She shifted in discomfort. “What?”
“I just can’t believe you’re going to deprive us of...that.”
He pointed in the direction of the hallway, where last night’s stupidly dirty encounter began.
Hayden fought a smile. “I’m sure you’ll be able to find someone else who will screw you on the hallway floor and give you carpet burn on your butt.”
His eyes went molten. “I don’t want someone else. I want you.”
She wasn’t allowed to look into those eyes anymore. They were liable to shatter her resolve.
“I’m sorry,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “I had a great time, but this isn’t happening again. I hope you understand.”
“You’re really not going to give me your number?” A trace of astonishment rang in his voice, and Hayden got a feeling he wasn’t used to rejection.
“Sorry.” She shrugged again.
After a beat, Brody started to laugh. “Shit. Don’t I feel humbled.”
Still chuckling, he wandered toward the credenza against the far wall in the living room. Hayden watched warily as he picked up a pen and started scribbling something on the small notepad next to it.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving you my number.” He glanced over his shoulder. “In case you change your mind.”
He strolled back to her, running a hand through his hair and drawing her attention to his flexing biceps. God. Why was he so attractive?
“Thanks for a great night,” he said, his voice a bit gruff. Then he leaned in and pressed a light kiss to her cheek, surrounding her with his spicy, addictive scent.
Hayden forced herself not to inhale until he’d stepped back. “I’ll walk you out.”
SIX
“How many?” Darcy demanded, her curious voice coming out of the rental car’s speakers.
Hayden maneuvered the rental through late-afternoon traffic. Chicago’s downtown core was surprisingly busy; tonight’s Warriors game had probably compelled more than a few people to leave work early. Hayden, on the other hand, didn’t have a choice in the matter. Whether she wanted to or not, she was about to spend the evening sitting next to her dad in the owner’s box, watching a sport she not only found dismally boring, but also one she’d resented for years.
God, she couldn’t even count how many games she’d been dragged to over the years. Hundreds? Thousands? Regardless of the final tally, she was no closer to liking hockey now, at twenty-six, than she had been at age six, when her father took her to her first game. To her, hockey meant constant uprooting. Traveling, moving, sitting behind the bench with a coloring book because her dad hadn’t felt right hiring a nanny.
A shrink would probably tell her that she was projecting, taking out her frustration with her father on an innocent little sport, but she couldn’t help it. No matter how hard she’d tried over the years, she couldn’t bring herself to appreciate or enjoy the damn game.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” she said, stopping at a red light. An El train whizzed overhead, momentarily making her deaf to anything but the thundering of the train as it tore down the tracks.
“Like hell you don’t,” Darcy was saying when the noise died down. “How many, Hayden?”
Suppressing a tiny smile, she finally caved. “Five.”
“Five!” Darcy went silent for a moment. Then she offered an awe-laced obscenity. “You’re telling me that dude gave you five orgasms last night?”
“Last night? Four. Plus one this morning.” The memory alone brought a spark of heat to her still-exhausted body. Muscles she hadn’t even known she had were still aching, thanks to the man who could definitely give the Energizer Bunny a run for its money.
“I’m stunned. You realize that? I’m utterly stunned.”
The light ahead turned green and Hayden drove through the intersection. A group of teenagers wearing blue-and-silver Warriors jerseys caught her attention. She groaned at the sight of them. She was so not in the mood to watch a night of rowdy hockey with her father.
“So how was the big goodbye and ‘thanks for the five Os’?” Darcy asked.
“Awkward.” She made a left turn and drove down Lakeshore Drive toward the Lincoln Center, the brand-new arena recently built for the Warriors. “Before he left, he asked for my number.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No.” She sighed. “But then he left me his number.”
“It was supposed to be a one-night stand!”
“Yeah...but...he looked so dismayed. I made it clear it was a one-night thing. You’d think he’d be thrilled about that. No strings, no expectations. But he was disappointed.”
“You can’t see him again. What if things get serious? You’ll be going back to the west coast in a couple months.”
Darcy sounded surprisingly upset. Well, maybe it wasn’t that surprising, seeing as Darcy found the idea of falling in love more petrifying than a flesh-eating virus.
“Nothing will get serious,” Hayden said with a laugh. “First of all, I won’t see him again. And second, I won’t allow myself to develop a relationship with any man until I figure out where things stand with Doug.”
Darcy groaned. “Him? Why do you continue to keep him in the picture? Turn your break into a breakup, before he mentions the intimacy bridge and—”
“Goodbye, Darce.”
She hung up, not in the mood to hear Darcy make fun of Doug again. Fine, so he was conservative, and maybe his comparison of sex to a bridge was bizarre, but Doug was a decent man. She wasn’t ready to write him off completely.
