Kiss And Makeup

When the balding desk clerk smiled at her, she stepped up to the counter.

“Welcome to the Value Inn. How can I help you tonight?” His voice was shockingly pleasant for a man dealing with a bunch of crabby, stranded nomads.

“Hi. Do you have a room for me?” They had to have a room left. She wasn’t picky. She’d even settle for access to a sink and a cot in the hallway.

“Let me check what I’ve got. What’s your name?”

“Chloe Masterson.”

The clickety-clack sound of his typing stretched her nerves taut, reminding her of a countdown clock on a bomb. “Here we go. And that’s for one night, correct?”

“Yes.” The word came out like a sigh, heavy on the s, and Chloe’s shoulders dropped to their normal position. She hadn’t realized how tense she’d been.

“Okay, we’ve got you in room 224. Do you want a swipe key?”

Chloe raised her eyebrows. “I’ll probably need one to get in the room.”

Her sarcasm was lost on him. Nonplussed, he ran a plastic key through the card reader and handed it over with a smile. “Your room is on the second floor. Turn right when you exit the elevator.”

Chloe paused in the act of unzipping her purse. “You don’t need my credit card? Or my voucher?” She pulled the crumpled slip of paper from her coat pocket and held it out to him. “Because I went through a lot to get this.”

“That won’t be necessary. Your bill will be issued when you check out in the morning.”

Unbelievable. “Oh, okay.” Cursing Boobzilla’s name, she shoved it back in her pocket. “Great. Thanks, then.”

“Enjoy your stay.”

She’d no sooner stepped away from the counter when the inevitable happened.

“Excuse me, folks,” the clerk announced to the crowd. “I’m afraid we are all out of rooms for tonight.”

Finally, something had gone right for her today. She hurried away from the outraged mob and into the elevator. The door slid closed behind her, and she was in such a good mood that she didn’t even mind that the Muzak version of “Song Sung Blue” was playing during the short trip.

The room was as easy to find as Mr. Sunshine had made it sound, and she shoved the card in the door, ready for a shower and a bed, in that order.

Instead, she opened the door to find a hot guy pulling a white T-shirt over the most spectacularly muscled back Chloe had had the privilege to see this side of a movie screen.

Oh, yum.

The forgotten door banged shut behind her.

He turned and she caught a glimpse of six-pack abs before the white cotton swallowed them up. Then she raised her eyes to his face.

Her suitcase slipped from her fingers and landed with a muted thud on the carpet. They stared at each other for an infinite moment—both the longest and shortest seconds of her life.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.

A full-fledged grin spread across Ben’s face. “Honey, you’re home!”

* * *

“I SHOULDHAVEKNOWN! The second that clerk didn’t want my credit card or the stupid voucher I should have known.” She stomped into the room like she owned the place, abandoning her suitcase where it had fallen, and then her purse and coat beside it. “Why does today suck so much?” she asked before flopping onto his bed, her feet still flat on the floor as she stared up at the ceiling.

Ben was pretty sure she wasn’t talking to him. Which was fine. He was content just to look at her. To be honest, he’d hung around the baggage claim area for ten minutes after he’d grabbed his luggage, just in case she showed.

Ben had to admit, the pinup-girl-with-an-edge thing Chloe had going on—like some twenty-first-century Bettie Page—was working for him in a big way. Goth-rockers were not usually his type. As a general rule, he dated women who were soft and positive, not really the adjectives that came to mind when he stared at the pissed-off pixie glowering up at him.

“Your airplane girlfriend kept me in voucher limbo for so long that my suitcase was the lone bag circling the conveyer belt by the time I got to baggage claim. Then I almost missed the shuttle, and now this? There’s not even a comforter on this bed.”

“Oh. I took it off. Have you seen what happens when they shine a black light on hotel quilts?”

“That is gross and disturbing. But it’s still weird you got rid of it.”

What was he going to do with her?

He’d only struck up a conversation with Chloe on the plane to pass some time. And then she’d hit him with those liquid-lined, green-and-gold eyes and a bad attitude and he’d been all in. Kinda made him wish he didn’t have so much work to get done tonight.

But if his meeting in Buffalo went the right way, he was going to be the new account director at Carson and McLeod. And a promotion meant a raise, and a raise meant the cabin on the lake would be his.

Still, he couldn’t just throw her out. She wasn’t plastic pretty, like the cookie-cutter blonde flight attendant she’d just alluded to. Chloe was sharp and smart-mouthed and real. She gave as good as she got, and he liked that about her. He also liked that, sprawled across his bed sheets in something as innocuous as a black T-shirt and jeans, she somehow managed to look provocative as hell. His body hummed with testosterone-fueled appreciation.

Jesus, Masterson. Get a grip!

You’d think he hadn’t been laid in years, when it had actually only been—a depressing calculation revealed that it had been almost a year since his rebound fling after he and Melanie had imploded. He’d been so focused on work that he hadn’t noticed how long it had been. Which was pathetic on many levels.

“What the hell am I going to do?” Chloe fumed. “They don’t have any other rooms.”

“You can stay here.” The words were out before his brain had registered the consequences, but he didn’t regret them. It wasn’t even the testosterone talking. By all accounts, Chloe had had a rough day. She deserved a win. For once, work could wait.

Those amazing green eyes widened in surprise as she bolted upright on the bed. “What?”

“I mean, you’re already here. I’m sure all of the airport hotels are in the same boat, so there’s no sense heading back out into the snow. Besides, we’re married, right?”

Her death glare was adorable. And just a front. She was considering it. She had a horrible poker face.

Chloe managed to hold out for seventeen seconds before she exhaled contemptuously. “If you snore, I will smother you in your sleep. Just so you’re warned.”

Ben did his best to tamp down the wattage of his smile. It was cute that she still thought she was keeping up her tough-girl facade.

“Excellent choice, Masterson.” He grabbed his wallet from inside his suitcase. “You settle in here, and I’ll go see if I can get us a cot and some food.” Ben headed for the door. “If I’m not back by midnight, check the ice machine for my corpse.”

Chloe might be having a really bad day, but his was turning out pretty well.

2 (#u0d14a43b-fbe8-521a-8f21-f2a7101e22f1)

BENMAYHAVEneutralized the no-shelter problem for her, but he couldn’t help her with the Dragon Queen—her mother. She was going to have to slay that beast herself.

Chloe cast a covert glance at her purse, which was sitting on the floor where she’d abandoned it, about four feet away. Just do it, she lectured herself. Woman up and stop putting off the inevitable.