The Troublemaker - Cathryn Fox Page 0,3

your ladies, I’m your friend, and you’re welcome,” she says. “But you should go for it with Emily. She’s always looking for a good time, and has no desire to get serious. She’s having too much fun being single I guess.”

“You two go way back?”

“Friends since childhood. She stuck by me when I quit law school and bought a truck.”

“She sounds like a good friend.”

“She is.” She arches a brow, but there is something I don’t recognize in her eyes. It can’t be jealousy. She just told me she was off snacking. “Are you going to go for it?”

I shrug. One because I’m unsure and two it feels weird talking to Kinsley about this. But maybe she’s right. Maybe I should stop feeling sorry for myself and hook up with a girl who knows where I stand. We break apart as the song ends. She saunters off, her swaying ass dragging my focus, and teasing something deep inside me. My dick twitches again.

What the ever loving fuck is going on with me?

Am I really upset that I’m not her type, that she doesn’t want to crawl between the sheets with me? I mean, that’s good though, right? That should make me happy.

We’re friends for God’s sake.

I shouldn’t want to sleep with her. Shouldn’t all of a sudden be thinking about her lush body beneath mine. I shut down my brain, and redirect my train of thoughts to ones that don’t involve my friend naked.

Too bad my dick didn’t get the memo.

2

Kinsley

“How did you end up with the honeymoon suite anyway?” Emily asks me, as I practically carry her to my bed, and toss her on it. She widens her arms and makes snow angels on my big, inviting mattress. She’s a hot mess, and if she could see herself, she’d be mortified. As a cosmetologist, she’s always so well put together. Tequila is not her friend.

“I guess I just got lucky,” I say. The hotel had lost my reservation, so they put me in one of their posh honeymoon suites. I’m not about to complain. The place is bigger than my Seattle condo.

“This bed is big enough to sleep six,” she tells me.

It’s true it is, but I wish I was sleeping alone in it, left to my thoughts about Cason, and the way his body moved with mine. Yeah, I want to lay here alone and fantasize, but I won’t. Not with Emily next to me. She’s had far too much tequila, and I needed to make sure she landed in bed safely. Friends take care of each other. She insisted she needed to go to her room, although she couldn’t remember why, and when her key was nowhere to be found, taking her here to my big suite to sleep off the tequila was a no-brainer.

“Wait,” she says and sits up. She peels her tongue from the roof of her mouth, and furrows her brow in thought. “I think I’m supposed to get lucky tonight.”

I shake my head. “The only luck you’re going to have is if you don’t end up with your head in the toilet bowl.” I gesture for her to lift her arms. “Come on, let me help you undress.”

“That was good tequila,” she says and I laugh as I peel her shirt off. She flops onto her pillow and I remove her pants, leaving her in her bra and panties. I help her between the sheets and put a big glass of water on the nightstand. As she drifts off, I brush my teeth, and I’m about to undress and climb in beside her, but stop short when she starts snoring so hard, the walls begin to vibrate around me.

“Oh, hell no!”

I grab her purse and search for her key. Dammit. Would they give me a new one at the front desk, if I asked? If I had her ID, pretended to be her, what choice would they have? Even though we look nothing alike, I snatch her wallet from her purse, and head down to the front desk.

Jackpot.

Ten minutes later, I let myself into her room, and with exhaustion from a long day pulling at me, I strip off and collapse onto her bed. I close my eyes, and the second I do, visions of a naked Cason dance in my head. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll have another sex dream tonight, just like the ones I’ve been having for the past year now.

Last summer, Cason and a few of his buddies had