to change the minds of all readers who have a less than favorable reaction to your book, or am I just special?” she asked, and he laughed.

His fingertips skimmed her hairline, and she closed her eyes for several seconds.

“You’re special, Annie,” was all he said aloud. But to himself he added, and it has nothing to do with the book.

She let out a breath, settling back into the moment. “Now where were we? I do believe I owe you a hand massage,” she said, walking him to the bed.

“You don’t owe me any—”

She pushed him down on his back.

“Will you stop freaking arguing and just let me make you feel good? Again. Because I do owe you, Wes Hartley.”

He grinned. “I think we’re probably pretty even based on what happened earlier,” he said.

Annie blew out a breath. “Yeah. But I never said thank you for coming with me tonight. It meant a lot to the grooms—and it means a lot to me. So, thank you.” She climbed over him, straddled his legs and, yep—she bit her bottom lip. “I’m ready to pay up. With interest.”