Free Making It Last - A Novella (Camelot Series) by Ruthie Knox Page B

awesome things, but obedient isn’t one of them.”
    She picked up her purse and stood, hooking the wine bottle between two fingers. “Comeon,” she said. “Bring your cockiness this way. Jennifer will show you where to put it.”
    Tony grabbed his bag from off the floor and followed her.
    He wondered if she knew that he would follow her anywhere.

CHAPTER SIX
    Amber dropped the key card and her purse on the table near the suite’s entrance and then turned to see what Tony made of the room—surely the most lavish rented accommodation either of them had ever been in. It had an ocean-view balcony and an enormous four-poster bed with too many pillows. A little dining nook and a giant shower with two rainfall showerheads. Fresh flowers on the table.
    Tony wasn’t looking at the room. He was looking at her. The obvious intention in his gaze set off a dull throb between her legs.
    It was possible that everything was so much simpler than she’d been making it.
    He loved her. He’d said so, and even though he was Steve, she knew he’d meant it. He always meant it.
    He’d come here to tell her that, and he’d told her, and it had done something to her to hear it. It had bloomed inside her. As though she’d swallowed the words, then chased them with a glass of warm water that made them swell and soften and grow, unfurling in her chest with green, moist heat.
    They could have fun. Be Steve and Jennifer together, for this one night. Maybe doing that would shift something. Lighten the burden, relight the candle.
    It was worth a shot.
    Whatever the stakes, she wanted this man’s arms around her. His shirt off. She wanted to find out how he would undress her—wanted to
be undressed
after so many years of pushing off her own pajama pants under the blanket or wearing a short nightgown to bed to signal Tony that she wanted him to push it up, flip her over, press inside her.
    So many signals in a marriage—in any sort of relationship. It was seductive to think about the signals Jennifer might send. Anything she wanted, and he would do it. That’s what he’d said.
    She could invent a new signal.
    Or, heck, she could go ahead and say what she wanted. Out loud. To her husband. There was no one here to interrupt them. No one to stop them from doing what they liked, and maybethis kind of physical conversation was what they needed. A reminder with their bodies that they could still connect. They still cared.
    “What do you think?” she asked.
    Steve leaned one shoulder against the wall. “I think personal training must be lucrative.”
    She smiled. “I’ve been saving up for a long time for this vacation.”
    “I bet your husband is sorry he couldn’t come.”
    “He probably doesn’t even notice I’m gone.”
    “I find that hard to believe.”
    She looked away from him, not sure what to do with the compliment in either of her roles.
    “You guys have kids?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “No kids. And no more personal questions, Stevie. You’re breaking the rules again.”
    He hooked his thumbs in his back pockets and tipped his head, looking at her from under his eyelashes. “What do the rules say we’re supposed to do next, Jenny?”
    Jenny. Cute.
    “Have a nightcap.”
    “Where’s the bar?”
    “Over there.”
    Tony found a pair of glasses, and she took him the bottle of chardonnay. They sat at the table, side by side this time instead of opposite each other. He poured two more glasses of wine.
    When she sipped hers, it wasn’t as crisp as it had been. It had warmed up, its flavor more tannic, too sharp. She drank it anyway. It seemed like something Jennifer would do.
    “How do you like the wine, Jennifer?”
    “I’ve had worse.”
    “I hope you won’t be saying the same about me in an hour.”
    “Me, too.”
    They smiled at each other.
    This was how it happened—how you made your way toward the bed with a stranger. By making him not be a stranger. Sharing truths and lies mixed together, teasing