Layover Rules

Chapter Nine



I woke up the next morning, turned on the TV, and there was Trevor’s story leading the news on Good Morning America. Sure, I had tuned in looking to see if there was anything new being reported, so it wasn’t as though I was putting up a valiant effort to avoid him, but I sat there thinking it was going to be very difficult to escape Trevor. At least for the next few months, or however long cases like this stayed in the news.

I had expected Sam’s call to be the lone highlight of the workday, but just after he called in the late morning and we set up a time and place to meet after his baseball game was over, my day took an even more interesting turn.

I got a call from Beth, back in the New York City office. It wasn’t uncommon for her to call me while I was on the road. Usually she wanted to check up on how things were going, but when I answered my cellphone she asked me if I was alone.

“I’m on the sales floor,” I said.

“Can you go in the office, or step outside?”

“Sure, just a second.”

I went to the back of the store, through the door that led to the stockroom and the manager’s office. Steph, the store manager, was sitting at her desk. She looked up when she saw me standing in the doorway.

“Would you mind if I used your office for a minute?” I mouthed the word “Beth.”

“Oh, yeah, take your time.”

She left, closed the door behind her, and I sat in her chair.

“Okay, I’m alone.”

Beth said, “Stein wants to meet with you when you get back to New York.”

I had been looking down at Steph’s desk, specifically at the printout she’d been reviewing that contained last quarter’s sales numbers for the store. When Beth said Rick Stein’s name, my gaze rose and I stared at the wall in shock. He was the VP of our company. I briefly worried that this had something to do with Trevor and the FBI.

“I’m standing behind you one-hundred percent for this promotion,” she continued.

I let out a huge sigh. “I…wow, thanks.”

“You deserve it,” she said.

Just as she was saying that, I opened an email from Corrine. She’d written to tell me that she just had an interview with Stein for the new position. While Beth’s call made me feel elated, that feeling vanished as I read Corrine’s message.

Shit.

“Beth, can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

I told her about the email I was looking at, and asked her if she thought I should be concerned.

“Blair, you’re the only one I recommended for the job. Stein is talking with several people, just so you know. Don’t freak out, though.” She was trying to reassure me, something I really needed at that moment. “Don’t worry. Trust me. Seriously. How are things going there?”

I brought her up to speed on the store in general, and then on the merchandising side of things, which was our main focus. We talked for another five minutes, and she told me she’d talk to me when I got back, and before my interview with Rick Stein.

I sat in the office for the next fifteen minutes, thinking about what a promotion would mean to me, professionally and personally.

I’d be traveling less, which was fine with me. I’d have more creative input as far as the merchandising went, which would be fun, exciting, rewarding, and a hell of a thing to put on my resume. I’d also have more money, which would mean a better—and bigger—apartment. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say this would change my life.

The longer I sat there thinking it over, the more I wanted the promotion, and the more eager I became to get back to New York.

I considered wrapping things up in Phoenix and flying back late that night. I had the freedom to do that. My travel itinerary was almost entirely up to me. I could have been back in the offices the next morning, talk to Beth, maybe even get her to see if Stein would speak with me sooner.

I decided against it, though. I needed to finish my work here and I also didn’t want to look too eager.

And a small part of me was glad I would be seeing Sam again, and I didn’t want to miss that.

. . . . .



“It sounds like a good thing,” Sam said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Worrying is something I really excel at,” I said.

Sam looked at me from across table. “How much worrying do you think you’ll need to do in order to secure the promotion?”

The question really put it in perspective. “You’re right.”

We were at a chain restaurant, having some appetizers and beer. I had eaten a light dinner earlier, and Sam said they had sandwiches delivered to the broadcast booth.

“Look,” he said, “early on in my career—playing, not broadcasting—I used to have sleepless nights all the time, especially just before a game after having a few days off. I’d toss and turn, wondering: what if this, what if that, suppose this happens? And you know what I got for all that worrying?”

“Less sleep.”

He nodded once, emphatically.

“Is that in your book?” I asked.

He finished off his beer and put the mug down. “Well, now that I know you haven’t read it.”

“I haven’t had time.”

He smirked and gave me a long look.

“I swear,” I said. “I’ll start reading it tonight.”

“You brought it with you?”

“Yeah, I thought maybe it would help me pass the time on the plane.”

Sam picked up a mozzarella stick. “And?”

“I slept.”

“So my book put you to sleep?”

I rolled my eyes.

Sam said, “By the way, you’re not off the hook. Tell me this long story.”

This was it. The moment I’d have to decide whether or not to tell him the truth, and if so, how much. I hadn’t had time during the day to consider it. I’d been completely preoccupied by the thoughts and worries about the potential promotion.

I decided, on the spot, to tell him as little as possible. Maybe he’d accept that. Maybe he would pick up on my vibe and realize that I didn’t want to get into it too much. Maybe he would let me off the hook after all and not ask any questions.

“I’ve been single for about four months,” I began. “We were together for almost a year.”

“That’s not too long.”

If you knew Trevor, you wouldn’t be saying that, I thought.

“No, it’s not,” I agreed, hoping my facial expression didn’t give away the fact that I wasn’t telling the truth about how I felt. “I don’t have any contact with him anymore.”

“Was it serious?”

Oh, what a question, and what a choice of words. Yes, it was serious, but not in the way most people use that word to describe relationships. Sure, living together is serious. But I looked at it as a different kind of serious, stemming from Trevor’s persistent intensity.

I made a face like I wasn’t sure how to answer the question, my mouth pursed a little. “In retrospect, no.”

That answer caused Sam to make a similarly curious face.

“We just weren’t right for each other,” I said.

“Well, at least you figured that out before you got too deep into it.”

If only you knew…

I didn’t say anything, and neither did Sam. It was obvious that he was leaving it up to me to decide whether I wanted to explain more. I thought I had done a pretty decent job of giving just the basics and not letting on that I still had a little baggage from that relatively short yet intense time with Trevor.

One thing I had thought about was whether to reveal what Trevor did for a living. It’s not that Sam was living paycheck to paycheck and barely getting by. He was well off, but not on Trevor’s level. Would Sam view me as someone who was interested only in men who were incredibly wealthy?

I had to face the fact that the label “gold digger” exists for a reason. And even though I had to admit to myself that Trevor’s wealth was part of the initial lure, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t why I had stayed with him as long as I did. If I really were a gold digger, I wouldn’t have left him. Or, rather, I wouldn’t have planned to leave him, even though he was the one who ended it first.

Aside from the gold digger aspect, there was that whole matter of having been the secret girlfriend of a multi-millionaire criminal. That was something I definitely didn’t want Sam, or anyone else, to know.

And there was no way I was going to tell him that I’d dabbled in the BDSM lifestyle. There was no telling what he might think about that.

Luckily, Sam seemed willing to let it go and didn’t ask any more questions.



. . . . .



After another thirty minutes of light-hearted conversation, Sam said, “I don’t want to keep you out late two nights in a row.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. Was he bored with me? Was he genuinely concerned about how much sleep I was getting? Was he fishing for an answer that would indicate that I wanted him to keep me out later?

I had a burst of courage—or maybe it was really more a case of smothering my fears. There’s a difference. I think it was sparked by the text I received from Alicia earlier, saying: Rebound!

That’s it. That’s all it said. I didn’t want to discuss it with her, and I didn’t want to debate it internally, so I didn’t respond.

I had played the role of the submissive girl with Trevor for almost a year, and look where that got me.

So I said to Sam, “Why don’t you walk me back to my hotel room?”

He said he would, though at the time I wasn’t sure he had picked up on the fact that I included the word “room” in my suggestion.

During our walk back to my hotel, he said, “Hey, if you have any trouble getting to sleep, just open my book and you’ll be out like that.” He snapped his fingers.

I turned my head and looked up at him as we walked. Only the left side of his mouth curled up, giving me a half-smile, what I believe people commonly call a “shit-eating grin,” the kind that shows a little too much self-satisfaction.

I decided to play along with his teasing. “You know, you’re right. I used to have a problem sleeping when I was traveling and my doctor prescribed something for it. But ever since I got your book, I haven’t had to pop one of those pills. Interesting, huh?”

“I like a woman with a good sense of humor.”

“You think I’m joking?”

We had arrived at my hotel. There weren’t many people on the sidewalk. Nothing like New York foot traffic, anyway.

“I know you’re joking. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if your copy of my book was under a stack of old mail in your apartment back home.”

“Oh really. So you think I lied about bringing it with me.”

“You could have been lying,” he said. “How would I know? I wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Ohhh, not fair.”

“It’s not, Blair? Or should I say Claire?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “You play dirty.”

This conversation was intriguing me. I knew what was happening, and it was a far stretch from the way someone like Trevor would try to get into a girl’s hotel room. I really needed to stop comparing Sam and Trevor, but it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped.

We stood facing each other. I had to look up, as he was so much taller than me. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to go back to your hotel thinking I’m lying about this, so here’s an idea. I’ll go up to my room, get the book, bring it down here, and show you that I have it. You can wait in the lobby. There’s a nice TV in there.”

Sam put his hands in his jeans pockets. Our eyes were locked and I could tell he was thinking about what he was going to say next. My heart beat faster. This was kind of invigorating. Not just the back and forth playful verbal sparring, but also the fact that I seemed to have him on the ropes.

What I wanted to happen here was for him to suggest that I shouldn’t have to go up and get the book, then come all the way back down to the lobby, and that it would be much more efficient for him to come up to my room with me and check out my story.

He nodded, pressed his lips together as though he were thinking about it and said, “Okay, you do that. I’ll check out that nice TV.”

Dammit. He’d bested me.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost midnight.

“So you would really do that? Make me go all the way up to my room and come back down, just to prove I’m not a liar?”

“I wouldn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to.” His tone changed in an instant from the frisky, light-hearted, joking to seriousness. His eyes, actually his entire face, changed with it.

“It would be kind of stupid for me to make two trips,” I said, changing my tone to match his.

“Agreed.”

Sam stood there in the same pose, hands in pockets, his grayish blue eyes trained on mine.

He was standing between me and the hotel entrance. I took a step around him and, without looking back, said, “One comment about me having trouble with the door and you’re not invited.”

I heard him laugh softly.

As I approached the door, I saw his reflection in the glass. He was turning around to follow me into the hotel.



. . . . .



We got on the elevator with three other people. A man asked which floor we needed and I told him five.

Sam and I stood at the back of the elevator next to each other, both of us facing forward. It stopped on the second floor, and three more people got in. A lady said, “Top floor, please.” They were apparently going to the rooftop restaurant.

During the shuffle to make room for our new passengers, I moved to the right side of the elevator car while Sam, for some reason, moved to the left. We both stood with our backs against the sides of the car, facing each other.

While the slowest elevator in the world climbed to each floor, I tried to read Sam’s face.

Nothing. Not even a hint of excitement, dread, anticipation, second thoughts…just a blank stare. I tried my hardest to do the same, despite feeling all of the things I just mentioned.

In the remaining minute or so until we reached the fifth floor, I coached myself: This is no big deal. I’m rebounding. So what? People do this all the time. Maybe that’s exactly what Sam is doing. I’m not committing to anything. Rebound. Simple. Just like Alicia said. That’s all this is. No big deal.

My gaze left Sam and went to the numbers over the door. I watched as the number four dimmed, then the number five lit up, and I heard the bell.

The doors opened and Sam said, “Excuse us. Watch yourselves. Sometimes she has trouble with doors.”

I shook my head and looked down.

The other people moved to let us out, the doors closed, and Sam and I were alone in the hallway. My room wasn’t far, just a few doors down. As soon as we were alone in the hallway, I swung my arm to the side and landed a smack right on his chest.

“That,” I said, “was for the door comment.”

“I wanted to see if you would really withdraw your invitation.”

I slid the card into the door-lock without looking at him.

“Want me to wait out here?” he said.

I turned toward him, my back against the door, holding it slightly ajar. “You’re talking too much.”

I reached up and grabbed his shirt, pulling his face down toward mine. Our mouths crashed together. Sam took a deep breath, turned his head to the side a little, and we got into a kissing rhythm that I could only describe as “urgent.”

I’d felt more than a little sexual tension between us prior to the kiss, but when our lips and tongues tangled, I realized just how much had built up. Sam’s need matched my own.

We stopped to catch our breath and Sam said, “There was no way I was going to wait out here.” He stepped forward, pushing me into the room. He had one hand on the small of my back, holding me close, while I walked backward.

The door closed and clicked. The room was dark, except for the soft illumination from the city lights that streamed in through the window.

Sam walked me backwards until the backs of my legs hit something. Unfortunately, it was a chair, and not the bed. Before I could topple over, I grabbed on tightly to his shoulders, and he lifted me up. I’m not heavy by any means, but the ease with which he raised my body off the ground as if I were weightless surprised me.

He had done some pretty amazing things with his body on the baseball field and my arousal spiked as I anticipated what he would do to—no, with—me.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and he continued our trek through the room. When I felt him stop, I said, “Turn around.”

Sam turned so he had his back to the bed, then fell onto it, taking me with him.

Straddling his lap, I felt just how much he wanted me.

I sat straight up, tugging his shirt up to his neck and over his head. It was still around one of his arms but he left it there. I pulled my shirt off, then unhooked my bra, and lowered myself onto his chest, kissing him again.

My nipples hardened against his body. The warmth of skin-on-skin was something I’d sorely missed. And I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to press myself against the firm chest of a man, the course hair on his chest adding to the sensation.

We were biting and nipping at each other’s lips, his hands were exploring my thighs, then my stomach, and finally he cupped both of my breasts in his hands. The feeling of his strong hands holding me, his thumbs tweaking my nipples, was making me grind harder on his lap. I saw the lights of the city out the window before I closed my eyes so I could soak up this feeling.

Sam lifted his head and pulled me farther up the length of his body. I felt the warmth of his mouth as his lips sealed around one of my nipples.

I didn’t want to move, but I suddenly found myself being rolled over onto my back.

He lowered his face to mine and kissed me intensely, our tongues twisting around, as he parted my legs with his knee.

I was determined not to let this opportunity pass. I was going to be as aggressive as I wanted. I didn’t have to let him be in charge, and he wasn’t demanding it. I reached down and found his belt buckle, unfastened it, unbuttoned his jeans and slipped my hands down into his boxers.

It struck me that I never would have gotten that far with Trevor. And then I scolded myself for even thinking of him at a moment like that. I was able to push him out of my mind by concentrating on Sam’s reaction to my touch.

He moaned into my mouth as his tongue pressed against mine with more eagerness.

“God, Blair…” His voice trailed off.

Between those words and the way he said them, combined with the situation developing in his pants, I feared the worst. “If you come now, I’m never reading your book.”

His face was against mine, so I couldn’t see him, but I felt him smile against my mouth. “Not even close.”

Thank God.

Once we had both shed our pants, we slowed down. The passion hadn’t diminished. Not at all. It had become more deliberate. We were taking our time, concentrating on kissing, feeling, rolling with each other on top of the comforter, no rush, two people perfectly in sync, letting the thrill reach its full potential.

There was almost complete silence in the room—no music, no loud hotel room AC unit—just the sounds the two of us were making.

I was on my back, with Sam kneeling between my legs, which I had wrapped around the backs of his thighs. I ran my hands through his hair, down his neck, to his shoulders, then let my fingertips explore the well-defined contours of his chest and stomach.

He leaned over me, reaching for something. Somehow, in the midst of taking off his jeans, he’d had the presence of mind to strategically place a condom on the bedside table.

He knelt again, and I looked up at him, his figure bathed in the faint bluish light from outside the window.

With the condom rolled on, he lowered his face to kiss me, rolled his hips a little, and he was notched into position.

I reflexively gasped, more from anticipation from anything else.

“Walking away last night was the most difficult thing I’ve done in a long time.” His voice was barely a whisper.

“Why did you?”

He had my right earlobe between his lips, but let it go to say, “Some things are better if you wait.”

I didn’t know how this could get any better, but I didn’t say anything.

Sam’s lips grazed mine, his tongue running along my lower lip. “You don’t want to wait any longer, do you?”

“Do you want me to think about it?”

He kissed me, sucking my lower lip into his mouth, then said, “I want you to be sure.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

He rocked his hips forward, letting me feel the proof of what he was about to say: “You’re killing me here, Blair.”

“You’re the one who’s holding us up—”

And, just like that, he was inside me. No time to take a breath to brace myself before I took all of him.

I gripped his biceps, feeling his taut muscles supporting his body as he got into a slow, taunting rhythm. I moved one hand to his shoulder, then down, placing it flat against his chest.

After a couple of moments I tightened my legs around his waist and urged him to roll over. He moved onto his back, taking me with him and letting me get on top, something I hadn’t done in what seemed like forever.

I looked down at his hands cupping my breasts, his thumbs exciting me, then shifted my gaze to his eyes. They were wide, intently focused on what he was doing with his hands as if he wanted to memorize every bit of it.

Sam moved us to the edge of the bed. He sat with his feet on the floor, with me straddling his lap and my arms wrapped around his neck. I buried my face in the crook of his neck, then moved to his wide shoulder, my lips running across his skin.

One of his hands was on the small of my back and when he held me tighter it felt like his fingers spread the entire width of my body. With his other hand, he had a loose grip on my hair, using it to guide my head back, exposing my neck for a few kisses, a lick, then gentle sucking.

I’d been lost in the feeling until Sam smoothly swung us both around—never leaving my body—and had me on my back again. I knew from the way he was breathing that he was close. The thought of all of this—the newfound freedom I had with him, the flawless way we moved together and fit together—all of it brought me to the brink.

Both of his hands were on the bed, just behind my head, as he propped himself up. I reached for his arms and let my hands slide down his flexed biceps, to his forearm, finally stopping so I could hold onto his wrists. I gripped them tighter and tighter with each passing second as I got closer, my breath growing shallow and quick.

Sam picked up on my sounds and my body language. “I don’t want this over so soon.”

But I couldn’t hold out any longer, and I let myself lose control as waves of pleasure spilled through my body.

Clenching around him was all it took for him to follow.



. . . . .



“Does my hair fascinate you?” I asked.

He was lying on his back, with me halfway on top of him, our legs entwined. My head was on his chest, and he was twirling a lock of my hair.

“This hair is mostly to blame for me not recognizing you right away.”

I turned my head, placing my chin on his chest, so I could look at his face. “You know, I almost forgot about that. You probably shouldn’t bring that up again.”

His face did that thing where he smiled with just his eyes. I’d seen people do that before, but Sam was more expressive.

“If I never mention it again,” he said, “then I’ll have to forget about you standing me up.”

“That’s the idea.” I bit his nipple.

He flinched. “Okay, we’ll do it your way.”

As we lay there quietly, I began to have some thoughts I wasn’t expecting. Mainly, that I wanted him to leave.

It wasn’t something he did or didn’t do. It had nothing to do with anything more than the fact that I simply didn’t want to go there. Strange? Maybe. After all, we had just had sex, so what was the big deal about spending the night together?

At the moment, it just felt like too much. Almost as if that would come with unwanted expectations. Expectations that I wasn’t ready to confront.

I stopped worrying when I realized that guys do this kind of thing all the time to women. The “wham, bam, thank you, ma’am” joke didn’t come from nowhere for no reason.

This…thing…whatever it was Sam and I were doing, felt like nothing more than a fling, anyway, and I felt more than entitled to do it.

Resolved: I wanted him to go.

Also resolved: I didn’t want to be a bitch about it.

So I tried the casual approach, hoping a subtle hint would take care of it.

I stood, went to the restroom, washed my face, took a little time to get up my nerve, and went back out into the room.

“I have to get up early,” I said, getting my long, sleep t-shirt out of the drawer, and slipping on my panties.

“Yeah, I need to get back to my hotel.”

There. It was that easy. He didn’t want to stay, either. Perfect.