Staying On Top (Whitman University) Page 14

  The trek from Unity at dusk felt surreal and glowing, so different from the cosmopolitan Belgrade that it was like falling backward in time. My fingers twitched with the desire to reach out and take Blair’s hand, and after stopping myself half a dozen times, I gave in.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed, looking as disoriented as I felt.

  “You said we needed to act more like a couple, right? If you were my girlfriend and we were here, I would hold your hand.” I gestured to our surroundings. “It’s romantic, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose.” She grimaced as though the idea of romance didn’t appeal to her, but a half smile drifted across her lips.

  I wanted to kiss them, so I stopped and pulled her toward me, then pressed my mouth against hers.

  Kissing Blair surprised me every time—for all of her prickliness in our other interactions, as soon as our lips met she melted into me as though her body wanted nothing more than to be part of mine. This time was less hurried than our previous kisses at first, but when she sighed into me, I stroked her tongue with mine, reveling in the taste of her, the way she was soft but demanding, shy but filled with our shared craving.

  Her arms went around my neck and my fingers dug into her back; we might have stood on that street in Macedonia kissing for an hour or a minute. When she pulled away, breathing heavy and staring at me with stars in her eyes, all of the sudden that hostel didn’t sound like such a terrible idea after all.

  If Blair could make me want to get naked in sheets that had belonged to someone else last night, I might never let her go.

  Instead of voicing yet another ridiculous thought, I tugged her down the last couple of blocks to a place called Kapan Han, a pub recommended by my phone as a fun place with authentic Macedonian cuisine, whatever that meant. It sat on the ground floor of an area called the Old Bazaar; between the ancient, uneven stone streets and buildings that looked as though they’d been there since Alexander cut his first tooth, the name fit it perfectly.

  I ordered a beer and so did Blair, and we drank them before the waitress returned to take our order. By the time we’d eaten—I couldn’t pronounce the names of any of the food, but it was all pretty good, if heavy on beans and olives—we’d killed a six-pack and my fatigue had eased into a desire to explore.

  “How do you do it?” I asked, feeling warm all over as I watched Blair sip the last couple drops of her porter.

  “Do what?”

  “You’re at home everywhere. I mean, I don’t really have a home, either, but I’m definitely out of my element in the places we’ve visited. Not speaking the language, or one that can be understood, makes me nervous.”

  In most of the places we visited on the tennis tour, knowing English, Spanish, Russian, and German, French, and Italian worked well enough. Every place Blair and I had been in central Europe, the people spoke their own languages that were nothing close to what I understood.

  “I don’t know. I mean … I’m not as comfortable as you think. I’m good at faking it, more than anything.”

  “Fake it till you make it?” The confession made me look at her in a different way, but my brain was too relaxed from the beer to figure out why it bothered me.

  “That’s how it’s done, son.”

  I leaned across the table, setting my hand over hers and stroking my thumb across the pulse in her wrist. “You don’t have to fake it with me.”

  “We’ll see about that,” she purred, winking at me over the rim of her mug.

  The comment caught me off guard, shooting lust and affection through me in equal measure. The drinks and the flirting had woken me up, which was the opposite of what the plan had been, and I knew I needed to be way tipsier before trying to sleep. We paid the tab and wandered outside, her fingers tickling my palm.

  “Do you want to go somewhere else?”

  “You’re not tired?” she asked, her eyelids drooping.

  “Not tired enough to forget that someone else probably had sex on my sheets last night.”

  A lengthy pause reigned while she stared at me, her eyes sharp and the wheels in her brain turning so fast they were almost audible, sank my stomach. Fooling Blair was no easy task. Not for long, anyway.

  “Oh my god. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner.” Blair stopped outside the restaurant, glowing in the soft lights of the Old Bazaar. The glint in her gaze suggested she was about to say something less than adorable and more maddening “You’re a germophobe. That’s why the airplane and the public transportation freaked you out so much.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s any point in denying it. Since I’m not a faker.”

  “How crazy are you, like, on a scale of ‘carries hand sanitizer everywhere’ to ‘has a complete zombie virus survival plan’?” The look on my face must have given me away, because she burst out laughing. “You have a zombie plan. Oh my god, that’s hilarious.”

  I crossed my arms, my lips begging to break into a smile. “So what? When the zombies show up you’re going to come knocking on my door. You’d better hope that you bring a useful skill set, otherwise you’re out on your ass.”

  She stepped toward me. “What kind of skill set are you looking for, Mr. Bradford?”

  “Oh, I think we could probably figure something out,” I breathed, mesmerized by the teasing light in her eyes.

  It was as if Blair realized in the space of a heartbeat that she was coming on to me, and she shook herself, trademark awkwardness returning. “I’m okay with going for another drink. Let me ask the hostess what she recommends.”

  She went back inside without looking at me. At least the hostess spoke English—so had our waitress, actually, and the front desk guy at the hostel. I felt more comfortable in Skopje than I had in Belgrade or Slovenia, and stuffed my hands in my pockets, surveying the bazaar while I waited. There were more bars within walking distance—we could have just picked one.

  Blair returned a moment later with directions to the place called Ballet that we’d passed earlier, and the tip that it was a popular late-night spot. In Europe, that meant after 4 a.m. Surely the booze would put me to sleep by then.

  We started down the street, my hand finding hers again. Blair didn’t flinch or pull away, her fingers tightening around mine, and I stopped her for another kiss.

  “What are you doing?” She panted into my neck when we’d had enough. For now.

  “Hey, if you were my girlfriend I’d be kissing you a lot more. You’ve got me wearing this stupid hat and glasses. The least you can do is play your part of the disguise.”

  “Noted.”

  “More booze?”

  “If I were your girlfriend, I would definitely need more booze,” she teased. “Follow me.”

  “As long as it means I get to look at your ass, I’m all for that plan.”

  “You have a real thing for asses, huh?”

  “I have a real thing for yours.” I punctuated the statement with a light pat, then fell into step beside her, the excited smile on her face necessitating yet another twelve-o’clock tuck. I hadn’t done so many of those since Betsy Reynolds and her cantaloupe breasts quit the junior tour.

  *

  The whole world was blurred around the edges by the time we stumbled back over the uneven streets toward Unity. My eyelids wouldn’t raise higher than halfway, and I seemed to be leaning on Blair’s shoulder a little harder than I meant to, which all boded well for my ability to sleep in a bed of communal filth.

  The guy at the front desk barely raised an eyebrow, even when I stumbled into a chair and knocked it across the room. Blair giggled, a strange sound, then dragged me toward the bathrooms.

  We met back in the hallway a few minutes later, and even though she’d pulled her long hair up and scrubbed her face clean, she was still prettier than most of the girls in the world.

  And I would know.

  “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?” My words sounded far away and probably a little slurre
d, but the loopy smile on her face said she wasn’t far behind me.

  “Like you want to finish something we started last night.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “Maybe you should have bought condoms at that drug store earlier today, then.”

  My lie from last night settled in my gut, making me uncomfortable in spite of the buzzing cloud hovering over my brain. Instead of answering, I held out a hand and led her into the hell pit—or dorm room—and we found an upper bunk that was unoccupied.

  The room was half full, with a group of three Arab-looking teenaged guys trying to sleep on one end, a group of two guys and four girls—probably closer to our age—passing a bottle of vodka and talking too loudly in the middle. The talking occasionally turned to shrieks, followed by shushing that was louder than anything else. Somehow, two blond girls snored on the other side of them, their ages a mystery.

  I boosted Blair up behind the teal and navy curtains, more as an excuse to squeeze her ass than anything, then managed to get in behind her without breaking my neck. The mental image of how Leo’s eyes would bug out if he could see me now—drunk off my ass, eating crap food, not working out, and sleeping in a hostel—made me chuckle under my breath.

  Laughter crashed into lust as Blair pulled her sweater off, leaving nothing but a thin tank top to cover what looked like a lacy black bra that barely held her perfect tits hostage.

  “What are you doing?” I was horrified and fascinated, my body a giant conflict between desire and honor. I had a policy about sleeping with girls as drunk as she had to be just then, even knowing how close we had come last night.

  “It’s hot in here, don’t you think?”

  It was fucking boiling, but no way was I taking my clothes off. “It’s fine.”

  “You’re sweating.” She wobbled in the process of getting out of her jeans, banging her head into the wall behind the bed. “Ouch.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Blair made a face, pursing her lips as she swept her eyes over my clothes again. “If you have an aversion to sleeping in the same bed with me all of the sudden, you can move down below. I don’t care.”

  She did care. I sensed it, and couldn’t figure out why she was so intent on trying to make me believe that she didn’t. Despite the danger of touching her, I ran a hand down her cheek and settled it on her collarbone. Her pulse thudded under my thumb, stirring me to the kind of attention that made me desperate to get out of my own pants.

  “I love sharing a bed with you. If we weren’t drunk and in a room with fifteen other people, I’d love to share a lot more with you. Which is why watching you take off layers of clothes is making me extremely uncomfortable.” I glanced down at my crotch and let her follow my gaze, then watched her cheeks redden.

  “If you had protection, I’d be inclined to say fuck it,” she mumbled, her eyes glazed and an incredibly sexy smile on her lips.

  I groaned, then flopped back on the pillows and shimmied out of my own pants. My boxer briefs didn’t do anything to hide my attraction to her, but I left my shirt on because my skin against hers combined with my level of drunkenness would not lead to anything good.

  She lay down in my arms, tossing a leg over mine and tucking her head under my chin, fingers toying with the neck of my shirt. The way they tucked underneath the fabric, brushing my skin with the softest touch, made me sigh, and I gathered her closer.

  “I have condoms. I lied.”

  The confession slipped out before I could imagine the consequences. Things had changed so much in the last twenty-four hours—I felt comfortable with her, with the idea that she might be being honest with me now, in a way that I hadn’t expected. Lying felt slimy.

  Blair stiffened in my arms, her fingers clenching a fistful of my shirt. “Why?”

  “I don’t understand you, Blair. This whole situation is crazy, and I want to believe that we’re in it together, but you don’t make it easy. I thought … I don’t know what I thought. That you would regret it? That I would?” She started to pull away, but I tightened my grip until she stopped moving.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you last night. It … we’re business partners. I proposed we find my father together, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “Blair, no. Something changed this morning when you told me about growing up in your life. When you kissed me in the river. I don’t know whether it was you, or me, or us, but I know that no matter how our little mission ends, I could never regret being with you. Even if it’s only for another couple of days.”

  The pause went on so long that I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. I was about to let go myself when her soft response fell on my ears.

  “I feel the same way. If we have sex, Sam, it will be because we both want to—it has nothing to do with my dad. It can’t.”

  “I should hope not. That’s just weird.”

  She snorted and I smiled into the darkness, the chatter of the hostel’s other occupants muted and far away. The seriousness of our discussion had calmed the heat in my blood, and the warmth of her body against mine dragged me further toward sleep. Her breathing evened out and she snuggled closer, sighing and mumbling nonsense into my chest. No matter what she said, no matter what I said, I knew that even though the last twenty-four hours had brought me closer to knowing Blair, I still really didn’t know her at all.

  I fell asleep wondering what it would be like to hold her until she let me past her defenses, no matter how long that might take.

  Chapter 13

  Blair

  I woke up drenched in sweat with a pounding headache, disgusting morning breath, and an insistent itch on my left leg. While I lay still, trying to get my bearings and the will to move, the events of the night before started trickling through my memory.

  Sam and I drinking too much, laughing too much, leaning on each other all the way back to the hostel. Him confessing that he had pretended not to have protection the night before because getting closer to me scared him—but that yesterday he’d felt something change.

  The cold fear in my stomach mixed with the oily hangover nausea in a way that made the taste in my mouth even worse. Something had changed yesterday—I’d started to wish there was a way to really help Sam. To introduce him to my father and confess that I liked him, that he was a good guy who didn’t deserve to be ripped off.

  But it unnerved me that Sam had sensed the beginning of that shift. He’d realized even before I did that my heart had gotten tangled up in business for the first time in my life.

  He hadn’t seen everything—if he knew my entire reason for coming to him in Melbourne had been to assist my dad with the remainder of this con, he wouldn’t be curled up against me, hot and solid. He wouldn’t kiss me the way he did, or reach for my hand as though he’d been doing it for years, or look at me as though he wanted nothing more than to be able to read my mind.

  The longer I lay still, pressed against him, the more the fear eased. It didn’t go away—I’d spent years accepting that it never would—but now the idea of Sam learning the truth about the extent of my involvement with my father’s schemes scared me more than anything. He would hate me.

  It bothered me how much I hated the idea.

  I needed time to work this out. To spend time with Sam, to decide whether or not my hormones were somehow impeding my ability to do what was best for my future. Not least of all, to try to guess how my father would react, or the likelihood of his agreeing to return the money.

  “Good morning, gorgeous.”

  I raised my head to find Sam’s honey brown eyes smiling at me. He had sleep creases on his face and his breath smelled about as bad as mine tasted, but none of that stopped the tingle that started at my breasts and ended between my legs.

  He stirred against my belly as though reading my thoughts, then put a hand over his mouth. “My breath tastes so disgusting. Sorry.”

  “Bathroom?” I suggested, both because I had the same problem and becau
se I really had to pee.

  He nodded and pulled back the gaudy curtain, then swung his legs around and dropped to the floor. I let him help me down without a thought, then remembered that just the other day I refused to let him carry my bag. It had happened, the change in me, and I hadn’t noticed.

  By the time I’d peed and brushed my teeth, my heart rate had returned to normal. So I let him help me out of a bed. If we were going to sleep together—which I was hoping we were—I was going to have to let him help me with a lot more personal things. I’d never been good at having orgasms during sex. That psychologist I planned to hire in the future would probably suggest it had something to do with my inability to let other people do things for me at all.

  The chance that I would tell that person to go fuck themselves seemed high.

  Sam had his back to me when I returned to the room, which was quieter in the dawn that it had been in the wee hours of the morning. The other occupants—who all appeared to be around our age, perhaps slightly older—were asleep. I recalled them being louder last night, but the alcohol had done the trick. Nothing could have kept me from sawing logs.

  The view of Sam’s back, from his muscled shoulders to his ass, held me in place for longer than it should have. I let my mind wander over what it would feel like under my kneading fingertips, what he would feel like inside me, until it no longer seemed like a bad idea.

  I swallowed and breathed through my nose until my lust was tucked back under control, then strode over and pulled fresh underwear and my second sweater out of my own pack. I reached down to scratch my leg and pulled the shirt over my head, staring absently at Sam as he did the same until a splotch of red skin caught my eye. “What’s that on the back of your neck?”

  He spun around to face me, his fingers going to the red rash. “What? That’s not funny.”

  “I’m not joking. Does it itch?”

  “I itch everywhere. I thought it was just my paranoia.”