Series: The Laws of Opposite Attract Series by Vi Keeland
Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
“Thank you.” I smiled and stepped aside. The man really did think of everything. “Come in. I just need a minute to slip my shoes on and apply some lipstick. I was on the phone with my stepdaughter and lost track of time.”
“No rush.” Brayden let the door close behind him, then caught my hand. “But before you put on that lipstick…” He gave my arm a quick tug, and I practically fell into his chest. His eyes sparkled as he cupped my cheeks. “I have been dying for this all week.”
Brayden’s lips crashed down on mine, and I melted into him. If it were possible, he tasted even better than I remembered. After a minute, I felt him growing hard against my stomach.
“I fucking missed you,” he growled into my mouth.
If he hadn’t already had me lost in his kiss, the needy sound of his voice would’ve done me in. It was raw and real and left no doubt that he wanted me. It also made me ache with need. I was seconds away from stripping off my clothes when there was another knock at my door.
I ignored it, but eventually Brayden wrenched his mouth away. He leaned his forehead against mine. “I hate whoever that is.”
I groaned. “Me too.”
Neither of us made a move to answer the door, and I might’ve stayed quiet hoping they’d just go away so we could get back to the kiss. Though no such luck. Whoever it was knocked again, this time louder. Brayden used his thumb to wipe under my lip and tilted his head toward the door. “You’re going to have to answer. I need a minute.”
I smiled. “Okay.”
I assumed it was housekeeping or some other hotel employee, so imagine my surprise when I swung open the door and found Cher.
The woman had to be six-feet tall without the giant feathers sticking out of the hat on top of her head. She had a mane of black curly hair, and her mouth was overlined with bright red lipstick. “Are you Alex Jones?”
I took a hesitant step back. “Yes?”
She smiled and held her arms up. “Happy birthday from your best friend, Wells!” She pushed a button on her iPhone, started some music, and belted out a full rendition of “If I Could Turn Back Time” followed by “Happy Birthday, You Bitch.” Guests came out of their rooms and joined us in the hall to watch. I couldn’t stop laughing. The woman was really good. She even sang out of the side of her mouth like Cher. Brayden stood behind me, looking a little confused, but this was par for the course for Wells. After the show was over, the woman handed me a dick lollipop while Brayden dug some cash from his billfold and tipped her.
I shut the door, still laughing.
“What the hell was that?”
“Apparently Cher.”
“Is it really your birthday?”
I nodded. “It’s Sunday. But Wells and I celebrated this morning before I left Connecticut. His dad passed away on my birthday a few years back, so we changed our celebration to three days earlier.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because unlike you, I’ve stopped celebrating getting another year older.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I have to leave Sunday—I have an appointment early Monday morning.”
“It’s fine. It’s just another day.”
“Is it…a big birthday?”
I raised a brow. “Are you asking me if I’m forty? Or worse yet, fifty?”
“I don’t care how old you are. But I would’ve liked to have done something for you.”
I grabbed his tie and pushed up to kiss him. “If you play your cards right, I might let you do something for me before the weekend’s over.”
Brayden groaned, but my little tease seemed to erase the stress wrinkles from his forehead. “Go do what you need to do,” he said. “Or we’re going to be late for dinner…by a couple of days.”
***
“Would you like another bottle of wine?” The attentive waiter looked back and forth between Brayden and me.
He shrugged. “I’m game, if you are.”
“Sure. Why not?”
Brayden reached across the table and laced his fingers with mine. “If I’m being honest, I don’t even care about the wine. I’m just not ready for the night to end.”
I smiled. “Me neither.”
Before the waiter interrupted, Brayden had been talking about the new project he was working on—a superhero leg for a boy who’d lost his to bone cancer. I’d witnessed firsthand the excitement his creations brought a child, but the way Brayden’s eyes lit up when he talked about the details, I was pretty sure he got just as much out of making the prosthetics as the kids did receiving them.
“You know, you’ve inspired me,” I said.
He wiggled his brows. “To take off your clothes?”
I chuckled. “To do more for cancer survivors. I can’t make artificial limbs or anything as cool as you, but I can offer free services to patients going through treatment to spoil them a little. Like facials and massages, and we’ve even started offering banana bags—IV vitamin infusion. But really, I could offer anything they were in the mood for, to give them a day to relax and be pampered.”