Page 7 of Buy Me, Love
“Did I just say that out loud? I didn’t mean to say it. Forget what Isaid.”
She looks about two seconds from sticking her fingers in herears.
“Explain yourself,” I tellher.
“I mean, wouldn’t that be fun in a way? Think about it. We could check into a hotel and get room service. And we can watch a movie.” She sends me a side-long glance. “We won’t, like, be sleeping there oranything.”
The idea of having Kit alone in a hotel room is enough to make my mind go blank and plant a white flag of surrenderthere.
“Of course. Why a hotel?” I ask her tersely. She’s making my blood hot. She’s a tease in designer heels, and the whole time I’ve known her, watched, I’ve been going back and forth in my head as to whether she knows how much power she has. She could make billionaires dive their planes nose-first into the ocean at just the mere suggestion that it might please her in some perverseway.
“Peace and quiet. Privacy. And just…nothing fancy.” She sighs, stretching her arms in front of her and putting a hand behind her neck as she rolls her shoulders. She has a spa morning scheduled for tomorrow, just like she does every Saturday morning. “I just want to go somewhere no one knows who Iam.”
The irony isn’t lost on me, and a pang of guilt hits my chest. I have to tell her who I really am, but hell, I don’t want to scare her. She stretches her legs out in front of her, and I chance a look. Her long, shapely legs taper down to these high heels that make the arch of her foot look like the solution to a mathematical equation. And the curve of her round, plump ass is pressing against the inside of my suitjacket.
Kit Kensington up close is a different world from a photo or from far away. I’ve only had a taste of the sweet, feminine scent, the sugary, frothy bubbles that surround her. Andnow?
“Nothing fancy?’” I reply. “I think the word you’re searching for right now ismotel, nothotel.”
She throws a light glance over at me and gives me a little smile and anod.
I lift my gaze to the sky through the windshield of my car. Kit Kensington is sitting next to me. I’ve broken every professional promise I’ve made to myself. Never make yourself seen. Never get in the way of what your subject is doing unless it’s to intervene in something dangerous - watch from afar, and never getattached.
Lord helpme.
5
Kit
I’mgiddy by the time we arrive. Max hits the button to turn off the radio and smiles over atme.
“You’re a better singer than I thought you’d be,” he says to me. “You have some mean chops on those vocal intros. Queen, Bon Jovi,” he ticks off a few of the sing-alongs we shared on the ride here. Well, I sang along. He didn’t do muchsinging.
“Thank you very much,” I say, swatting my hand over at him. My fingers catch his chest, and I know there’s smooth, perfect muscle hiding behind that crisp, sexy white shirt. I wonder if he has tattoos in places other than his forearms, not that I’d be complaining if he didn’t. Those arm tattoos are enough to get me going all on theirown.
He glances down at me. His smile makes me lose myself a little every time I see it. We’re now two hours outside the city, it’s after dinner time, and I’m starving. But the thing I want most is this feeling. Being in his car with him, being in his space. It’s like our own little world, everything outside it has just been rushing by in a blur and it’s like we’re the only two people thatmatter.
This is already a hell of a first date. There’s an energy between us, a spark that makes me feel like I’ve known him for more than just a few hours. What is it about this man that makes me feel so safe, so protected, but so wild and free at the same time? Maybe that little game of cops and robbers where I tried to steal his car kick-started my heart into seeing him as something more than just some hot dude my dad knows. Having that kind of drama early in a relationship, my best friend Madelyn says, can cement feelings that typically take longer todevelop.
Still, it doesn’t feel like that was what did it. I think this feeling started before - when our eyes met, when all of the air was sucked out of my lungs and his eyes would not snap away from mine as he strode towardme.
Max opens his door and the soft dinging of his car brings me a sense of nostalgia I haven’t felt in a long time. The gruffness of his voice feels like safety incarnate. The etchings on his arms look like protection squared. As he gets out of the car, I look through the windshield to take in the sight of the motel. The doors to the individual rooms are outside, two stories facing a parking lot lit up by the pale blue moonlight and the neon sign that says, well, “MOTEL.”
I get out of the car not knowing what’s moving faster, my feet or myheart.
“This place certainly fits the bill!” I bubble, slamming the car door behind me. Max comes around and we stand there together, looking up at the old sign buzzing in the officewindow.
Now this is what I’m talkingabout.
I smile up at Max and grab his hand, dragging him along with me in my high heels and little red bandage dress through the front door to the office of the hotel. Motel, Imean.
There’s no lobby. This place is an entire world away from the place my dad owns. In place of the lobby there’s just an office instead. The old man sitting at the counter with his feet up, eating a sandwich and watching the small, old TV mounted on the ceiling, wipes mustard from his lip and takes his feet down when we come inside and the little bell over the doorchimes.
“Hello, sir,” I say to the man, slipping my elbows onto the counter. It occurs to me that I’ve never checked into a hotel before, and it makes me stifle a laugh at the irony. “Do you have a roomavailable?”
“Yes, m’am,” the man at the desk says brightly. He turns to his ancient computer and gives me and Max the side-eye, raised eyebrow and all. “One bed ortwo?”
Max and I blurt out different things at the sametime.
