A Fare To Remember_ Just Whistle_Driven - Vicki Lewis Thompson [11]
She let her breath out in a whoosh. “They want to switch me to a different room. That’s all.”
“As well they should,” Zach said. “You can’t sleep in that bed tonight.”
“Guess not. I hadn’t thought of that. But I don’t want to take the time to change rooms now. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
“And our reservations are for seven-thirty. I could call and change them, but—”
“No, don’t. I’ll let them switch me while we’re gone.” With no choice in the matter, she hurried to the closet and took out her yellow dress. Draping it over one arm, she pulled a rose from the bouquet. “Be right back.”
Then she stuck the rose between her teeth, flung her free hand in the air and cocked her hip in a flamenco dancer’s pose before dashing into the bathroom. His startled laughter was exactly what she was after. She might be a clueless newcomer who had trashed her clothes immediately upon arriving, but she didn’t want Zach to think she was totally pathetic. She still had flair, damn it.
FOR SEVERAL SECONDS ZACH stood staring at the closed bathroom door as he processed that last provocative image Hannah had given him. There was no getting around it, the woman was hot. Hot and generous. Zach’s imagination latched on to those two attributes and came up with one obvious conclusion. He wanted some of that.
But just because she aroused him didn’t mean he’d end up taped to Mario’s dash. It didn’t even mean he and Hannah would end up in bed together. He had no idea if he was the only one thinking about sex, although the rose between her teeth suggested she might be having thoughts along those lines, too.
He ran a hand over his face and took a deep breath. The rustling sounds coming from the bathroom did nothing to calm him down. He pictured the black bra and panties and realized she would have to take off the bra in order to wear the thin-strapped sundress. If she had spent some time sunbathing topless, which he suspected, her breasts would be golden and gorgeous.
This was insanity, standing here on a squishy carpet imagining what was going on behind that bathroom door. He should have waited in the lobby. At the rate he was going, he was liable to do something inappropriate, like grab her and kiss her the minute she walked out.
And then what, genius? Throw her down on that soggy mattress? Very classy.
Actually it sounded kind of kinky and exciting. The wet sheets might feel interesting against their hot bodies. He’d never had sex on a soaked mattress before, and the experience might prove educational and moist.
Oh, for God’s sake. He’d invited her to dinner, and they would have dinner. Then he’d walk her back to her hotel and go home like the sophisticated urban professional he was. He would not spend the entire meal wondering if she’d invite him back up to her new and improved, much drier room afterward. He would not hope that he could get her to do that routine with the rose one more time.
Mostly to give himself something to do, he pulled out his cell phone and moved the reservation ahead fifteen minutes so they wouldn’t lose it. There shouldn’t be a problem on a weeknight, but he didn’t want to take any chances. The evening had already had its share of detours.
As he was closing the phone and clipping it back on to his belt, Hannah came out. She wore the same dress, so the sight of her shouldn’t have affected him, but it did, anyway. Maybe it was how she’d done her hair.
After piling it loosely on top of her head, she’d tucked daisies into her curls so that she looked like a wood nymph, or at least what Zach thought a wood nymph might look like. He felt as if they should be running hand in hand through a meadow in slow motion before settling down on a bed of soft grass to…yeah, to have sex. Face it, Evans, you’re officially obsessed with the subject.
As a hormone-driven teenager he’d devoured a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and daisies had been involved in one of the sex scenes. He’d forgotten that until this very minute and wondered if the