“Did you say collarbone?”
“Yes.” He reached out a finger, tracing the ridge between her neck and her shoulders. He heard her sharp intake of breath, but he was well and truly buzzed and unless she moved away or told him to stop, he planned to touch her smooth, velvety skin for as long as she’d let him. “I’ve always had a thing for clavicles.”
Yep, he was definitely on his way to being intoxicated. Any more booze and he’d be calling things by their biological Latin terms.
She held herself completely still, but her tongue darted out and licked her full lips. “Why is that?”
“I just find them incredibly sexy. And real. It’s one of the few parts on a woman’s body that can’t be surgically enhanced.” He looked up into her eyes and saw her dilated pupils. Tonight, he didn’t want to worry about his father, or the new practice he was opening next month. He just wanted to think about the incredible woman in front of him. His hand trailed down her arm and settled onto her waist, and still she didn’t move away.
“I also find you incredibly sexy and real,” he said right before dipping his head and placing his mouth on hers.
She made a slight sound that could have been a moan or a protest, but she didn’t pull back. He tilted his head and opened his lips, coaxing her mouth to accept more of him. When she finally opened up, she welcomed his tongue wholeheartedly and responded by wrapping her bare arms around his shoulders.
He tasted the champagne on her tongue and wanted to drink her up. He wanted to feel all of her, but these damn bar stools were making things awkward. Without breaking contact, he rose to his feet, bringing their heads to the same height. He groaned when she allowed him to deepen the kiss, and he brought his other hand up to her waist to pull her closer.
A discreet cough, followed by the bartender’s voice announcing last call, finally cut through the fog of passion that had overtaken him. He pulled back his head but didn’t release his grip, wanting to maintain as much physical contact as he possibly could without drawing any more attention.
“I’ve never kissed anyone like that in a public place,” she said, her voice much huskier than it had been earlier. The pink flush creeping up her cheeks could have been from embarrassment or could have been from desire. He was hoping it was the latter.
“Would you like to try it again in private place?”
“Like where?”
“Well... I could get a room...” What in the hell was he thinking? He didn’t go around propositioning women in hotels. But it wasn’t as if he could take her back to the officers’ barracks. And he definitely wasn’t ready to let her go.
His emotions were storming at top speed, and the alcohol he didn’t normally consume wasn’t helping him think straight. Yet for once in his life, he didn’t want to think straight. He ran his fingers along the satiny waistband of her pants and wondered what kind of undergarments she could possibly be wearing underneath.
She looked around at the mostly empty bar and again lightly licked her lips, which had remained mere inches from his own. “I already have a room.”
Garrett didn’t bother to ask her for clarification. Pulling his wallet out of his pocket, he peeled out two one-hundred-dollar bills and threw them on the bar before grabbing the half-full bottle of champagne with one hand and reaching for her fingers with the other.
The shrill ringing of the phone startled Garrett awake. He quickly reached out to answer it, fumbling with the receiver. “H’lo,” he said when he finally got the right side to his ear.
“Who’s this?” a woman’s voice on the other end of the line demanded.
Opening his eyes, he squinted and looked around the dark hotel room. Old habits kicked in and he stayed silent until his hazy brain could register where he was and whom he was with. The memories from last night came flooding back and even though he sensed he was alone, he looked around, confirming his disappointment.
She was gone.
The caller must’ve been impatient because he heard the dial tone instead of more questions. He’d just hung up when the phone let out another shrill ring.
“Hello,” he said, this time more clearly but with some added annoyance.
“You again?” the same person demanded. “Is this room eight oh four?”
“I have no idea,” Garrett replied before thinking better of it. He sat up and flipped on the light switch by the bed, but it took a second for his eyes to adjust enough to focus on the numbers typed into the printed directory on the telephone. “Uh, yeah, it is. Can I help you?”
He heard mumbled voices on the other end, then the caller told a person in the background, “It’s her room, but some guy answered.”
Wait, did they know the woman from last night? “Excuse me. Hello? Do you know the woman who was staying in this room?”
“Oh, my gosh! Is there a problem?” The caller’s voice became frantic. “Did something happen to her?”
Heck, he wasn’t trying to scare anyone or cause an alarm. “What? No. I...uh...met her last night, but I didn’t catch her name.”
“If you don’t know her name then why are you in her room?”
That was a damn good question. And one he didn’t have an answer for.
“Is anyone there?” After a few seconds, the caller said, “Maybe we should call hotel security.”
“No.” Garrett stood up. “No need to call security. I think she left. She invited me up here and...” He let his voice trail off, not wanting to get the woman he’d slept with in trouble.
“No way. She would never invite some guy up to her hotel room.”
Clearly, this person wasn’t going to give him any answers and he couldn’t very well defend himself without incriminating someone else. “Oh, did you say you were calling room eight oh four? Sorry, this is room four oh eight. Apparently, there’s been a mix-up. Have a nice day.”
He quickly slammed the receiver down and tried to think about what to do next. But his brain wasn’t adapting as quickly as it used to when he’d get startled out of a deep slumber. Garrett had been a heavy sleeper ever since med school. When he was a resident at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, he’d learned to crash whenever he got the chance. If there was an emergency, then an on-duty corpsman would be there to wake him up.
That must be why he’d never even heard the woman leave.
He stood in the hotel room, wearing nothing but a confused expression, looking at the tangled four-hundred-thread-count sheets and the empty bottle of champagne near the bed. He studied his bare torso in the mirror over the dresser and noticed the faint purple hue of a love bite on the left side of his neck. He ran a hand through his still-short military haircut, which made his already tender head ache even more. What could he possibly have been thinking to come back to a hotel room with a woman he’d just met?
Being raised with video cameras always hovering nearby, Garrett had learned to be especially cautious not to let anyone get too close to him for fear that they were after something bigger—like a shot at television stardom. Growing up under the harsh lights of studio sets back when his dad had been the star of his own television talk show, then later a producer of a string of other reality series, Garrett had suffered the spillover effects of being followed by the Hollywood paparazzi who constantly linked him to his dad’s notoriety.
He was thirty-six years old and still had a difficult time discerning women who were genuinely interested in him from those who were on the hunt for their fifteen minutes of fame.
And