They both moaned as he slid into her, the sound mingling on their joined lips. He moved slowly, with short, gentle strokes and she raised her hips to meet them. She savored the sweet friction of every thrust as he murmured in her ear—telling her how hot she was and how amazing it felt and how he never wanted it to end.
As his pace quickened, Beth ran her hands over his back, reveling in the light sheen of sweat and the way his muscles rippled under her touch. She was drowning in the intensity of his blue eyes and she closed her eyes as the long-awaited orgasm took hold. He thrust harder and she heard him groan as he found his own release.
As the tremors faded, he lowered himself on top of her, a hot, heavy weight she didn’t mind at all. He kissed the side of her neck and she smiled, stroking his hair. They lay like that a few minutes, catching their breath, before Kevin rolled away. She felt the bed shift under his weight, and then he was back, pulling her against his body.
“I’m glad you stayed,” he said into her hair.
“Me, too.” Very, very glad.
***
A night on her feet followed by a night on her back under Kevin without sustenance had Beth awake at too-early o’clock, her stomach rumbling in protest. Doughnuts, she thought. She’d sneak down to the continental breakfast nook, filch some doughnuts and coffee, and be back before Kevin woke.
It took her a few minutes of rummaging to find her clothes and, when she was dressed, she went digging through Kevin’s clothes for his hotel key card.
And found napkins. The cocktail napkins she’d handed out with drinks, though they hadn’t had names and phone numbers scrawled on them at the time. Oh, and fun notes, too. I’m a former gymnast and I can still hook my ankles behind my head. Call me!
When she snorted, Kevin rolled over, barely cracking his eyes open, and muttered, “Make sure you lock the door when you leave.”
Beth froze as all the warm afterglow left her body in a disappointed whoosh. So much for him not being that guy.
She didn’t waste any more time hunting for his key card. Slipping into the hallway—and making sure the door locked behind her—she told herself she’d never see the man again.
And this time she meant it.
Chapter Three
Three weeks later, Beth was doing laps of the drugstore. She’d spent ten minutes analyzing lip balm. Another five smelling cheap air fresheners. Fifteen picking a card for her mother’s birthday, which was still three months away.
Anything to avoid her real destination—the feminine stuff aisle. The one with the tampons and freshening-up things and creams. And home pregnancy tests.
They’d used a condom. And she was only a week late. It could be stress. She should just take her lip balm, birthday card and paranoia and go home.
But her cycle ran like Swiss clockwork. And condoms were ninety-eight percent effective, which meant they had a two percent failure rate. She had a gut feeling statistics were about to kick her ass.
It only took her a few minutes to find the test that promised to be accurate as early as her first late day, and five more to walk home.
The smell hit Beth as she reached the top of the second flight of stairs and turned down the hall to her apartment—old cat urine and stale poverty. She should be used to it by now, since she’d lived in the building for three months, but she’d yet to acquire immunity to the smell of cat piss. It was a good thing she planned to be on to the next city before summer came around again.
But what if there was a blue plus sign in the window?
Her key was ready in her hand, minimizing the time she had to stand in the hall, and she closed the door as quickly as she could once inside. It wasn’t a lot warmer, thanks to a landlord who seemed to think ancient furnaces and a lack of insulation were sufficient for a New England winter, but it smelled a lot better. And that was thanks to a whole lot of elbow grease, not her landlord.
She tossed the drugstore bag on the card table that passed for a dining room table, then crossed to the ancient rocking chair she’d rescued from the sidewalk to take off her shoes. The only other piece of furniture in the apartment, besides the metal folding chair that made the card table a dining room set, was a twin bed she’d picked up cheap at the Goodwill store. And it would all be donated back to Goodwill when she was ready to get on a bus again in three or four months. Whenever the mood struck.
Unless there was a blue plus sign in the window.
She couldn’t have a baby. A baby meant a home. A real home, not a cheap apartment or by-the-week motel room. And a minivan. Moms drive minivans.
Beth didn’t even have a car, never mind a Mom-mobile. She liked the bus—it was somehow reminiscent of hobos riding the rails. She’d land in a small city she liked, find a job and a place to live, then earn enough money to move on to the next place.