Page 8 of Just Like You
Because he reached out and carefully placed one finger under my chin.
My unshaven, freshly-moisturised chin.
This wasn’t…anything. This was weird. This was the kind of encounter where I should use my fist and then run as fast as I could.
There was security in this place. I could shout for help. I could scream. Did I still have that alarm thing in my bag?
None of those options were any good because I just stood there as he leaned in. One small inch at a time, his eyes fixed on my mouth. Then my eyes, as if he was asking for my permission. For the record, he had none. No consent. Nothing.
So why wasn’t I…doing anything?
Because he kissed me. Right there and then, a soft and gentle kiss that somehow managed to blast straight through my bones.
The kind of kiss you read about in romance novels, where girls would lift their legs and squeal in delight.
I did neither, by the way, thank you very much. Instead I seemed to be paralysed as he pulled away, just enough that he could catch my gaze. Him. Staring at me.
Me? I was clearly being an absolute tool. Because I flung my arm around his neck and brought his mouth back down on mine, and then he kissed me, with all the fervour and ridiculousness this situation deserved.
A perfectly dirty kiss where his groin slammed against my stomach, where there was definite action going on, and then he grabbed my wrist and slammed it into the door over my head.
For fuck’s sake.
Any minute now, one of the doors along the corridor would open and someone would catch us in the act. And here was a maid, right on cue, wheeling a trolley around the corner.
Damn it.
Thank God.
Or maybe not. Because I wasn’t done. I wasn’t half done with this guy. An apology? Was he seriously thinking that would be enough?
If I hadn’t been so tired, maybe I would have thought clearly. But I wasn’t thinking at all, and got my keycard out and tapped it against the lock and pushed the door open with my hip, my arm still around his neck.
Then I let go.
“Your bag,” I said, nodding at his fancy luggage on the floor.
“Oh,” he replied, like he knew exactly what I was doing. Extending a temporary invite to a neutral place where…
Shit.
Here I was standing in my hotel room, my dirty laundry spread out on the bed for everyone to see.
And him. Slowly placing his bags on the floor and then rising back up as the door clicked shut behind him.
“Is this okay?” he asked, his voice portraying a wobble.
Consent? What was this? And what the fresh hell was I getting myself into here?
This wasn’t the first time I’d hooked up with a stranger… I shook my head violently and held my hands out in some kind of strange spasm, trying to compose myself.
“Yes… No…”
“Hey,” he said quietly, like he was a serial killer trying to calm me about the idea of sudden death. For the record, I would probably let him because when he looked at me like he was now?
I had clearly lost my mind.
“We don’t have to do anything. I just… You’re gorgeous.”
