Weekend Fling Page 4

  “So, the wedding.”

  “A weekend thing.” He raises a hand. “And before you ask, no, I am absolutely not expecting anything except time to get to know you.”

  It’s almost disappointing. If this weekend is about getting to be selfish, I want a bite out of this sexy man. Given his innuendo downstairs, I have a feeling if I make an approach he won’t say no. I keep that thought in my back pocket for later. “Okay.”

  “The wedding isn’t until Saturday, but I figured we can fly down late tomorrow, first thing Friday, whatever’s more convenient for you. Come back Sunday night. I’ll take care of the flight, and your own hotel room at the resort.”

  Molly’s already told him I’m off at Java’s, but this much time away will still affect my daytime jobs and clients. I can handle it—if I don’t sleep for a week. “I might need to do some work while we’re gone.”

  “Pardon?”

  “My other job. But I can do it on my computer. A few hours here and there.” A small amount of work is better than none.

  “Done. Any preference when we leave? I have the flight scheduled for Friday morning but that can be changed easily enough.”

  If I have one weekend with this guy, I might as well go all in. “Tomorrow night. I’ll meet you here.”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  I hesitate. My childhood home is in a decent middle-class neighborhood, large enough for the happy family with two point five kids and a golden retriever, but it’s also embarrassing for him to know I live at home.

  Even if it is temporary. Although hauling my suitcase and laptop bag across town just to get it hauled back into a different car doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

  “Okay.”

  That smile of his widens and he steps forward. Suddenly, the glass of water in my hand feels too warm, along with other parts of me, as he lifts his hand and presses it to my cheek. Grinning, he drops his gaze to my lips as he says, “You don’t have to make it seem like you’re heading in front of the firing squad, you know. I promise, it won’t be painful. Unless you want it to be.”

  Chapter 5

  Trey

  Her lips part at my suggestion and her cheeks flush. Willow Parks is a surprise.

  Her eyes flash and I step back before I move too far too fast. “Relax, Willow. I’m joking.”

  That flush on her cheeks deepens, and she looks to the windows behind me. With a view facing downtown Portland and the hazy outline of the Cascade mountains in the distance, the windows are always where I walk to when I need to think. We’re above the noise of the city, high enough to see the mountaintops on a sunny day. Today it’s cloudy and they seem to disappear into the fog. It’s eerily beautiful, and the view is one of the reasons I bought the place when Corbin moved out.

  That, and we like to stay close to Caitlin. It’s probably unnecessary at this point, and over-the-top, but neither Corbin nor I have ever been able to erase the image of when we met her. Caitlin, bleeding from her lip, screaming in a stairwell while a guy tried to shove his fingers up her skirt. That and the fact her family didn’t believe her essentially makes us the only family she has outside of Jonas, so we tend to be overprotective.

  “I want to be honest with you. I just got out of a really long-term relationship and I have some other personal things going on in my life. I’m really not looking for anything serious.” Glancing at me over her shoulder, she asks, “Are you okay with that?”

  Huh. In my experience, women who say this don’t often mean it, but in this case, there’s a seriousness in her eyes I can’t deny.

  “I’ll do everything I can not to fall in love in you with this weekend.” I press my hand to my chest and wink. “I promise.”

  She laughs softly and turns, back to the window, gaze on me, and she’s so beautiful with the light behind her almost casting a halo effect around her it makes something burn beneath my palm. “I’m a pretty open book, Willow. And yeah, I think you’re beautiful. Yeah, I want to get to know you. But for this weekend, I’ll gladly take whatever you give me, and I guarantee we’ll have a fucking blast.”

  “You mean that,” she says softly, and her lips part as if my confession has truly stunned her. And for a moment, I feel the urge to punch whoever it was that’s made her distrust men, because she’s definitely looked at me with doubt in her eyes for a while now.

  Like she can’t believe good guys exist, and now that I get a sense of what I’m dealing with, I can make my game plan. And I am being honest with her—I’ll take whatever she wants to give me this weekend…but afterward? That’s a whole different game.

  She presses her hand to my forearm lightly. Her palm is cool, which is weird because I feel like my arm has been dipped in lava at her touch. Looking up at me through a rim of dark, thick lashes, the edges of her eyes crinkle at the same time she smiles. “I’d love to go to Caitlin’s wedding with you.”

  It’s the first time she’s willingly touched me. The first time she’s looked at me with a softness in her eyes along with a mixture of excitement…and definitely something else much more intriguing that makes my dick take notice. The lava from her touch travels to my chest. “Good. I’m glad.”

  She smells like a vanilla coffee and looks even sweeter.

  “So what kind of work do you do? Other than downstairs?”

  “I’m an editor, freelance mostly. Sometimes I write and edit for a few medical publications, but mostly I edit novels.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. It’s fun. I essentially get to read for a living.”

  That actually sounds really cool. And she runs her own business, sets her own hours, which means her schedule could possibly be either as flexible or as hectic as mine, depending on how hard of a worker she is.

  “And you have deadlines coming, then, I assume? Since you have to work?”

  “Yeah.” Her nose scrunches and she glances away. Her hand slips from my arm and for a moment she stares at her own palm, like she just realized she’d been touching me this whole time. “I’m behind, actually, but if I work a bit over the weekend, I shouldn’t fall too much farther behind, either.”

  “There isn’t anything planned on Friday until the dinner. I can give you the whole day if you need it.” Although I’m already imagining her on the beach, teeny, tiny bikini, my hands on her waist while I toss her into the water.

  “Thank you. And speaking of work, I should probably head home.” She winks. “I’ve got work to finish and packing to start.”

  I don’t want her to leave. I have the strangest urge to pull her to me, cuddle with her on my couch, and make her tell me everything about herself.

  We have the weekend. Even if she’s essentially said it’s nothing more than that.

  “Give me your number so I can text you once I have details in place. I take it you’ll be busy before we leave, then?”

  “Yeah.” She rattles off her number and I type it in, add her name, and then shoot her a quick text.

  Looking forward to the weekend. Thanks for giving me a chance.

  That done, I slide my phone back in my pocket and reach for her hand. She gives it willingly and I guide her toward the door. “Come on. I’ll walk you out, let you get back to it.”

  * * *

  —

  Night has fallen and I’m still at my desk in the room I’ve turned into an office when my phone pings. I glance at it immediately. Caitlin has been in fine form the last two hours, texting me every reminder under the sun she can think of on her way to the airport. They should be in the air by now and, so help me, if she’s texting me on the airplane, sitting next to her fiancé and worrying about me, I might threaten not to walk her down the aisle in two days.

  Instead, I grin as the name Blond Beauty pops up. I haven’t heard from Willow since I walked her to the elevator and pressed the lobby button f
or her this afternoon. I’ve second-guessed the text I sent her a dozen times. Too forward? Too cheesy? Too lame?

  Seriously, women should come with a handbook. Dating should, too, especially in the age of apps like the ones I’ve created.

  I’d also sent her a text when I took a break for dinnertime, letting her know what time I’ll be picking her up tomorrow. Our flight doesn’t leave until eight, putting us in San Diego at almost ten thirty. It’ll be late by the time we get to the resort but still a decent enough time that we can share a drink in one of the hotel’s six bars if she’s up for it.

  Know it’s late, but can I call?

  My smile at seeing her name vanishes, and without answering her text, I give her a call.

  She answers before the phone is done with its first ring, and nerves spike. Is she backing out? Second-guessing her decision?

  “Hey,” I say, and am promptly interrupted.

  “I have no idea what to wear.”

  I barely know this woman, but the panic in her voice is clear. What the hell for? It’s just my friends and some family members of Jonas’s I’ve met once. I scratch the side of my head. If she’s anything like Caitlin, I imagine her bedroom currently looks like a tornado has swept through.

  Which makes me wonder exactly what her room looks like. And her bed.

  “Trey?”

  “Clothes,” I spit out, still thinking about that bed of hers.

  “Well, yes,” she says, and her laugh makes me cringe. I’m such an idiot. “I obviously planned on wearing clothes.”

  And yet I’m imagining what she looks like without them.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  I try to remember the details Caitlin’s rambled about for months. “The wedding ceremony itself is on the beach, just steps away from the resort. Jonas and his guys, including me, are wearing linen suits. It’s…I don’t…not formal, but not super casual, either. It’s definitely not black tie.”

  “Okay. That helps. Is there a rehearsal dinner? Do you want me there?”

  I want her with me the entire weekend. “Yes and yes. And I think that’s somewhere outside with music and food afterward. Caitlin’s pretty laid-back, Willow. And there won’t be a lot of people there. It’s not fancy or anything.”

  She makes a huffing sound. “It’s a wedding. It’s always fancy.”

  “It’s family and friends celebrating. Trust me, we’re not fancy people.”

  “Please. I’ve seen your penthouse.”

  I catch a small, biting judgment in her tone and frown. Or she’s teasing. I just don’t know her well enough to tell which it is.

  She has no idea that before I lived in this building, my old place was a shack compared to it, a simple apartment in a walk-up, while I scrimped and saved doing earlier work. She also has no idea my parents didn’t come from money, and they still live in the same small three-bedroom bungalow my brothers and I were raised in.

  “Bathing suits,” I say to get her mind off why, for whatever reason, me having money might annoy her. “Plenty of them.”

  Willow’s curves tucked into a tiny bikini is the image I’d like to have when I lie down in bed tonight.

  “You’re such a man.”

  “Thank God.” She laughs through the phone and it’s a soft, husky sound that shoots straight south. “Is that it? There’s no need to be nervous.”

  “Except I’m hopping on a plane with a near stranger and meeting his best friends.”

  “Well sure, besides that.”

  “Helpful, but I think I can do this now. See you tomorrow?”

  “Yes, just make sure you text me your address. I’ll be there at six.”

  “Okay. And Trey?”

  “I’m right here.”

  “Thanks. I’m looking forward to this.”

  A soft punch of warmth hits my chest and travels south. “Good. Me, too.”

  It’s hours later when I’m in my room, sliding into my sheets, wearing nothing, when I still hear her voice, husky and hesitant through the phone, excited and nervous. Happy and slightly afraid. The combination of all that I know of her so far has me wrapping my hand around my hard dick, stroking it to a very vivid imagination of what Willow will look like in a bikini. What she’ll feel like the first time I slide into her.

  I promised her I’d willingly take whatever she wants to give me, and hell, I won’t pressure her for more than her time and getting to know her, but I also really hope like hell she offers more.

  Chapter 6

  Willow

  Dresses? Check.

  Makeup and hair products? Check.

  Work bag with laptop and charger? Check.

  E-reader loaded with romance novels? Check.

  Swimsuits? Yes, a whole bunch of them. Check.

  I have everything I need, have crossed everything off my to-do and to-pack lists more than once.

  The only thing left I have to handle? Mom. Who is currently sitting at the kitchen table dressed in leggings and a sweatshirt, a step up from her pajamas and robe, but a drastic leap below from Monday, when she had made the effort to get ready.

  I can’t exactly blame her today. Next to her on the table sits a stack of papers, my father’s attorney’s name stamped bold and black at the very top, above the words Dissolution of Marriage.

  My father officially filed for divorce this week. I think up until she received these papers, she had still held on to a sliver of hope he’d come home to her, that he’d realize leaving had been a drastic mistake.

  I can’t fault her for that, either. I did the same the first few weeks without Scott until I started seeing how much I had changed around him to keep him happy. No woman should ever lose herself in order to keep a guy satisfied and yet I had done exactly that. Apparently, the weakness is genetic. Ever since my dad left, my mom has continued to become a more fragile shell of the person she used to be, and other than trying to keep the house and pay the bills and be there for her, nothing else I’ve done or suggested—like seeing a therapist—has seemed to help.

  “Mom?” I call out to her gently, but she still startles like I’ve shouted the house down.

  “Yes?”

  I nod toward my suitcase. “It’s almost time for me to go. Are you sure you’re okay with me leaving?”

  “Of course I am.” She sips her tea and blinks slowly. Some days I wonder if she even realizes I live here, or that we’re in the middle of a conversation. “Have fun.”

  She hasn’t even asked who I’m going with. I’d told her San Diego and she had nodded. This from the woman who used to glower at any high school boy coming to pick me up for a date, and it had taken six months for her to smile at Scott. Now she’s all, “have fun” and whatever. I’d chalk it up to my age and the fact I haven’t lived at home for so long, but up until a year ago, she had always been the same. Overprotective in the best loving and annoying way possible.

  “I cooked you meals,” I say, shoving down the irritation pooling in my stomach. “And I’ve labeled them. Cara’s number is on the fridge in case you need anything and she said she’s going to bring Jimmy over here tomorrow to see you.”

  “Oh, that’s lovely.” She’s caught sight of the divorce papers again and her eyes have glazed over. God.

  What in the hell do I need to do to help her?

  “Hey, Mom,” I say, my voice perking up in an annoying fashion. I’m trying to sell my cheerfulness in hopes it rubs off on her. “How about next week we make an appointment for that woman I told you about?”

  A counselor to talk to my mom about the obvious depression she refuses to realize she has.

  “Woman?”

  “Yeah. The counselor?”

  “Oh.” She waves her hand in the air. “I have friends I can talk to, honey. You know that.”

  Yeah, but yo
u’re not.

  “All right.” The ground turns to quicksand as I walk to her, making every step slow and thick. The effort is exhausting, and when I reach her, I’m smothered by her sadness. The sadness I can handle; the way she walks around like a ghost is totally different. I want my freaking mom back. “Have a fun few days. Go to the gym or out for drinks with those friends, yeah? Something to get you out of the house.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I will bet all the money we don’t have that it means no. I’m not surprised. Trey will be here any minute so I type a quick text to Cara letting her know my mom’s doing well and has food. She promises to swing by with Jimmy to try to get her to smile and laugh, something…anything…to help while I’m gone.

  Without bothering to say goodbye to my mom again, I grab my suitcase and work bag and pull it all out to the front porch.

  A black sedan pulls up the street slowly and I know, without even seeing him, it’s Trey.

  Go get ’em tiger. Shake what your mama gave ya.

  Right now I’d like to shake some sense into my mom. But Cara’s talking about the junk in my trunk.

  Shake it like a saltshaker? I quickly type back.

  That’s the spirit! Get yourself some hottie…and give me all the details later. ;-) ;-)

  A laugh bubbles up my throat at her response. Crazy. The girl is absolutely nutty.

  A door closes, and my head pops up from my phone, and my smile is immediately evaporated by the sexiness of all that’s Trey.

  Goodness gracious and yummy like the cherry on top. The man is too good-looking to be stared at directly without sunglasses.

  I pop out of my chair and grab my suitcase. The weight of it pulls me forward and I almost lose my footing on the few stairs, the suitcase going clunk, clunk, crash, as I almost toss it down the porch stairs.

  Trey meets me at the bottom, shaking his head and reaching for the suitcase. “What do you have in here? Cement bricks?”