Overnight Sensation, Page 2

  “But you’re not down with that plan?” I stroke my thumb across her hand, and Heidi shivers almost imperceptibly.

  Her gaze returns to our joined hands. “Weddings are a snore. Lawyers are, too. The ones I’ve met, anyway.”

  “Your taste runs more to hockey players, I assume?”

  Now her cheeks are on fire. “When the mood strikes,” she says primly, removing her hand from mine. “More tequila, maybe?”

  When the mood strikes. Jesus. She’s going to make me work for it. And I’m a hundred percent down with that.

  This girl is teasing me in the best possible way. She pushes her shot glass closer to me, then raises that kissable face to look at me. And there’s a challenge in her eyes that I plan to answer with a whole lot more than a couple of drinks.

  For now, though, I pick up the bottle and pour.

  2

  Heidi

  I’ve always kept a wish list. When I was a preteen, it lived in one of those journals with the tiny lock and key. But now I keep it on my phone, updating it whenever the mood strikes.

  My list is pretty long. Some of the wishes are awfully materialistic, like designer shoes and luxury cosmetics. I could really use a shade of lipstick that’s just a little pinker than Sassy Petal, but not too pale.

  But some items can’t be bought in a store. For example, I need to figure out if I have any marketable skills. That’s close to the top of the list. And while I’m at it, I really want one of the Katt phones that the Bruisers players all have. Those are super cool. The team owner—Nate Kattenberger—only gives them out to official employees of the team. My internship doesn’t count.

  But also? I’ve been wishing hard for a hookup with Jason Castro. And tonight it seems possible. Somebody pinch me, and please let it be him.

  As I watch him pour tequila into my shot glass, I have to wonder where my good fortune is coming from. Why tonight? I’ve angled for this before, but he never responded. And maybe I shouldn’t count unhatched chickens. I still need to seal the deal.

  “Here you are,” Castro says, passing the shot glass back to me.

  There’s a little drip on the rim. I tidy it up with my fingertip, and then suck the drop of liquor off my finger.

  And—dear Lord—Castro’s eyes go one shade darker than they already were. His gaze focuses on my lips. Just to be sure I’m not crazy, I draw it out a moment, tonguing the tip of my finger.

  He makes a low sound that’s impossible to describe, except for the way that it affects me. My body tightens in a host of private places. No man has ever watched me as intently as he is right now.

  And it is intoxicating. Forget tequila. I feel high on a brand-new drug—courage.

  “Cheers,” I say in a perky voice, and then we clink our glasses together. I toss my second shot back and then reach for the limes. This time I’m ready for the alcohol’s burn. I always was a quick study. I could rock that psychology degree if I wanted to.

  But I don’t. So here I am, watching my favorite athlete pour his tequila shot down his beautiful throat.

  Up until this moment, today has been wretched. Daddy blew up my inbox with angry voicemails, until I had to shut off the phone completely. He’s furious that I’m not going back for my senior year at Bryn Mawr. I don’t think he’ll ever get over it.

  I’m just going to have to learn to be okay with that.

  Not that it’s easy. I’m used to being a good girl. I never refuse Daddy’s calls, and I never drink shots of tequila with the team in the bar.

  Tonight, though? It’s time for a change. Take that, Daddy. And who knew I could slug back tequila like a party girl?

  The problem is that I don’t know what to do next. I’ve never had a one-night stand. And every time Jason looks me up and down with those sinful eyes, I feel a little thrill of excitement.

  And—fine—nerves. Although the tequila will help with that.

  Besides, when you need a job done right, you’re supposed to hire an expert. And that’s what I want from Jason Castro. He’s the most notorious hookup artist on the team. He’s hot as blazes, and a real smooth-talker. I like everything about him, from his rich, bronze-toned skin to his hypnotic brown eyes.

  He can talk me through it. I’m a quick study.

  And I’m not a virgin. There have been boyfriends—four of them. But not one of them ever managed to… There’s no polite way to say it. Nice Southern girls aren’t supposed to speak in detail about sex. But let’s just say I’ve never been very satisfied by my sexual experiences so far.

  That will all change tonight. This is not an opportunity to be squandered. In fact, it’s time to up the ante. Just because I don’t have a whole lot of experience seducing men doesn’t mean I’m clueless about life in general.

  Slowly, I ease my body a little closer to his. Two inches, maybe. Then I smile at him.

  And—holy heck—the results are instantaneous. His eyes sweep down my body. And it’s almost as if he touched me with his hands, too. I feel that gaze burning me up everywhere it lands. Then he looks up again and gives me a hot smile. We’re having an entire conversation without words.

  This is a revelation. I feel bold and a little wild.

  “So what happens next, Hot Pepper?” he asks.

  Oh my. That thumping sound is my heart taking off like a jackrabbit running a fifty-yard dash. I thought I had some more time to get used to the idea before we actually made our move.

  “Are you gonna stay in Brooklyn and finish your internship, even if it causes family strife?”

  “Oh,” I say slowly, because, whoops! I’m the one who’s gotten ahead. “I’ll stick with the internship. Heck, yes. I have no marketable skills.” My internship doesn’t pay very much. But I can live in Daddy’s Manhattan condo and ride the subway to work.

  Soon I’ll turn twenty-one and inherit some money. Although my father could make my life very difficult if he chooses to. I heard that thinly veiled threat too many times this week already.

  “Good for you,” Jason says.

  “It’s an easy decision,” I agree. “I need to start living differently, or I’m in danger of spending the rest of my life trying to please other people.”

  “That’s no good,” he agrees. We’re still standing way too close together, and we’re still flirting. But I can tell he’s actually listening.

  “I was deeply unhappy at school last year. And my parents didn’t care. You know what’s funny?” I can hear myself talking too much, but his attentiveness encourages me. “When I was a teenager I actually took classes on how to please people. It’s called charm school.”

  His deep laugh vibrates through my belly. “To learn to be charming? I can already tell you got an A-plus.”

  “That’s natural ability,” I tease. “But they taught us etiquette—which fork to use first and how to set a table for six courses. How to daintily remove an olive pit from your mouth. How to introduce two people when there’s an imbalance of power.”

  “How do you do that?” he asks, leaning in just a few millimeters closer.

  “You’re supposed to address the person of higher rank first. ‘Mr. Important Person, I would like to introduce Mr. Lesser-person.’ And then you offer any further details that are appropriate to the situation.” I can smell his aftershave. It’s clean and spicy. I have the strangest urge to lean in and kiss his angular jaw.

  “Who knew?” He moves imperceptibly closer. “And now I’m wondering how many times I’ve been put in my place like that without realizing it.”

  “Oh, please,” I tease him. “Try being the office intern for a day. I might as well wear a nametag that says, Hello My Name Is Lesser Person.”

  “What else did they teach you at charm school?”

  “How to foxtrot. The proper way to phrase a wedding invitation. Penmanship. How to dance with a boy you don’t like in order to save his feelings. In other words, how to be a good girl even when you don’t want to be.” The more I think about it, the more it sounds
like brainwashing.

  “Hmm,” Jason whispers. We’re so close together now that the word vibrates against my cheek. And then he leans in and lets his lips coast past my temple. It’s so faint that it can’t even be called a kiss. But it makes me shiver just the same.

  No wonder this man gets any woman he wants. I’m practically quivering for him, and he hasn’t even kissed me.

  Then his voice drops low, and he asks, “Would you rather be a bad girl, Heidi?”

  Holy heck in a handbag! It’s the cheesiest line ever, but my girl parts shimmy all the same.

  And then he puts his mouth right beside my ear. “Are you—” He drops his voice to barely a whisper. “—thinking of wearing white after Labor Day?”

  I wasn’t expecting a joke, which makes it twice as funny. All the tension in my fluttering chest just sort of erupts. I let out an actual snort, which I haven’t done since fourth grade. We don’t snort in charm school.

  But it’s been a long day, so I can’t stop. I laugh so hard that tears form in both eyes.

  “Well? Are you?” he asks, laying a hand at the curve of my hip.

  His touch sobers me, and I lean into it. “Probably not.” I wipe my eyes. “And it’s a crying shame, because I just bought a nice little pair of white jeans on sale and Labor Day has passed.”

  Jason tips his head back and smiles. “You’re right. You do need more tequila.” He’s already pouring me another shot. “Here’s to breaking some rules.”

  I feel a shiver of excitement as I raise my glass, and we toast. His dark eyes watch me while I tip the little glass back and drink. So this is how the other half lives. My ex-boyfriend—Eric—wouldn’t even recognize me. Although he never once looked at me the way Jason is right now.

  But, ouch. Tequila is strong. With watering eyes, I casually take another wedge of lime from the dish and bite it as daintily as a girl can.

  Take that, Daddy. The fact that he’d hate me drinking makes it all the more fun.

  Castro pounds his shot in one easy gulp and sets his shot glass down on the table. He doesn’t even bother with the limes. “You know, we’re built to care what other people think,” he says, as if he can read my mind. “That’s what civilization means.”

  “Sure,” I agree with a sigh. “It’s just not very convenient sometimes. Maybe I need to practice not caring.”

  “My mother has an embroidered pillow on the sofa in the den. It says—Do one thing every day that scares you.”

  “Omigod!” I squeak. “My mom has that same pillow! Is it khaki, with red piping?” His hand is still warming the juncture of my hip and my rib cage. I cover it with mine, and his knuckles feel sturdy beneath my palm.

  Then he surprises me by flipping his hand and capturing mine. As his long fingers close around my own, I fight off another shiver.

  “I’m not in the habit of taking advice from home furnishings,” he says, his voice dropping low. “But I love breaking rules.” With his free hand, he turns me to face him. And then he pushes a lock of hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear.

  It’s not exactly an erotic maneuver. Still, I’m aware of every nerve ending in my body. And I can’t look away. The moment he started touching me, I fell into the tractor beam of his attention.

  “In your case…” His palm captures my chin and tilts it upward so we’re eye to eye. “I think that pillow has it just a little wrong. Instead of doing one thing each day that scares you, try one thing a day that scares your father. He’ll get used to it.”

  “Like, aversion therapy.” My voice comes out all breathless and odd. As if I’d said, “Ravish me against the wall.”

  “Yeah.” His smile is swift and hot. “Like that.”

  “Well. He wouldn’t like this at all,” I confess. And by this, I mean Jason touching me.

  Although—and this is fascinating—it’s dawning on me that Jason doesn’t know who my daddy is. And I’m not about to tell him. Experience has taught me that hockey players won’t seduce the commissioner’s daughter. They usually steer a wide path around me.

  “This?” he whispers. “Which part of this?”

  “All of it. The tequila shots. The…” Hot caresses.

  “Maybe he has a point,” Castro says slowly. “I don’t think your daddy would like the thoughts I’m thinking right now.”

  I smile up at him, because I’m so happy I could squeal like a little girl who’s just been given her first pony. Men like Jason Castro don’t usually want anything to do with me. And I crave this. I want him to take me home and show me how it’s done by a man who isn’t afraid of my daddy.

  “You want a soda or something?” he asks. “Maybe it’s time to switch to something non-alcoholic.”

  “No, one more shot first,” I insist. If this is a night for rule-breaking, then I’d better get the full experience.

  Also, I’m a little nervous. And the warm buzz of alcohol is settling over me like a cozy blanket. If things go as planned, I’ll soon be naked with the hottest hockey player I’ve ever met.

  “Fine, a small one. What the lady wants, the lady gets,” he says with a grin. Then he reaches for the bottle. I watch his fingers clasp it, and wonder how they’ll feel on my body.

  Amazing, I’ll bet.

  Silas comes bouncing back to the table. “Dartboard is free,” he says. “Who’s in?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Castro’s eyes flick toward me. “Darts are a lot like my day job.”

  He’s giving me an out, but I won’t take it. “I’m feeling extra lucky tonight,” I announce. “A dollar a point. Let’s go.”

  “She’s on my team,” Castro says immediately.

  And I sure like the way that sounds.

  3

  Jason

  At the dartboard, Heidi lives up to her nickname. Hot Pepper is en fuego. And I’m not too busy checking out her very cute ass to notice that she’s weirdly good at darts.

  It’s me and her against Silas and Bayer. I expect to lose, because Heidi just doesn’t seem like the kind of girl who’s spent a lot of time hustling darts. But I swear there’s a magnet under the bullseye whenever she steps up to throw. We win and we win some more.

  “You should play hockey,” I say after she wows the bar with another bullseye.

  “Good girls don’t,” she says with a sigh. “Silas, you’re up, sir. Time to take your beating.”

  We lose only the final game, because Heidi has a couple of unlucky throws at the end.

  “Maybe you actually wore out the bullseye,” Bayer says. “Never seen anyone hit it so many times.”

  “Or maybe the problem is that last tequila shot,” Silas says under his breath. He reaches out to wrap an arm around Hot Pepper, and I feel a hot spear of jealousy. “Easy, there,” he says. And that’s when I realize my roommate is only steadying her. Because she’s swaying.

  Uh-oh.

  “I think we should call it a night,” Bayer says with a chuckle. “It’s late, anyway.”

  Heidi looks up at me and gives me a big drunken smile. “Bedtime!” she says.

  Oh, hell. There goes my hookup. I should have done a better job monitoring her tequila intake. But she was so enthusiastic. “How about I take you home?” I say. “Where do you live?”

  “Manhattan,” she slurs. “But we can’t go there. I can’t have sex in Daddy’s apartment.”

  Both Silas and Bayer are barely concealing their amusement. “Need a hand?” Silas asks.

  I wave him off. “Don’t wait up. There might be a long taxi ride in my future.”

  Silas sort of parks Heidi’s floppy body against mine, the way you’d lean a bicycle up against a tree. “Nighty-night, kids.” He and Bayer walk off, chuckling to themselves.

  “Now,” I say. “You’ve had a little too much to drink, missy. Where can I take you?”

  She lifts her chin, and her lips brush the underside of my jaw. “Wherever you’re goin’.”

  “That sounds like a very fun time,” I admit with a sigh.
“But let’s have a little chat.” I steer her into a chair and sit down beside her. “Now tell me your Manhattan address.”

  “Nope!” She punctuates this with a burp. “I thought you were hitting on me. I really did.”

  “Oh, I was,” I say, rubbing a hand in slow circles over her back. I’d like to undress her slowly and worship every inch of her. Some other night, though. “We’re gonna have to have a raincheck.”

  “But I can’t go home like this. It won’t go over well.”

  “Why?”

  “Daddy.” She makes a face. “I might as well wear a sign that says, I’m the fuckup you accuse me of being.” Then she claps a hand over her mouth. “I don’t usually drop f-bombs. That was pretty fun, though.” She giggles. “Fuck. Fuckity fuckity fuck fuck…” Hiccup.

  She’s getting drunker by the second. It’s alarming. I don’t really want her father flipping out at me, either. He sounds like a real piece of work. “Okay—here’s what we’re going to do. I think you’ll fit really nicely on my sofa bed.” I stand up and offer her my hand.

  “Ooh!” she says. “Netflix and chill! And then the dirty sex!”

  Pete the bartender gives a snort of laughter from behind the bar. “Got your hands full, there, I see.”

  “Literally.” Heidi is standing again, but barely. I balance her against my chest and unlock my Katt phone. “Can you grab a car for me?”

  “Can I touch your phone?” Heidi asks suddenly. “I want to fondle it. They don’t give the intern a Katt phone.”

  “Later,” I promise.

  Pete laughs as he opens the ride-share app and summons a car for me. “Two minutes.” He passes me the phone. “And let me pull your bar tab.”

  I’m using both hands to keep Heidi stable. “Can you just sign that, too? We’ll be outside. Night, man.”

  “Take care.” The older man says something quietly under his breath, and it might have been, “And better luck next time.”

  At least the car shows up on time. I steer Heidi into the back seat with me. “Last chance to let me take you home to Manhattan.”