The Love Wager

Hallie

“Hal.”

She opened her eyes, and there was Jack, smiling down at her. Sunlight was coming through the window, but he was still buried underneath the covers beside her, like he had been all night. His hair was a mess, his eyes were tired, and he was so gorgeous it was almost hard to look at him.

“Good morning,” she said, reaching up a hand to touch his jaw.

“Good morning to you,” he said, and the way he looked at her made her feel adored. “You told me to wake you up at seven, and it’s seven. But I’m about to hop in the shower, so if you want to snooze, I’ll wake you up when I’m done.”

“No run today?” she asked.

“I’m too pathetically into my fake girlfriend to leave for an hour,” he said, kissing her forehead before getting out of bed. “Go back to sleep, and I’ll wake you when I get out.”

She watched him walk across the room and she thought you could probably bounce a quarter off that tight, muscular ass of his. She’d probably test that later, just to make him laugh and get naked again.

God, how was she having those thoughts? How was she suddenly thinking that she and Jack would move forward as more than friends? She could still hear his sexy growl when they’d been going wild in the bed—nothing has ever felt as good as you—and she almost had to pinch herself to believe it was real.

She was in love with Jack, and things were looking incredibly promising.

She giggled, the noise echoing off the wood beams of their room, and she felt like singing.

Jack

He stuck his head directly under the spray, letting hot water slide down his face and neck.

Jack was exhausted in the best possible way.

He pushed his hair back and squirted body wash into his hands, rubbing them together before lathering his hair.

“I can’t believe you use body wash as shampoo,” Hallie said, and Jack felt a pinch in the center of his chest as he turned around in time to see her stepping into the shower. She was so fucking hot, his naked dream girl with the wild red hair, but it was the smile on her lips that made him melt for her.

She grinned at him like she knew him better than anyone else in the world, like they shared a massive secret, and there was something about the look that almost dropped him. It was everything, and he wanted to keep her with him in that hotel room forever so only he could enjoy it.

“It’s all the same,” he said, but his throat was dry and scratchy. “Soap is soap.”

Her hands reached for his, her fingers sliding through his to steal the lather he’d built. She tilted her head up, waiting for him to kiss her, as she set her slick hands on him. His breath whooshed out of his body—shit shit shit shit—and he covered her mouth with his, voraciously devouring her as she moved bubbly fingertips everywhere he’d ever dreamed about her touching.

His fingers speared through her hair as her mouth became his feast, became the centralized spot for him to unleash his passionate response to her wicked hands. He scraped his teeth along those sexy lips, desperate to consume every single bit of her.

His legs were shaking as she kept sliding those slippery fingertips over him, and when it was too much, too close, he wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her. Startled, she stilled her hands as he hauled her out of the shower.

Steam filled the bathroom as hot water continued falling from the rain forest showerhead, and Jack set a towel on the vanity with one hand before lifting her on top of it. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, like she was struggling to keep them open, and they fluttered closed when he stepped between her legs and slid inside her.

They moaned at the same time, hers a needy request while his was deep and guttural.

He fucking loved that sound, loved that he was the one drawing that reaction from her.

She leaned back on her arms, letting her head fall back as he drove her to madness with his strong body. His mouth took advantage of her position, lifting water droplets off her wet skin while he explored her with his tongue, and he knew he’d never forget the hot look in her eyes as she watched him lick all over her.

He felt her heels dig into his lower back, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders while her body tightened and flexed around him. Every movement they shared was fucking sexual perfection—scorching intoxication that he was totally under the influence of—and he had the fleeting realization that he’d never had sex like that before.

In his entire life.

It was great sex, the kind of sex you couldn’t quit even if the world was ending around you, but it was laced with a disconcerting sentimentality that made him want to pull Hallie closer and kiss her on the forehead.

Which ignited something inside him that made his already sweaty body feel hot all over.

Jack tightened his grip on her hips and gave himself up to all of it, going wild with Hallie as she panted like a sprinter and clutched at his shoulders. He buried his face in her neck as the finish rushed through him, and he’d barely refocused on his surroundings when he heard Hallie say, “Now that was a brilliant start to the morning, Marshall.”

Hallie

“I can’t believe how pissed your mom looked,” Jack said as they boarded their flight.

“Yeah, she unloaded on me in the bathroom, and I’m fairly certain she thinks you’re my bad influence.” Hallie giggled, and couldn’t believe that her mother’s rage wasn’t stressing her out at all. “Before you I was an angel.”

“Wonderful,” he said.

“It’ll be fine. Next time we talk I’ll tell her you saved me from drowning or something, and it’ll be cool.”

“This sounds absolutely like something that won’t work,” he teased, squeezing her fingers.

She loved that he’d immediately grabbed her hand at the airport, even without relatives in sight. Their fake dating was officially over—everyone else was leaving the following day—but he was still treating her the same.

And after the night and morning they’d just shared, she wasn’t surprised; it had been intimate and perfect, way more than just a roll in the only-one-bed hotel room.

But a tiny part of her was concerned because they hadn’t had time that morning to really talk about what their relationship would be upon returning home. Neither of them had said exactly what they wanted, but she was too afraid to bring it up.

Once they were in the air, she leaned her head on his shoulder and fell sound asleep. She slept through the entire flight, and when her eyelids fluttered open as the flight attendant announced their descent, Jack smiled at her in a way that made her remember every hot detail from the night before.

“Why are you so tired, Tiny Bartender?” he asked, his voice deep and gravelly as he ran his hand up and down her spine. “Long night?”

“I don’t want to overshare,” she whispered, raising her mouth to his ear, “but I met a guy at a wedding and he railed me all night long.”

“He sounds fit,” Jack said.

“You have no idea,” she said. “It was like a sexual boot camp, but with french fries and TV.”

That made him throw his head back and laugh, the same way he had when they’d fallen out of the closet during the rehearsal dinner, and she knew it was over.

She was head over heels in love with Jack Marshall.