Bait: The Wake Series, Book One(10)

He was so handsome, his face calm and peaceful. Full, black eyelashes fanned across his cheeks. He was adorable, as he lay there looking like he was grinning in his sleep.

Getting back to my earlier mission, I set back to investigating his man parts that were currently tenting my crisp white hotel sheets. I slowly brought my hand around the base of him and was actually impressed.

I'd felt him, all of him, the night before, but I wondered if it had been my excitement and my overactive mind embellishing his size in my memory.

Nope.

My hands were small. Please, no jokes about carnies or smelling like cabbage. I've heard them all. But my fingers wouldn't touch around him, maybe if I squeezed, but squeezing isn't stealthy and I was curious. I wanted to check out this specimen. If only to figure out what it was about him that caused me to be so…so careless. If I could only pin point what it was about him that made me forget why I shouldn't have done what I did, then at least I'd have a good reason.

I didn't know the guy.

I had had a one-night stand, something I’d never done before. Even worse, I’d cheated on my boyfriend in the process. What in the hell was wrong with me? I didn’t have an answer for that yet.

And even though it was true, and my morals and conscience would be all over me later, I found my hand stroking him and my leg crawling up his. It was crazy how touching him turned me on so much. I wondered how far I could go before he woke up and decided to do some other investigating first.

I abandoned his private parts for more conservative locations. I didn't want him to wake up to find me molesting him in his sleep. Who knows, the guy might have been really drunk last night and full of shit about breaking up with that girl. Maybe he just wanted some strange. Ewww. That made me the strange.

My curious fingers made an exploratory pilgrimage over his hipbone and up to his belly button. He had a happy trail and I ran a soft finger in a circle through it, swirling the hair as I watched his sleeping face.

His skin was smooth and hardly even a freckle blemished it. I pretended I was the only one who'd ever touched him, like I’d discovered this paradise in the form of a man. Even though the chances were, that a man who went home with strangers was most likely used to being touched. Probably a lot.

His stomach was flat and tight. He was no beefy muscle man. He was lean. Almost, skinny. His abdominals were visible, but not in a fitness model kind of way, more like a swimmer or runner. His pecks were much the same. The lines of those muscles stretched upward toward his shoulders and hosted nearly perfect right angles in the center before parting aside his breastbone. There, and only there, did I find a few more playful, and somewhat, curly hairs. They'd be easy to count.

I thought about naming them.

The ridge of his collarbone was sharp, and on one side there was a knot before it fell away into his muscle. My hand gingerly roamed over it and I was curious about what had happened there.

I look down our bodies and found his feet sticking out from under the sheets. They were huge. I guessed in his case, what they said about big feet was accurate.

Looking at him, studying him, I should have felt guilty and I noted, surprisingly, I wasn't. Well, not yet anyway. I was sure as soon as he wasn't lying naked beside me that I'd see the error of my ways. I moved my thumb over his nose and traced his eyebrows.

I was being seriously creepy.

And my phone was ringing.

Shit. How long had it been ringing?

I wrangled free, the arm that was trapped under Casey's head, and rolled off the bed toward the sound of Grant's ringtone. If I didn't answer it, he'd keep calling. I didn't answer him the night before. I didn't even text him when I got up here to let him know I'd made it okay. He was probably freaking out.

Bringing the phone to my face, I read that I'd missed seven calls and I had ten new text messages. It stopped ringing while I was on my way over, but only for a second. He didn't leave a message; he called again.

“Good morning,” I said quietly, but somewhat chipper. But then again, I was chipper. I'd had a fantastic night and sex with a sinfully gorgeous man. The problem was that it wasn't with my boyfriend. My almost fiancé. It was with a stranger and he was still there.

“Jesus, Blake. It's about time. I almost called your parents. Are you okay?” His tone was harsh, but I would have been be worried, too. That was, if I’d been calling him all night without any response.

Would I have done that though? Called that much? Probably not. Especially, if he was merely spending time with friends who he hadn't seen in a long time.