overly frank advice. But Luke just grew very still, his hands fisting at his sides as he looked at Kris.
“That’s the conversation you two need to have right now,” Rori added. “And trust me, it’ll be a short one. Don’t come up until you’ve had it, okay?”
Then, just as quickly as she’d entered, Rori spun on her heel and exited, dragging Mike behind her.
“Shut the door,” she said, and Mike did right before she dragged him up the stairs.
“Holy crap,” he breathed.
“Yeah,” Rori said in front of him, not sounding so stoic this time. “Those two have some serious sexual tension.”
Mike chose not to confirm nor deny the claim as they reached the top of the stairs and he gathered up his bags. Yeah, he was totally getting out of there. Neither of them said another word until they were out the front door. What blew his mind was Rori’s reaction. So calm. So unsurprised. What in the world was going on in that pretty head of hers?
“That was crazy,” Mike breathed when he was finally out in the fresh air.
“More like inevitable,” she said holding out her hand. “It was a pleasure, Mike Cannon.”
He looked at her hand, blinking. “Wait, is this goodbye?”
“This is goodbye,” she said with a smile. “It has truly been a memorable weekend. For all of us, I think.”
“No joke,” he said, taking her hand and giving it a pump. “What about Luke? Are you going to say goodbye to him?”
She shrugged, withdrawing her hand. “We already have, in a way. But if he wants to hash it out, we can have a call.”
Mike shook his head. “He’s not a hasher-outer.”
“I know.”
So this was it? This was goodbye? On a scale of 1-to-10 Mike tried to gauge how much of an ass she’d think he was if he invited her somewhere for the night. As friends. He had no idea where he was going, but—
“I have a flight,” she said, backing away from him.
“So soon?”
She nodded. “I moved it up.”
“Oh.” What else was there to say? “Well, it was a pleasure.” So. Lame.
She grinned, her eyes sparkling at some joke she wasn’t sharing. “If you say so.”
“I say so.”
There was an awkward beat of silence that Mike was sure he would recognize as a missed opportunity at some later date.
“Thank you for your hospitality. I put in an order with Wendy as a thank you to your parents for hosting me. It should arrive tomorrow, if you don’t mind keeping an eye out for it.”
“Will do,” Mike said stiffly.
“Thanks,” she said, backing away. “Have a good night.”
“You, too,” he replied lamely.
“Well, not as good as you,” she said with a wink.
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Mike hesitated in asking until it was too late to ask without chasing her down first. Instead, he simply watched his dream woman as she walked away and grabbed her packed suitcase from inside the front door of his parents’ place just as a cab pulled up.
Then she was gone.
Chapter 26
Over the years, Kris had imagined herself in bed with Luke a million times. Minimum.
On the days she’d hated Luke, Kris had tried to imagine other men in his place—especially on the mornings when she drove past another girl’s car parked in Luke’s driveway as she left for work. On those mornings Kris told herself that she was a fool to wait for Luke, that he wasn’t even worth it. That he didn’t deserve to have her wait for him!
Yet every time another man’s hand snaked beneath her pants or sought to undo her bra, she’d always stopped. Once or twice she’d tried to push past the sick feeling in her stomach by imagining it was Luke kissing her. But her body knew what it wanted. So had her heart.
This, she thought, memorizing the feel of their spooned position.
There were so many things perfect about this one moment. First off, Luke was sleeping which was a rarity. He was normally too tightly wound, his mind too active for rest, regardless of how fatigued his body might be. Yet after making love to her twice, he was spent. His last coherent action had been to snuggle in behind her and hold on before blacking out.
That alone would have been worth waiting for, but the sex? Holy shit.
Kris had not really seen that coming. She’d known what to expect, of course. She’d heard story after story from friends and most movies left little to the imagination, but somehow she’d