“Me, too.” Her finger brushes over it. I get the feeling there’s a story behind that ring, but for whatever reason, she’s not ready to share it.

The club has a VIP area in a loft overlooking the dance floor. We commandeer the space, pushing the low tables together in the center with four sofas surrounding them. Brooke plops next to Graham, across from Emma and me, leaning into him to whisper something. I keep a peripheral eye on Emma to see if she’s watching them. She was definitely tense this morning after I kissed her in the hallway in front of him. Did it feel like I was marking my territory? Unfortunately, yes. Did it feel necessary at the time? Also yes.

My arm rests behind her now, and we’re sitting close enough that our thighs brush with the slightest pressure. Everyone orders drinks while Tadd, Quinton and I talk about the parts of our trip we can discuss in mixed company.

“Look at this.” Tadd pulls up the leg of his jeans to show a huge purpling bruise on his shin. “Stupid invisible underwater branch.”

“Dude, I thought the Guadalupe had an alligator,” Quinton says. “You screamed like a little girl until you saw it was just a stick and started cursing like a strung-out ho.”

Tadd smoothes the fabric over his leg carefully and points at Quinton. “Like you didn’t launch yourself outta that tube like a rocket when that fish bit your ass.”

My hand moves to Emma’s bare neck, massaging lightly as she laughs with everyone else.

“No one warned me there were carnivorous fish in that damned river!” Quinton says.

“Reid and I didn’t get so much as nibbled. It was all Quinton,” Tadd says.

“You’re just jealous that none of them wanted a piece of you.”

“Yeah, that’s the reason.”

A new song comes on and I stand up, taking Emma’s hand. “Let’s dance.” She allows herself to be pulled up, and Meredith and Tadd decide to follow us.

“You sure you can hit the floor after that life-threatening injury?” Quinton quips.

Tadd flips him off and keeps walking.

*** *** ***

Emma

I don’t look at Graham as Reid and I move to the stairs and start down. Even with the dim lighting, descending the staircase is like entering a debutante’s ball. Practically everyone downstairs looks up to see who’s coming down. At least half of them seem to recognize Reid. One bodyguard shadows us, and another waits just off the dance floor.

Reid is either oblivious or faking oblivion; more likely the latter. Clad in a blue t-shirt that exactly matches his eyes, a pair of jeans that fit him like they’re custom made, and worn-in cowboy boots, he’s a living breathing incarnation of male beauty. He’s every bit the guy in an Armani suit on the cover of GQ, with a spread inside in which he sports a tight black tank, doing pull-ups on a tree branch, showing off his enviable biceps and shoulders.

He pulls me into his arms on the floor, ignoring the fast tempo of the song and swaying slowly, dragging my arms up and around his neck. Bending to my ear, he says, “Don’t be scared, I’ve got you.”

“Do I look afraid?”

“Mm-hmm.” He smiles down at me, resting his forehead on mine, his hands on my lower back, pressing me closer. “Positively terrified.”

“I’m more brave than I look.”

“That’s good to know.” He pulls me deeper into the crowd, which parts for us. The bodyguards look nervous, but Reid acts as though we’re the only people on the floor, and everyone else allows it. This boy could charm just about anything out of anyone, and he’s quite conscious of that fact. Just another reason for my apprehension.

I try not to think of Graham upstairs. I’m convinced he left my room the other night because of Brooke. They’re probably already involved, possibly they have been for a while. Maybe they argued, maybe he just slipped—our kiss was a mistake and nothing more. He’s become a good friend. I like talking to him and running with him, the way he teases me, the way he seems to look out for me. Trying to turn it into anything further will ruin it.

That’s what I tell myself, locked in Reid’s arms, dancing within a crowd of people as though no one else exists. But Reid and I will never be invisible, as much as we might pretend it, and I never feel like everyone else disappears. I feel them staring, the whole time we’re on the floor, like they can see right through me.

***

“Let’s go to the café, get some coffee. I’m not ready to go up yet,” Reid says quietly to me as we enter the hotel hours later in groups of two and three. We’re last in.

“Do you want to ask anyone else—?”

“I’ve had enough of everyone else for one night.” Holding one finger to his lips, he pulls me towards the café, out of sight of the elevator.

He asks for a booth by the window and slides in beside me instead of across. We order coffee and share a slice of cheesecake, most of which he eats. I’m still trying to work off that cake I shared with Graham.

Don’t think of Graham.

There are still people in the street, and we watch them parade by. “I like watching people making idiots of themselves, like that guy.” He points to someone performing a drunken dance for a few friends who are attempting, unsuccessfully, to stop him. “Or fall in love, like those two.” A couple standing under a streetlamp are kissing passionately enough to make me blush.

“Me too. I like getting to be the audience.”

“So,” he says then, his fingers on my chin, turning my face. He kisses me lightly, at first. And then his arms slip around me, one hand moving from my lower back to my hip to my thigh, his mouth more urgent. Finally he leans his forehead against mine like he did at the club, his eyes closed as our breathing slows.

“Come to my room with me?” He asks so softly that I’m almost unsure he said it. His meaning is clear. Crystal.

“I… I don’t know, Reid…” My mind is casting about for some response, not wanting to push him away, but not ready for what he’s asking.

“I just want to kiss you, nothing more.” He laughs softly. “Okay, that’s entirely untrue. What I mean is, there will be nothing more, if it’s too soon for you. Just please, let me kiss you in a room where there isn’t a waiter hovering or a camera rolling or a million people watching.”

I nod, and he slaps a fifty on the table for what is probably a twelve dollar ticket, takes my hand and tucks it under his arm as we walk across to the café exit and to the elevators.

When the doors open, he sticks his head out first, glancing one way and then the other, as though we’re spies. Or fugitives. The hallway is deserted. We dash to his room, giggling. His room key is in his hand and in a matter of seconds we’re in, and he’s letting the door swing shut behind us and locking it. I’m not giggling anymore, and neither is he.

“Do you want something to drink?”

I feel dry-mouthed and nervous. “Water?” For a moment I feel silly; it isn’t like I’ve never made out with anyone before. And then I remember that I’m alone in a hotel room with Reid Alexander.

“Coming right up. Make yourself at home.” His room is a suite with a king-sized bed dominating one wall, a sitting area with a sofa and two chairs, a bar, and French doors at the south-facing balcony. There are fresh cut flowers in the middle of the dresser, and dry-cleaning bags hanging on the closet door. I perch in the middle of the sofa.

He brings two bottled waters from the bar fridge, hands me one as he sits next to me, leaning into the corner of the sofa, leaving several inches of space between us. My anxiety is building rather than decreasing, but I’m not sure how to calm myself.

For no good reason I recall how comfortable I felt with Graham in my room.

Don’t think about Graham.

“Emma.” Reid leans up to place his bottle on the coffee table, and fixes me with the smoldering stare I recognize from every magazine spread he’s done in the last two years. The difference is this look is real, in person, and directed at me. “Come here.”

I place my bottle next to his and move closer, until our knees are touching. He kisses me softly, one hand on my waist, the heel of his hand pressed to my ribcage. Some minutes later, he stands, pulls me up by both hands and puts my arms around his neck as he had on the dance floor. Kissing me again, he lifts me by the hips, settles my legs around his torso and sits back down, never breaking the contact of his mouth on mine. We kiss for five minutes, ten, fifteen, I have no idea. When I finally break away, as breathless as if I’d run a mile, his mouth moves to my neck, kissing an erratic pathway to my ear.

Kneading my lower back with one hand while the other cups the base of my skull, he runs his fingertips from my shoulders to my hands, back and forth, finally circling my wrists with his hands, pulling my hands to lay on his chest. I feel his heartbeat under my palm, and his hands move to my thighs.

“Are you very sure,” his lips blaze a path from my chin to the base of my throat and my hands grip his biceps as though I’m suspended over a sheer drop, “that you don’t want to stay?”

I have to get out of here before I surrender to something I’m not ready for. I can’t think straight, and with what he’s doing, stopping him, let alone myself, isn’t going to get any easier.

“I can’t, Reid.” My God, I couldn’t sound less convincing.

“Mmm, I think you can,” he says, his hands moving over the bare skin of my shoulders, pushing the straps aside. As he presses me gently back on the sofa, looking down at me with a subtle, perceptive smile, I know he can read my longing to give in. And then he’s kissing me again and it’s a full five minutes before we come up for air.

“Reid, please. Not… yet.”

“I understand,” he says, taking a deep breath, eyes closed. He opens them and smiles wryly. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.” He kisses me one more time, quick and sweet, hands surrounding my face. “You know where I am if you change your mind, Emma.”

I leave his room, my legs shaking as though I’ve been at sea for a month, and I feel a weird mixture of regret and relief. It takes me four tries to get the key card to unlock my door.

I lie back on my bed and push my mental replay button… until my phone beeps, startling me. It’s Meredith, probably wondering what happened when Reid and I disappeared.

Meredith: You okay? Not that I’m checking up on you or anything. ;)

Me: Yep. Reid and I decided to stop by the cafe downstairs for a few minutes.

Meredith: Wanna get lunch and go shopping tomorrow?

Me: Sounds good. Noon?

Meredith: Sure. I’ll come to your room, cya then

Chapter 26

REID

Time for a re-eval.

First up, I’m certain Emma’s a virgin. The way she’s holding back isn’t just wariness of me—though that’s part and parcel. She’s new to the whole rodeo. Though there’s nothing about her that says I’m saving myself for marriage or any such crap, most girls want to save themselves for something—usually love, in which, as I’ve already established, I don’t believe.