Page 41 of The Wedding Deal
Charlotte knocked on the door to Lance’s suite revoltingly early, hoping she wasn’t waking him before he wanted to be up and going. When he didn’t answer, she took out the key he’d given her and tapped it against her thigh, debating whether to use it or retreat to her hotel room.
Where she’d just had a worrisome call that made her want to throw herself into work. If she hadn’t been so tired yesterday evening that she’d left her laptop in their “office,” she could easily put in a few hours in the lobby or find a corner table in the resort restaurant to occupy.
I’ll just sneak in and grab it, along with a few folders…
Right now she needed to lose herself in stats and football players and résumés and basically anything that’d take the edge off her panic. All that money and time, and he…
Not going there right now.Decision made, she slid in the card as quietly as possible and eased open the door. Lance wasn’t in the living room area, but the door to the bedroom was cracked open.
On her way to the coffee table, she caught a glimpse of the king-sized bed through the open bedroom door, sheets and covers rumpled and thrown back.
She paused, listening for the sounds of a shower. The bathroom door was also open, no sound coming out. “Lance?”
After a few seconds of ringing silence, she called again, louder this time.
No answer. A quick look around confirmed he wasn’t there.
Maybe last night after he dropped me off, he found a woman who was willing to kiss him. To do more…Her stomach pitched at the thought, a toxic burning coming along for the rocky ride. It couldn’t be jealousy.
More like itshouldn’tbe jealousy. But there it was anyway, the bite and the sting.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t wanted to kiss him—she’d nearly come unraveled when he’d told her he wanted to kiss her, and that he’d been thinking about it since she made her first touchdown. Her lips and body had been shouting that they were definitely ready and willing, her common sense was just stronger. Although right now she was cursing her stupid brain for not letting her give in to her racing hormones. How often did insanely hot, wickedly smart men want to kiss her?
Wasn’t the beach like Vegas? What happened there stayed there?
Only idiots truly believe that—of Vegasandthe beach.
The other woman would be beautiful and have one of those bodies made for string bikinis, no need for a skirt. Was she currently snuggled up next to Lance? Running her hand over his scruff?
That line of thinking is nearly as toxic as the one that sent me running here in the first place.Stats. Paperwork. Rules. They’d save her, the way they always had.
What the company needed from her right now was a solid football team. They had a whole crew who analyzed players before the draft—correction: they’dhad. The reports were kept in a big Google doc, so she grabbed her laptop and began poring through them. She read through report after report, comparing what they’d said and the stats in her head, trying to get a fuller picture.
On the screen it was hard to do, though, so she dug through her bag and found the stack of index cards she used on the corkboard in her office whenever she needed to write herself reminders and memos and such.
Luckily she had a roll of tape as well, in a shoe-shaped dispenser, no less—and to think she’d wondered if it was silly to have packed it, just in case.
The project took over, pushing other thoughts far from her mind, and she began furiously scribbling on the cards. The whiteboard Lance had brought in their first day was covered in his handwriting. Since she wasn’t sure if he still needed the information, she flipped it to the other side and taped the cards there, connecting lines and writing extra notes in marker.
When she’d filled every inch of that, she taped the index cards to the wall around it. Marking up the walls wasn’t an option, so she simply numbered each note to correspond to the ones on the board.
Within thirty minutes, she’d transformed the area into her very own war room. Sure, it was much smaller scale than the massive one back at Mustangs’ headquarters, where the staff compiled lists for the draft, but impressive all the same.
Thebeepof the door sounded, and Charlotte braced herself to see Lance in his walk-of-shame clothes and pretend she didn’t care.
He stepped inside shirtless, mesh shorts slung low on his hips, sneakers on his feet, and a sheen of sweat covering his entire body. It highlighted every muscle and made it impossible not to gape at him. The scent of beach and cedar and him filled the air, and desire hijacked her system.
Clearly, she hadn’t prepared herself for the right image.
Not that she believed there was any way any heterosexual woman could fully prepare herself for the sight of Lance Quaid after what’d clearly been a strenuous workout.
…
Lance hadn’t expected Charlotte this early, and as she stared at him, all the deep breaths he’d taken to calm his rapid pulse had now been done in vain.
His heart hammered against his rib cage at the sight of her standing in his hotel room, her eyes wide and—if he wasn’t mistaken—flooding with lust.
It made him want to stalk across the room, watch those endlessly green eyes widen even more, and claim her mouth with the predatory flare she awoke in him.
