Tricks (Take It Off #6)(3)
Author: Cambria Hebert

One of my arms was flung wide and I pulled it in to rub a hand over my sleepy face, hoping it would wake me up a little more. I knew I needed to get up… I just couldn’t think of what the reason was.

Something shifted beside me and I felt the covers lift and drop. The soft sound of footsteps reached my ears. It wasn’t a something. It was a someone.

I went home with someone last night.

Opening my eyes again, I glanced to my left in time to see a woman wearing nothing but a pink thong step into the adjoining bathroom and quietly close the door. Well, now I remembered the reason I went home with her.

Her ass was luscious.

Vague flashes of last night filtered through my hazy beer-soaked memory of skin against skin and a low, seductive laugh. What was her name again? Veronica? Violet? Shit, I hadn’t a clue.

Tossing away the covers, I swung my legs over the side of the mattress and looked down. I was buck-ass naked. I looked around for my clothes, which were lying in a pile near the door of the bedroom.

Must have been in a hurry to get naked. I smirked. I was always in a hurry to get naked. Especially when I was with a woman with an ass like that.

I glanced back at the closed bathroom door as the toilet flushed and the tap water turned on. That was my cue to leave. I had my boxers and jeans on when the door opened.

Rushing out the door with shirt in hand seemed a little immature, so I turned. And, man, did I get an eyeful. There was no way in hell her boobs were real. They were too perfect. Large, round, creamy globes sat high atop her chest. They gave way to a flat stomach with a light-reflecting stud in her bellybutton. The pink thong was still in place but left little to the imagination and her long, tan legs stretched all the way to the floor.

Her hair was dark, her features exotic and her lips were full.

Even drunk, I had good taste.

I motioned with my chin, a little “what’s up” gesture, and draped my T-shirt over my shoulder.

“Leaving so soon?” she asked, padding across the carpet toward me.

I didn’t even pretend to not look at her chest. Shit, this had been a one-night stand. She could think I was a dog all she wanted. Hell, she’d be right.

‘Course, she clearly wasn’t the type of girl to be offended by my wandering eyes. She walked right up to me, wound her arms around my bare waist, and pressed those perfect tits right up against my chest. Then she rubbed around like she was a cat and I was her scratching pole.

“Don’t you want to stay for breakfast?” she purred.

“Much as I’d like to, I can’t. Got somewhere to be.”

The woman, whose name might or might not be Veronica, pulled back and sashayed her ass across the room to a wooden nightstand by the bed. She bent at the waist, giving me the perfect view of said bottom as she scrawled something on a piece of paper.

I considered staying longer, but if I did that, she’d think this wasn’t just a one-night stand. Girls were complicated like that. If our one night stretched into morning, they got ideas. Ideas that maybe they would be the one to capture the guy no one else could. They would read something more into morning sex than the sex that occurred late at night when both our tongues tasted of beer.

I might sleep around, I might like a variety of ladies, but I never gave false hope where there was none. I might be a dog, but I wasn’t an ass.

Sweet Cheeks (I had to call her something) swayed her hips back across the room and held out a scrap of paper to me. “Call me,” she said, flipping her hair behind her shoulder.

I glanced at her chest one more time, then stuffed the piece of paper in the front pocket of my jeans.

She leaned up and pressed her lips to mine, slipping her tongue between them. I kissed her back quickly and then slowly pulled away. Reaching around, I palmed her ass. “Thanks for last night,” I said and walked out of her bedroom without even looking back.

By the front door, I found my shoes and leather jacket and quickly finished dressing before stepping out into the cold morning air. I wasn’t going to miss this cold. I was actually looking forward to moving on, trying something new.

A thin layer of frost covered the windshield of my truck. Instead of getting out and scraping it, I blasted the head and let the engine idle, letting it melt on its own. While I waited, I pulled out the already crumpled piece of paper I was just given. Smoothing it out, I looked down, my eyes skimming over the number I was never going to call to look for her name.

I laughed and crumpled the paper back up and tossed in on the floor of the truck.

Rachel.

Damn. I hadn’t even been close.

2

Charlotte

My eyes closed for like the fifth time since I sat down on the couch and turned on the nightly news. With a sigh, I pressed the button on my phone to illuminate the screen and check the time. It was after eleven. He wasn’t coming home.

Again.

Really, I wasn’t surprised. In fact, it surprised me more that I was sitting here waiting for him. I knew better. Usually, I would just take myself off to bed and not think twice about him being late.

Many nights spent at the office were pretty much required when you were on the fast track to becoming an all-powerful executive. It was common for Max to spend three nights a week at work and then spend many more here at home, working on a laptop into the early hours of the morning. I didn’t mind it. I worked a lot too.

A person didn’t become successful in their career without sacrifice.

I clicked off the TV and checked to make sure the front door to the apartment was locked. Leaving a small lamp lit in the living room, I headed toward the single bedroom with a yawn. As I walked, I made a mental list of things I needed to accomplish tomorrow and decided that getting up early would be a good idea.

After carrying out my skin care routine and putting on a fresh pair of silk pajamas, I climbed between the crisp, white sheets and laid my head on my pillow. With a final glance at the glowing red numbers on my alarm clock beside the bed, I drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

But sleep didn’t last long.

Something woke me. It wasn’t necessarily a sound or anything specific. It was a bizarre feeling, something close to intuition that had sleep fading away and consciousness taking over. Even with my eyes still closed, I recognized that it was too dark in here.

The blackness was more penetrating, more final.

I opened my eyes, wanting to confirm what I was feeling. The clock was no longer lit up. The dim light that usually filtered inside the bedroom from the living room was also not there.

The entire apartment was shrouded in darkness and shadow.