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Chapter twenty
It’s all I can do not to drive 100 mph from the airport to downtown. Speeding through the streets of downtown at 2 am, not suspicious at all. The last thing I need is a ticket.
I hold my breath, strolling as casually as I can to the front desk of the hotel. Please, tell me he remembered the key card. Please, please, please.
The clerk isn’t surprised at all by my inquiry at this hour. That’s a good sign. I lean back against the counter while I wait. Looking across the lobby to the now-closed bar, I’m hit with a jolt of reality. Every day. Every damn day he walks past there. Did he do that on purpose? Is he trying to test himself every day? Is this his first slip? It must be. The last count I heard him mention was 387 days, and that was ten days ago.
When the clerk returns with my key card. I thank him and start to head for the elevators. One more glance at the bar and I turn back.
“Is there a different check-out procedure for the long-term guests?”
He looks confused.
“Do you need extra notice, or can someone just wake up and say I’m checking out today?”
“We prefer 24 hours, just to have the billing in order, but the system generates a bill every night, so… really, whenever you want is fine.”
I nod and head for the elevators. The doors aren’t even fully open when I squeeze out and glance at the numbers in front of me. I turn left, increasing my pace with each step before I finally bolt down the hall to Carter’s suite, checking the door numbers as I whizz by. I haven’t been here before, but the clerk gave me detailed directions to follow once I left the elevator. I don’t feel any sense of relief until I hear that delightful little chirp to let me know the key card actually works. Phew.
I exhale and step into the silent suite, then snag the door before it slams. I wonder if Carter is passed out drunk and my attempts to avoid waking him are unnecessary. The bedroom of the suite is to the left, easily found with a trail of boots, jacket, and socks guiding me to the slightly ajar door.
The sight that greets me in the bedroom takes my breath.
It’s been seven years since I saw this man naked. Seven years since I’ve seen this much of his skin. But seven years ago, I didn’t get to drink in the view I have before me now. In fact, I never got this view of him.
Undressed, down to his charcoal gray boxer briefs. The clothes he made it to the bedroom still wearing are in a pile on the chair in the far corner of the room. For a fleeting moment, I wonder if the bartender helped with this part of the get Carter safely to bed mission, too.
I hurry that thought from my head and continue to stare at the man before me. The man I blamed for everything wrong in my life for so many years. The same man who takes my breath away every time we share the same airspace.
Splayed face down across the bed, he is nearly occupying the entire thing. His arms are hugging a pair of pillows. The position amplifies his solid biceps and shoulders. One long leg is kicked out from under the stark white comforter, giving me a full view of the length of his body and one amazing ass cheek sitting snug in the cotton briefs.
My reason for coming home. My reason for turning Nandy down.
My reason.
I shake my head at that thought. Carter fucking Hughes is my reason.
I fling my coat and suit jacket onto the chair with his clothes and stand, still staring. That ink, that ink I’ve been so curious about occupies more square footage on his beautiful body than I realized. The sunburst on his right hand joins more sunbeams, and stars and a moon… are those piano keys? I laugh out loud when I spot the bear. Wow. Even Carter has a grizzly bear taking up permanent residence on his body.
Not the same one Brady has. That one is exclusive for team members. Carter’s grizzly is prowling through a forest, very different from the team logo or the snarling bear many team members chose after the back-to-back championship years. Even so, this is a clear nod to Brady.
I sit down on the edge of the bed. I can’t keep my fingers from drifting across the light splattering of freckles along his shoulder and then into his perfectly trimmed hair barely mussed from being smashed against the pillows.
He is gorgeous.
Carter lets out a tiny moan. I grin and continue to let my fingers stroke across his warm skin. I can’t stop.
“Hi,” he mumbles into the pillows.
“Hi,” I whisper.
He doesn’t open his eyes or say anything else. He seems to have drifted back to sleep. I’m not even sure he really woke up. He reaches out his arm for as I stand.
“Did you take any aspirin?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. I drank a ton of water.”
I smile at him. “Good, then how about you drink a ton more and take some aspirin?”
