The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            “Shut up,” she said, rolling her eyes.

            “Seriously.” He looked up at the ceiling, like the scene was being replayed for him. “Just like that you were on my lap, in my hands, and my tongue was on your minty lips.”

            She felt like closing her eyes and just listening to the sexy bedtime story, but instead she added, “Which was great until you tripped over the box of bananas.”

            They’d started kissing and he stood, holding her while she wrapped her legs around his waist. He’d started walking, intending on taking them somewhere, but then he tripped.

            “I could’ve crushed you,” he said around a quiet laugh.

            “But instead you recovered and stumbled your way to the service elevator.” Hallie closed her mouth, positive she couldn’t talk about the elevator without spontaneously combusting.

            “Finally. The service elevator.” Jack gave her a wolfish grin before scooching just a little closer to her on the bed. “I would really like to hear it from your point of view, Tiny Bartender. Tell me about the elevator.”





Jack


            Jack would never forget what’d happened.

            Between kisses, they’d joked that they should just stop the elevator and go at it. He’d had her pinned against the wall, kissing the hell out of her, and then she’d done it.

            She’d hit the button and stopped the elevator.

            “We were grinding like teenagers,” Hallie said, grinning, bringing him out of his flashback. “And I stopped the elevator. That’s it. We kissed in that elevator for a very long time.”

            “Really.”

            “Yes,” she said, nodding.

            “That’s your recollection,” he said.

            “Yes,” she said, laughing.

            “I think it’s more of a matter of what we kissed, don’t you?”

            “Oh, my God, Jack!”

            “That’s what you said in the elevator,” he said, laughing, “when I was kissing your—”

            “No.” She put her hand over his mouth, her cheeks red as her eyes danced. “That’s enough.”

            He moved his face from behind her hand. “Are you ready to admit that we would become friends-with-benefits addicts if we slept together?”

            She rubbed her lips together. “I will concede that you might have a tiny point.”

            God, why was he suddenly obsessed with her mouth? All of a sudden, he was like a predator and her lips were his prey.

            He prompted, “And . . . ?”

            “And fine. No sex.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “Am I sure?” She looked at him like he was crazy. “What are you doing here?”

            “I just mean if you want to discuss this further, I’d be more than happy to talk about sex against hotel room walls, and sex on hotel room desks—which, if I recall, was your absolute favorite—”

            “Why can’t you shut up?” Hallie moaned, shoving her hands over his mouth. “I said you were right, so stop talking!”

            He tickled under her arm to get her to let go, and then he rolled on top of her. Instant mistake. He’d done it to remind her he was the winner, to lord his victory over her and pin her down, but the feel of her body underneath his was too much.

            She blinked up at him, looking like she felt exactly what he was feeling, and whispered, “It was really, really good, wasn’t it, Jack?”

            He looked down at her face, her funny, stubborn, beautiful face, and he couldn’t find his voice.

            So he just nodded.





Chapter

TWENTY-FOUR



Hallie


            Hallie leaned over the bed and whispered, “Jack.”