Scarlett
“W hat the FUCK?” The words come out loud enough to bounce off every marble surface in the
bathroom. The stranger’s eyes shoot straight to the ceiling. A little late for that considering he’s already
seen literally every inch of me, but I suppose I should appreciate the effort. “Turn around!” I demand,
folding one arm over my breasts while the other hand makes a desperate attempt to cover everything
below my waist. He turns immediately, and for one second I’m relieved. Then I realize his back is
almost as distracting as his front. Broad shoulders. Muscled arms. A narrow waist above a pair of
expensive black pants. And when he turns his head slightly, I catch the silver at his temples. Of course.
Because apparently being caught naked by a complete stranger wasn’t humiliating enough. The
complete stranger also has to be hot. Older too. Not old. Not even close. Just older in that unfair way
where a man looks like he’s spent enough years on earth to know exactly what he’s doing. In a
boardroom. In a bedroom.
Probably in a five-headed shower. Scarlett. Focus. “What are you doing in here?” I demand. “At the
moment? Trying very hard not to look at you.” “You weren’t trying very hard thirty seconds ago.”
“No,” he says, and I swear I hear amusement in his voice. “I wasn’t.” The asshole is amused. I glance
around for something to cover myself with (not the tiny towel) and spot the white satin robe hanging
beside the vanity. Naturally it is approximately twelve miles away. “Don’t move.” “Wasn’t planning on
it.” Still trying to cover three s eparate areas with two hands, I shuffle sideways across the slick marble
until I can snatch the robe from the hook. I shove my arms into it and yank the belt around my waist so
tightly I may never take a full breath again. “Okay,” I say. He starts to turn. “I did not say you could turn
around.” He stops halfway. “You said okay.” “Okay means I am no longer completely naked. It does
not mean I have forgiven you for breaking into my hotel room.” “I didn’t break in.” “You’re shirtless.”
There is a pause. “That doesn’t make it breaking and entering.” “It makes it considerably more
suspicious.”
His shoulders move, and I realize he’s laughing. Not loudly. Just enough to irritate me. “Fine. You can
turn around now.” He does, and somehow having the robe on makes looking at him worse, because now
I’m no longer operating on pure naked panic and have enough brain function left to notice things. Like
his chest. Which I absolutely did not stare at when I first saw him. Exc ept I did. Now I can get a better
look at him. A sharp jaw and the kind of face that belongs in an expensive watch ad where nobody
actually looks at the watch. He’s tall too. Really tall. The kind of tall that makes me feel smaller than I
am, which is not something that happens often. And then there are his eyes. They move over me again.
Not the way they did when I was naked, exactly, but enough that I instinctively pull the robe tighter
around myself. “This is my suite,” he says casually. I blink at him. “Um, no it’s not. They gave it to me.
I have a key and everything.” Without saying anything, he reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out a
key card, holding it between two fingers. “So do I.” I stare at the key. Then at him. Then back at the key,
because apparently one of us is hallucinating and I’m really hoping it’s him. “No.” One dark eyebrow
rises. “No?” “No. This is my room. I was here first.”
“That doesn’t make my key imaginary.” “How do I know that’s even for this room?” “You want me to
demonstrate?” “Absolutely not. You’ve demonstrated enough for one afternoon.” The corner of his
mouth twitches, which is annoying because apparently he gets even hotter when he’s trying not to smile.
“Must’ve been a mistake at the front counter,” he says. “Great. Then you can go downstairs and fix it.”
“Why me?” I gape at him. “Because I’m naked under this robe.” His gaze drops before he can stop it,
landing directly on the knot at my waist. And there it is again. That look. Heat crawls up my neck as his
eyes slowly return to mine, because I know that look. Or at least I should know it. I’ve seen women get
it from men in bars and restaurants. I’ve watched it happen to Claire. Hell, I’ve written about romantic
resorts where couples spend entire weekends looking at each other exactly like that. I’ve just never had
a man look at me that way. Not at my face. At me. At all of me. And suddenly I’m thinking about the
mirror again. My thighs. My stomach. My ass. All the parts I was inspecting five minutes ago like they
had personally offended me. He saw them.
Every single one. And unless I am wildly misreading the expression on his face, he liked what he saw.
Really liked it. Something strange happens to the embarrassment sitting like a rock in my stomach. It
doesn’t disappear exactly. It just gets tangled up with something warmer. “You could at least
apologize,” I say. His brow creases. “For being given a key to my room?” “For staring.” For the first
time since he turned around, the amusement leaves his face. His eyes stay on mine for a long second
before he says, “I probably should.” “Yes. You should.” “But I’m not going to lie to you and say I’m
sorry I looked.” My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. He takes a st ep toward me. Not enough to
crowd me, just enough that I become very aware that he is still shirtless and I am still naked beneath a
robe that suddenly feels much thinner than it did thirty seconds ago. “You surprised me,” he says. “I
walked in here expecting an empty room and found you.” “Dancing naked.” That almost-smile returns.
“I was trying not to mention the dancing.” I close my eyes. “Oh my God.” “For what it’s worth, you
should do it more often.” My eyes snap open. “Dance naked in hotel bathrooms?”
“No.” His eyes hold mine. “Stop looking at yourself like there’s something wrong with what you see.”
That shuts me up. He saw that too. “You have no idea what your curves were doing to my pants,” he
adds, raising an eyebrow. For a moment neither of us says anything. The shower is still running behind
me, water hitting marble in a steady rush while I stand there wondering how a conversation with a
strange half-naked man has somehow become the most exposed I’ve felt all day. “You don’t even know
me,” I finally say. “I don’t need to know you to know what I saw.” His gaze drops over me again,
slower this time, and there is absolutely nothing polite about it. “And whatever you thought was wrong
with what you saw in that mirror,” he says, meeting my eyes again, “I can promise you, I didn’t see it.”
My heart gives one hard, stupid thump. Because no man has ever said anything like that to me before.
More importantly, no man has ever looked at me while saying it like he wants to prove it. The sensible
thing would be to end this conversation before it gets any stranger. I should tell him to leave. I should
march downstairs in this robe, demand a manager and write approximately six pages about the resort
that handed a shirtless stranger access to my room. Instead, I look at his chest again. Then at the shower.
Then back at him. This is a terrible idea. Which, historically speaking, has never stopped me from
having one. I reach for the knot at my waist and watch his eyes follow my hand. The look on his face
changes. Just slightly, but enough to make my pulse kick. I loosen the belt. His gaze drops to the sliver
of skin I’ve exposed, and suddenly I’m not thinking about my thighs or my stomach or whether there’s
too much of me. I’m thinking about the way he’s looking at me. And how much I like it. “You could
leave,” I say. His eyes lift to mine. “I could.” Neither of us moves. I glance toward the shower, then
back at him. “Or you could stay.”