He took note of her rapid words. He hoped she didn’t freak out and leave him hanging. Well, actually, he was more hard than hanging. Did she have any idea what he had in mind? It had been a while since he’d had to work at seducing a woman. They tended to fall out of their pants and into his. Maybe he was off his game. She wanted to have dinner first? For real? He was wondering how she was still clothed.
Gabe squeezed into the car with her and closed the door. Folded into the small space, he felt he was in danger of kneeing himself in the eyeballs. “Does the thought of being alone with me make you nervous?”
“No,” she squeaked.
“Good. Then we’ll order room service,” he said, fiddling under the seat for a lever to give himself some room. He sighed in relief when the seat shifted and offered him a few extra inches for his legs.
“But—”
“You do realize I plan to f**k you, don’t you?” No sense in pretending this was something it wasn’t. “If you’re playing games with me—”
“I’m not playing games, Gabe. I plan to f**k you until you can’t move. I just thought we could get to know each other a little better first. I’ve never had a man seduce me this quickly. I feel kind of . . . um . . . slutty.” She whispered that last word as if it had never applied to her before.
Heat flooded his groin. Fuck, yeah. She did want him after all. He was used to women coming on to him, making their intentions clear, and being blunt. He just wasn’t used to women like Melanie doing so. Damn, his balls ached. There was no way in hell he’d make it through a polite dinner with her. He was perfectly fine with her feeling slutty. Especially because he didn’t think she let herself feel that way often. Convincing her to do something she wouldn’t normally do stroked his ego until an inferno of lust blazed inside him.
Melanie started the car while Gabe struggled to form coherent thoughts. They were pulling out of the parking garage before he managed to fire a rational synapse.
“Um, where to?” she asked.
He gave her the name of the hotel and she searched for it on the car’s navigation system. It began to spout directions in a robotic voice.
“You have until we get to the hotel to get to know me,” he said. “It isn’t far. You’d better get started.”
“How often do you do this kind of thing?”
“What kind of thing?”
“Have women you don’t know drive you to your hotel room?”
“Less often than you think.”
Her full lips pursed skeptically, she lifted an eyebrow at him, before returning her attention to the road. It was mostly deserted at this hour, which meant the short trip to the hotel would be especially quick. A good thing. If he caught the scent of her fruity shampoo one more time, he was going to unzip his pants and show her the effect she had on him, indecent exposure laws be damned.
“I usually take them to the tour bus,” he said, forcing his mind to keep up with the thread of their conversation. “It’s easier to get rid of them that way.”
She laughed. “At least you’re honest.”
“How often do you do this kind of thing?” he countered.
“Before or after I graduated college?”
There was a distinction? “After?”
“Not often.”
“Before?”
“Whenever I felt like it,” she said. “Which wasn’t often.”
“So why are you doing this now?”
“I figure I’m entitled to a little slutty fun every now and then.”
She turned her head to smile at him. She had a great smile. It made his heart swell in his chest. And other things swell in his pants.
“And I really want to see that tattoo on your hip.”
He didn’t understand why a tattoo on his hip was such a big deal to her. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just his astrological sign. “I think your idea of who I am and who I really am are entirely different things.”
“Duh. That’s why I wanted to get to know you first,” she said.
Maybe he was the one who was nervous. He didn’t know if she’d be impressed with the real him. Usually the rock star thing did all his work for him. Gabe ran his knuckles down her bare arm, and she shuddered. “And that’s why I’m in such a hurry to occupy you with other things.”
She glanced at him and asked, “So, do you have family?”
Well that topic definitely pulled the brakes on his libido. “Yeah. Doesn’t everyone?”
“I suppose most do. Are they huge fans of your music?”
He laughed. “Not especially. Hate isn’t a strong enough word to describe how they feel about my music. I had a strict, religious upbringing. My family is very conservative.”
“You don’t talk to your family then?”
“I didn’t say that. They don’t necessarily approve of how I live or the career I chose, but they love me. As long as I grow my hair out to cover the ink on my head before Thanksgiving, we get along just fine.” And while he mostly did whatever he wanted to do, he respected his parents enough not to flaunt his liberal attitudes in their home. As far as he was concerned, it was a fair compromise. His family’s comfort meant more to him than showing off his tattoos. He hadn’t discovered his wild side until he’d gone off to college. He didn’t have ink out of rebellion against his upbringing but because he’d legitimately liked all the designs enough to have them permanently etched on his skin. To him tattoos were art, not a statement.
Melanie pulled into the hotel drive and stopped the car near a waiting valet. Gabe tensed with anticipation.
“The ink looks good on you though,” she said, her eyes fixed on his scalp. “I’m not sure why.”
He knew exactly why. “Forbidden fruit.”
“So you think the reason I want you so bad is because my father would shoot you on sight?”
“That sounds about right,” he said. And he had no issue with exploiting her daddy issues.
“Well, seeing as he’d shoot any man I hooked up with before a wedding band strangled my finger, don’t think you’re so special.”
The door opened, and the valet offered Melanie a hand out of the car. She exchanged her keys for a valet ticket while Gabe mentally cursed himself for abandoning his manners and not being the one to open her door. When had he started sucking at impressing women? Around the time a sexy accountant had careened into his chest and didn’t even have the decency to be hot and bothered the instant he’d touched her.