Fairyville already knew she was eccentric. She saw no reason why she shouldn't be kinky, too.
Bryan had been kidding about staying hard until he took her, but the joke hadn't been far off. He found himself unable to think of anything but Zoe, and while he'd always had a healthy libido, this intense preoccupation with a woman was unusual. Alex had been sleeping—or pretending to—when Bryan returned to their new hotel room, this one fitted out with queen-size beds. Bryan had taken one for himself without a second thought, though Alex probably would have welcomed the chance to help him out with a release or two. Maybe the reason was part anger, but Bryan realized he didn't want him to.
He only wanted to rack Zoe.
Even when Alex padded to the bathroom the next morning with an erection the size of Flagstaff shoving out his briefs, Bryan had pretended not to see. He'd told Alex to visit the newspaper office without him, saying he wanted to check some of their interviewees' backgrounds on the internet. Though he'd meant to do this, he ended up in bed with the p**n channel on, stroking his persistent hard-on while he watched the men get busy and imagined all the women as Zoe.
He should have come a hundred times, given how much he'd played with himself, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to push over the brink. He knew what he wanted. When he got it, he wanted to be really revved up for it.
Zoe called the room at five. The sound of her voice was like a million tiny rockets going off underneath his skin. She was ready, she said, but nervous. Would he consider picking her up and driving her?
The idea that she wouldn't bring a getaway vehicle delighted him. He'd have her all night. They'd have her all night.
She was waiting in front of her house when he pulled up, clutching a small black satchel to her side. Unable to stay where he was, he got out of the car, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her so deep and long it was like he wanted to f**k her through her mouth.
"Wow," she said when he finally let her go to breathe.
Her starry-eyed astonishment made him feel like a million bucks—which wasn't to say her side of the kiss hadn't been spectacular. There was nothing quite like being kept up with to bring out the best in a horny man.
"Alex wasn't back yet when I left," he said, his hands enjoying a slide down her silken arms.
"Do you think he will be by the time we arrive?"
"I don't know." His c**k thumped harder at the prospect of Alex waiting, of Alex looking up and seeing him with Zoe. Bryan's prick was rigid, absolutely in pain. He wanted to take her now, against the car, in sight of anyone who drove by. She was wearing a stretchy, sleeveless red velvet minidress that plunged over her creamy cle**age and bared her mile-long legs nearly to her cunt. Sensing his rather obvious interest, she tugged the hem in embarrassment. That drew a growl from low in his chest even as he grinned.
"I don't usually dress like this," she confessed.
He laughed and kissed her mouth quick and hard. "Alex is going to die when he sees those red hooker shoes."
"You really think he'll say yes to watching us?"
Still smiling, Bryan cupped her anxious face, his eyes burning unexpectedly at how sweet she was. "He'll say yes," he assured her, not a doubt in his mind. "He'd have said yes if you'd cut holes in a grocery bag and worn that."
"Well, good," she said, blowing out a shaky breath. "Because maybe we should strategize on the way."
Alex hated empty hotel rooms. An empty house he was used to, but coming back to these uninspired surroundings after spinning his wheels all day felt like a booby prize.
On the bright side, no one at the paper had recognized him, but the stupid Fairyville Courier hadn't even had microfiche. He'd be scrubbing newsprint from his nails for days, and all he had to show for his troubles were a handful of crazy interviews some dewy-eyed oral history student had done with a bunch of dotty octogenarians. Wish fulfillment was all they were, mixed with a mishmash of folktale. Fairies were not riding into Fairyville on great white stallions to debauch young women in the woods.
Never mind the strange things he and Zoe had seen at the falls. There was no such thing as fairies. All right, there were the little fairies Zoe was friends with, who were probably some sort of energy that only looked like Tinkerbell because this was what Alex expected. Whatever they were, they weren't lying in wait in the forest for young maidens to happen by.
Even his open mind had to have limits.
This conclusion didn't satisfy him any more than his day had. Uneasy with his thoughts but not wanting to wallow in them, Alex emptied his pockets onto the bed—his bed—and stared at the phone. Bryan had booked them into a nice hotel: room service, bellhops, the works. But without Bryan here—even a resentful, cold-shouldering Bryan—none of its amenities appealed.
Seeing as he had no idea what Bryan was up to, room service was probably his best dinner plan. His appetite nonexistent, he stretched out on the mattress instead… which let a different sort of unappealing musing in.
Bryan had every right to be upset with him, just like—strictly speaking—Alex had had every right to sleep with Zoe. He and Bryan weren't boyfriends, they were strictly friends with benefits. Sadly, these very reasonable justifications didn't lessen his discontents.
Neither Bryan nor Zoe had checked in with him today. Alex hadn't been what you'd call a people person since he'd left high school, but he was dismayed to discover how much he wanted contact with these two.
He was pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets when the door lock clicked and Bryan walked in.
"Hey," he said as Alex sat up with his heart pounding.
"Hey," Alex said back, and then, "Zoe."
Her name came out a little breathless, but he couldn't help that, considering what she had on. He had never, in his life, seen her wear such a blatantly sexy dress. The way it fit her was combustible, cut down to there and up to here and probably grounds for arrest if she lingered in the lobby long.
"You two going out?" he asked, confused but trying not to show it. He took in Zoe's four-inch heels with a silent ulp. Women in shoes like that were a weakness he didn't need right now. "If you are, I think Bryan might have to play bodyguard."
Zoe smiled, just a little, so she and Bryan probably hadn't made a secret pact to do away with him.
"We're not going out," she said, dropping her little satchel on the foot of his bed. "If you agree to our proposition, we're staying in."
"Proposition?" He wasn't sure it was possible for a man to croak more foolishly. A proposition meant sex, right? That you'd been forgiven and were about to get lucky?