Four Day Fling Read online

  “I’ll probably punch you in the face.”

  “I think I’ll survive.”

  I rolled my eye and reached for the shampoo I’d put in here yesterday afternoon. My hair was the weird mix of both natural and fake ginger-slash-orange. An ombre, almost. My natural color at the roots and a lighter, brighter orange at the ends. It drove my mother insane, but the brightness reflected me far better than the darker, copper-ginger ever could.

  I squeezed a healthy dollop of shampoo into my hands and rubbed them together. Somehow, I managed to get it onto my head without actually punching Adam in the face and lathered it up. I rinsed and reached for the conditioner.

  This time, I wasn’t so lucky.

  My elbow connected with his jaw.

  “Fuck!” He stepped back from me.

  “I told you!” I said, turning as I ran the conditioner through my hair. “I warned you I’d hit you.”

  “No, you said you’d punch me in the face.” He worked his jaw side-to-side. “Not elbow me in the fucking jaw.”

  “Whatever. You knew you’d get hit. Ugh.” I turned, so my head was under the water and rinsed the conditioner out. Somewhere in the middle of rinsing it, I spun back around and tilted my head back so it all washed out.

  When my hair ran clean, I turned back around to Adam. His hair was soaped, and he gripped my hands.

  “Turn around,” he muttered, grabbing my sponge from the tiny plastic shelf.

  “I can clean myself.”

  “Sure, you can, but shut up.” He soaped up the sponge and turned me, then ran the sponge up and down my arm. Hot, soapy water covered my skin as he pulled me back from the shower flow and rubbed the sponge over my back. It moved over my shoulders and down my other arm slowly.

  It was weird. Nobody had ever done this for me—at least since I was six. But there was something so weirdly sexy about Adam using the sponge to explore my body.

  Hmm. Sexy.

  Did he want shower sex?

  God. I wasn’t a sex in the shower girl. I was a slip-on-the-soap in the shower girl.

  Hell, who said I needed soap?

  “Uh, Adam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re not going to have sex in the shower, are we?”

  Adam stilled, then spun me around and pulled me forward a step so I wouldn’t get pelted in the face with water. “Why?” he said, eyebrow raised. “Are you offering?”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m telling you that if you try it, I’m going to hit you in the face again.”

  “Don’t shatter my dreams, Red.”

  I sighed. “Not because you didn’t listen, idiot. But because I can slip on carpet. Do you understand that?”

  “I understand.” He grabbed my shoulders and slowly spun us around so his back was under the water. “Sorry. I’m cold. You can slip on carpet?”

  “Now I’m cold!” I pushed open the door and snatched a towel off the heated rail. “Yes. I wasn’t even wearing rollerblades. Wow, that makes me sound like a useless adult.”

  He laughed, rinsing all the soap from his body before turning off the shower. He stepped out onto the floor with me and looked down. “Should you be standing on a tiled floor there? I mean, I know first aid, but in the interest of your safety…”

  I tugged off a second towel to wrap my hair in. “If I go down, I’m taking you with me.”

  “There’s no way you could drag me down to the floor with you.”

  “I didn’t say I’d take your entire body.” I looked pointedly at his cock. Then, I turned and flipped my hair over so I could wrap it up.

  “Well, in that case, let me get a towel and I’ll carry you into the bedroom. I’d prefer if you didn’t put my cock out of commission.”

  “Why?” I straightened and paused. “Actually, I mean, I know why. I don’t know why I asked that. I need coffee.”

  Adam laughed and tucked his towel around his waist. He stepped behind me and touched his hands to my waist. “Come on, Red. Let’s get you from here to the carpet in the bedroom without you taking out my penis.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of wa-ahh!” My foot went out from under me. My heart jumped into my throat. My entire life flashed before my eyes in a haze of cheesecakes and inappropriate shirts.

  And my ass never hit the floor.

  I clamped my hands over my eyes. The hard body I was pressed against shook, and laughter rumbled against my ear.

  “Perfectly capable of it, huh?” Adam murmured, lips brushing my ear. His arm was locked around my waist tightly, and he showed no sign of letting go.

  “I would have been if you hadn’t mentioned about looking after your cock. It’s all your fault.”

  “Sure, blame the thing that had you screaming into a pillow last night.”

  “It’d have me screaming bloody murder if my ass had hit that tiled floor.” I stepped onto the plush carpet and looked at him. “I’d thank you for saving my life if you hadn’t been the cause of my almost-death.”

  “I see the dramatics run in your family.”

  “I’m merely preparing you for today. The entire day will be spent with my family. Are you excited?”

  Adam finally let me go fully and walked over to the closet doors. He peered at me sideways. “Oh, yeah. I can’t wait. Isn’t your grandpa coming today?”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Just after lunch. Thank God my orders are to test all the cocktails.”

  “All the cocktails? How many are there?”

  “Six. I have to narrow to three.”

  “Sounds fun. Need a hand?”

  “Wanna have lunch with my mother?” I asked wryly. “Do you think she honestly trusts me to leave me alone to do such an important job?”

  He gripped the knot that kept his towel in place and pulled open the closet door, looking over at me. “Seriously? She can’t even let you do cocktails?”

  I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at him. “Here’s how today is gonna go. My mom is gonna freak out like a fly around shit until my grandpa arrives here safely. When he gets here, he’s going to tell everyone he meets about some eccentrically wild story from his crazy life. That, in turn, will drive my sister to insanity, because while Mark’s parents are used to him, everybody else is not. Something will inevitably go wrong, because that’s how it works in this family. Rosie will go Bridezilla—she’s already on the verge—and then, Mom will freak out because she’s freaking out. My dad will keep a small flask of whiskey tucked somewhere on his person, and I will sneak to a small secluded corner of the hotel and steal that flask from him.”

  Adam blinked at me. “Can I have a family emergency? I know I said I could handle it, but after meeting your mother… In the nicest possible way, she can be worse?”

  “Oh, hockey boy. You have no idea.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN – POPPY

  Life’s a Beach… Then You Meet One

  “All right,” Adam said, holding up a piece of melon. “What happens between now and the cocktail extravaganza at lunch?”

  “Well,” I started. “For one, we need to get you a disguise. I have no idea who that teenage girl was, but I’d like her to return my eardrum.”

  “She didn’t scream that loud.”

  I ripped a croissant in two and hit him with a glare. “Adam, she screamed so high at one point that only dogs could hear her. And those dogs were in Europe.”

  “At least we were outside?”

  “You’d just gone for a run. God knows why you did that after showering—”

  “I planned to go before, but, well, you were naked.”

  “Not an excuse,” I said. “Because by the time you got back, I was hungry.”

  “You could eat without me.”

  “Not without anyone screaming at you like they’re thirteen-year-old girls meeting Taylor freakin’ Swift.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “To be fair, she’s kinda hot.”

  “That’s not the point here.”

  He held out his h
ands. “It’s not my fault I’m a handsome, famous, rich hockey player.”

  I blinked at him. “Unless someone held a gun to your head and made you be a handsome, famous, rich hockey player, then uh, yeah, it is.”

  “I hate to agree with you, but you’re right. I chose everything but the handsome part. I got lucky with that.”

  “Ugh. I’m going to follow sports from now on to make sure I never, ever find myself getting a wedding date over omelets again,” I muttered, then tore off a bite of croissant.

  “I’m an excellent wedding date.”

  I swallowed the pastry and dropped the final bite on my plate. “Since you got here, you’ve been fawned over by my father, my nephew, my brother-in-law to be, my sister, three cousins, and now a teenage girl I’ve never seen in my life.”

  “To be fair,” Adam said, picking up his cup of coffee, “I’ve also been fawned over by you.”

  “I don’t fawn over people. I’m not a fan of anything.”

  “Except graphic t-shirts.”

  “This is a tank top, and it’s more of a public service announcement.”

  “It says ‘Not today, Satan.’”

  “What part of “my mother is here” do you not understand?”

  He choked on his coffee. Actually choked. He had to put down his mug and thump his fist against his chest.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to kill you,” I told him. “But it is payback for the bathroom thing this morning.”

  “What bathroom thing?” the sharp question came from—go on, guess—my mother.

  Adam coughed again, leaning away from her.

  Pussy.

  “He got out of the shower and left the floor soaking wet,” I lied smoothly, picking up the piece of croissant I’d discarded a second ago. “I almost died.”

  Mom rolled her eyes. “There’s no need to be so dramatic, Poppy.”

  “That’s what I said,” Adam managed to scratch out. “I caught her. She was fine. She wasn’t close to injury, never mind death.”

  I sniffed. “That’s what you think.”

  Mom’s dark blue eyes flitted between us. “Late breakfast?”

  She was like a dog with a bone. A big, granite-made bone that needed diamond to chip it.

  “Yes,” I said. “Adam had to work out, and we said we’d have breakfast together since I have to do wedding stuff the rest of the day.”

  “Makes sense. Have you seen your sister? Or your father? He’s supposed to pick up your grandfather, and I have something to ask Rosie.”

  “You know you can text her, right?”

  “Poppy.”

  “Mom.”

  Adam glanced at me.

  I leaned back in the seat so the letters on my shirt were fully visible.

  Mom’s gaze dropped to it. “Must you wear such ridiculous shirts?”

  “They’re cool and comfortable.” I folded my arms across my chest. “No, I haven’t seen either of them. If I do, I’ll let them know you’re looking for them.”

  She nodded. “Good. I’m off to speak with the wedding planner. There’s an issue with the table plan.”

  “Rosie did the table plan.”

  “Well, I think the planner messed with it. I have to speak with her.”

  The table plan was the one thing my sister refused to allow anyone to have any input in, so that conversation was going to go fucking fabulously.

  “Well, all right,” I said wearily.

  Mom turned her attention from me to Adam. After a second of silence, she said, “Can I expect to see you for lunch, Adam?”

  He wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin and sat up straight. “Absolutely. I’d love to get to know Poppy’s family a little more. You seem like a fascinating bunch.”

  Excuse me. I need to go vomit.

  Mom’s frustrated expression faltered. “And I can’t wait to hear more about the boyfriend I never knew she had.”

  Fuck a duck dead.

  “I don’t have to tell you everything, Mom.”

  “We haven’t known each other that long,” Adam added before Mom could reply. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure I could come this weekend due to work obligations, so that’s probably why she never told you. I’m sure she didn’t want to upset you by changing everything at the last minute.”

  Damn. He was good.

  Almost too good.

  As proven by the fact Mom’s eyes briefly narrowed at him before she shook it off. “That makes sense,” she said, lying through the skin of her damn teeth.

  You know how I knew that?

  She’d been too suspicious before. You just didn’t drop an idea because a hot guy grinned at you.

  All right, maybe I did, but my mother didn’t. And the button to my pants was probably way looser than hers was.

  Hopefully, anyway.

  “So, lunch. I’ll meet you at the beach bar. They serve food there, and I’ll be able to help you with the cocktails,” Mom said, turning to me.

  I raised my coffee cup in a toast. “See you then, Mom.” Satan. Whatever.

  “Looking forward to it.” Adam shot her the most devastatingly handsome grin I’d ever seen.

  Seriously.

  All the panties on women within a ten-mile radius?

  Poof.

  Gone.

  Just like that.

  Eat your heart out, David Copperfield. I bet you couldn’t do that.

  Mom’s cheeks heated, and she actually looked flustered for a second. “Great. Awesome. Fantastic.”

  My eyebrows shot up, and she glanced at me before turning and flouncing away.

  Adam chuckled.

  “Did you just flirt with my mom?” I asked him, putting my cup down with a clang.

  He shook his head. “I charmed her.”

  “Same difference. The last time she got that flustered was at a Pink Floyd concert, and if my dad didn’t have photographic evidence, I’d swear he was lying.”

  “I’m not Pink Floyd.” He laughed. “I figure it doesn’t do any harm to get her to like me.”

  “What? Like you’ll still be my boyfriend this time next week?”

  “No. But unless you want her to catch you out in your lie…”

  I pointed a crispy rasher of bacon at him. “Don’t go there. I don’t want to play that game. I’m already flirting with the stakes as it is.”

  “This isn’t poker, Red.”

  “No? It may as well be. My sister and future brother-in-law know this relationship is a sham. My mom is virtually Sherlock with a pair of breasts, and the moment my dad questions this? I’m done for. So yes, yes. This is poker. This is Dunn Family Poker, and the only person getting poked in this is me.”

  Slowly, his lips curved into the widest, sexiest smile I’d ever seen. “I’m trying to take that as you mean it, but I admit, I’m struggling like fuck.”

  What?

  I stared at him and then, it dawned.

  He was technically poking me, too.

  Oh, God.

  “I don’t want to have this conversation,” I mumbled, reaching for my coffee cup. “It’s too early for it.”

  “No, it was too early to discuss how you could slip on dry land, never mind in the shower.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Are you going to do the cocktails with me or just lunch?”

  “I’ll do both.”

  “Why? So you can sweeten up my mom?”

  “No, because I’m your boyfriend and I should spend the whole weekend with you.” He didn’t move a muscle—his lips didn’t even freakin’ twitch.

  “I don’t know how you just said that with a straight face.”

  He cough-snorted. “Neither do I, but it’s pretty convincing, huh?”

  “If I didn’t know you were more full of shit than a pig farm, sure.”

  Adam reached over, grinning, and snatched the last piece of bacon from my plate.

  “You know,” I said, mimicking his previous straight face. “That’s the fastest way to get your ass dumped.
”

  “You won’t dump me. I’m a rich, handsome, famous hockey player, remember?”

  I slid my gaze toward the three teenagers sitting two tables away from us. Adam followed my eyes, shooting them all a smile. The boys both grinned back before they whispered to each other, and the girl blushed before she picked up her phone.

  I sighed. “Actually, I think that’s the perfect reason to dump you.”

  “Yeah, well, you’d actually have to be dating me first.”

  I threw a clean napkin at him. “Shut up.”

  ***

  Rosie: I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.

  “Oh no,” I said, lifting up my sunglasses to see the screen properly.

  “What?” Adam turned his head toward me, using his arm to block out the sun.

  “Remember how my mom said she needed to speak to Rosie about the seating plan?”

  “Yes…”

  “Bridezilla has woken.”

  He rolled over onto his stomach like I was and leaned over onto my towel, tilting my phone. “How do the words, “I have had enough” equal Bridezilla?”

  “It’s probably not too much of a stretch to imagine that we have completely different temperaments.”

  “What? You mean she’s not fiery and sarcastic and borderline bitchy like you?”

  “Do you want me to bite you during a blow job?”

  “Depends. How hard will you bite? I don’t mind a little teeth, but there’s definitely a line.”

  I glared at him under the rim of my glasses as my phone buzzed in my hand.

  Rosie: I MEAN IT POPPY. I’M GOING TO KILL HER.

  “Oh, no,” I said. “She’s still all-capsing me.”

  “Is that a word?”

  “My docile, patient, tolerant sister is all-capsing me how she wants to kill my mother. And you’re worried about whether capsing is a word?”

  “It’s a real concern.”

  “Hockey boy, you’re one more sentence from being on my shit list,” I warned him.

  “I’m not on your shit list? You’ve thrown some serious snark my way this morning, Red.”

  “That’s my generally delightful personality. You’ll have to pretend you like it since you’re my boyfriend and are determined to sweeten my mother up.”