What He Really Feels (He Feels Trilogy) (13 page)

I also met Melissa and Brendon, more designers and colleagues on our floor who Dan appreciated as coworkers but who went home at the end of the day to their spouses, hence making them poor candidates for our Friday nights prowling San Diego for sexy ladies.

The day passed in a flash between organizing my office, meeting everyone, and sorting through my new projects. I set up calendar reminders and figured out when I’d be doing what for the next couple of weeks, and then I headed home. I felt oddly more grown up; maybe it was because I was in a new place at an office where I wasn’t going to run into my father every day, but it suddenly felt like I was an adult. I’d always be a kid at heart, but I felt the responsibility of being on my own for maybe the first time in my life, and I actually liked it.
A lot.

Friday came quickly, and I found myself in the shower getting ready for my Friday night on the town. I didn’t bother with shaving since more than one woman had told me how sexy I looked with a bit of stubble on my jaw. I carefully
gelled my hair, working hard to achieve the “I don’t really care” look. I grabbed my favorite “going out to the nice bars” charcoal pants and a black button down shirt. I rolled the sleeves up to my elbows and then I met my buddy in the family room for some pre-bar drinks, thinking briefly about the missed call I’d spotted on my phone the day before.

Nick Matthews had called me.

I had missed his call because I’d been in the middle of a conversation with Spencer, and Nick hadn’t left a voicemail. I found it odd that he’d call me, and I couldn’t imagine why other than trying to convince me to forgive Julianne. But that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen. Not anytime soon, anyway. And I just couldn’t summon the strength to call him back. If it was important enough, he’d call back. I just wanted the two of them to leave me alone so I could focus on my new life in San Diego.

“Spencer can’t make it,” Dan said, pulling me out of my thoughts. He grabbed a couple of bottles of beer out of the fridge for us while I settled back into one of Dan’s leather recliners.

“So just you, me, and Craig?” I asked.

“Yeah.
Craig’s on his way over.”

“What happened to Spencer?”

“He’s meeting with his ex.” Dan handed me a beer and then settled into the couch.

“Uh oh.”

“He made it sound like it would be a good thing. Like he made a mistake breaking up with her in the first place.”

“Well, best of luck to him, then,” I said, holding my beer up in an imitation of a toast.

“So what are you looking for tonight?”

I shrugged. “Just want to have a good time.”

“With someone blonde or someone brunette?”

“You know, I’ve gotten screwed by both hair colors in recent weeks, but I had a hell of a good time with a redhead in a dark alley.”

He chuckled. “Red it is, then.”

A knock at the door signaled Craig’s arrival, so the three of us drank for awhile and then called a cab to
take us to the bars. We were heading to the Gaslamp Quarter, whatever that meant.

I soon found that it meant a sort of downtown area with bars and a fun vibe but also with a ton of tourists. Dan informed me that the ladies visiting San Diego on vacation were his favorite brand of women because they would eventually go home. He was the type of guy who was determined to remain a bachelor for as long as possible, and I suddenly found him to be a great influence on me.

Enough with the beating myself up shit. Enough with the vows. It was time to have some fun.

Craig voted for Hooters, but Dan and I wanted to scout the ladies, so we hit up The Tipsy Crow, Dan’s favorite bar, instead. The bar featured three levels, but the bottom one was where it was at. We stocked up on drinks and found a table with three stools, and then we just chilled as we listened to the live band and started the fun process of getting drunk.

I caught the eye of quite a few ladies, and quite a few ladies caught my eye, too. I had always pegged tall, statuesque blondes as my “type,” but I think that had something to do with Jules. Now that I was trying to move on from her, I found myself more attracted to the brunettes in the crowd. Especially the ones who looked like Gorgeous. Short and thin with nice breasts, sexy curves, and a perfect ass. That was my new “type.”

I watched the people on the dance floor as I sipped my beer, and then one girl whose eye I had caught earlier walked over to me. She looked titillating in a low cut white shirt that accentuated her breasts and jeans tucked into black boots with spiked heels.

“Hey,” she yelled over the music and grinned at me with luscious lips. She had long, silky dark hair, and my mind immediately wondered what it would look like if she was whipping it around while she gyrated on top of me. TJ jerked suddenly to life at the imagery.

“Hey,” I grinned back, knowing Dan and Craig were in my peripherals watching me.

“I’m Kelly.”

“Travis.”

“Are you from here?” she asked.

I nodded.
“Moved here Monday.”

“I’m visiting from Chicago.”
Score. This was exactly what Dan had been talking about: tourists.

“How long you here?” I asked.

“This is our last night.”

“Back to the windy city tomorrow?”

She nodded, and then she looked at me nervously. “My friends dared me to come talk to you.”

I thought about that for a moment. She was cute. I’d had an unusually large volume of random hook-ups of late, but, I justified to myself, I had no reason not to add one more to the list. There wasn’t anybody waiting at home for me, so I figured there was no harm in having some fun.

I placed my hand on Kelly’s hip and guided her so that she stood closer to me, between my legs. Then I leaned in close to her, and she smelled good. Sexy, like warm vanilla. “Did they dare you to do anything else?” I asked, my breath close against her ear.

I saw her tremble, and I acknowledged that my words had had their intended effect.

She looked up at me with big, mischievous brown eyes. “Maybe.”

I leaned in again. “Are they watching?”

She nodded, so I lowered my head to hers to give her friends a show. I brushed my lips against hers, and I felt my own heart rate speeding up. Even if I didn’t know anything about this girl, I still always got revved up by the thought of what could happen.

Her hands moved to my neck and she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss. I hadn’t planned on that; really, I had just planned a quick kiss for the benefit of her friends, but the longer we kissed, the more I realized that I liked kissing her. She tasted like rum and coke and it was hot.

I broke away first, aware of the fact that I had two buddies sitting at the table with me. I gave Kelly a long, lazy once-over, and then I threw back the rest of my beer. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet, dragging me to the dance floor.

The band was playing something upbeat. Kelly threw her arms around me, and I pulled her in close as we found a good rhythm together. We intermittently kissed as we danced, and I was suddenly very into this girl.

“You want to go for a walk?” I asked her, hoping it would lead to more.

She nodded.

I didn’t know where the fuck I was going since it was my first time in that part of San Diego, but we walked for a few minutes and found a bench. We weren’t close enough to walk to the beach, but the air was salty with a cool chill. Kelly shivered and I put my arm around her, pulling her in close. She rested her head on my shoulder.

“So, Travis, tell me more about you.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m an architect.”

For some reason, the effect of telling women what I did for a living tended to be an aphrodisiac. I still couldn’t figure out why.

“What have you designed?” she asked.

“Buildings.”
It was my signature line, and she laughed. “It’s actually a lot more project management than design most of the time.”

“What does that mean?”

“There are two sides to being an architect: the construction side and the design side. I start by planning and designing something, and I have to take into consideration building codes, zoning laws, the context of the building, stuff like that. Then I have to oversee the construction of the building. What do you do?”

“I’m a nurse.” I pictured her in every teenaged boy’s fantasy of a short, tight, white nurse’s uniform. In my mind, it didn’t look bad on her.

“What are you doing in San Diego?” I asked.

“I’m here for a friend’s bachelorette party.”

“You’re heading home on a Saturday?”

“Hotels aren’t cheap on the weekends.”

“How long have you been here?”

“We got in Wednesday night.”

“Have you had fun?”

She paused and turned so she was looking up at me. “I’m having more fun now,” she said suggestively.

I grinned. “I’m having fun now, too.”

She tilted her head back and my
mouth collided with hers. Her hands curled into my hair, and a moan escaped her lips when I pulled her tighter against me.

I pulled away from her lips to kiss my way down her neck, and she whispered, “Want to go to my hotel?”

I bit her neck softly and then slowly moved back. I looked at her, and she gazed back at me with lust written all over her face.

“You sure you want to do that?” I murmured.

She thought for a moment, and then she nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

She grabbed my hand in hers like she had when she led me to the dance floor just an hour earlier. We walked a few blocks before we arrived at the Hilton San Diego, and she pulled out her key card as we took the elevator to the top floor. We headed down the hall to her room, and she opened the door for me. I entered the suite, a nice room for a bunch of girls who came for a bachelorette party. She placed the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doorknob and bolted the door behind her.

And then she jumped me.

Like, literally.

She threw her arms around my neck and wrapped her legs around my waist as her lips found mine. I staggered back a bit at the force of a woman jumping on me, and I couldn’t help but think of my mystery woman and her gracefulness.

Kelly nuzzled my neck and kissed her way up, and while she did that, I glanced around the room and brought her to the nearest bed. I threw her down on it and was on top of her a second later. She writhed under me, arching up and rubbing against me while she kissed me. Her sweet scent combined with the touching and the kissing and the rubbing was driving my senses wild. I reached up under her shirt and found her breast, and I cupped a perfect handful. She groaned softly, and I found her nipple through her bra, tweaking it between my thumb and forefinger. She reached for the buttons on my shirt, and she unbuttoned each one with slow leisure, making me even hotter for her.

Once she got my shirt open, she trailed her fingertips across my pecs and down my abs. She grinned up at me, clearly enjoying the view. I pulled my shirt the rest of the way off and threw it on the floor next to us, and then I pulled her forward and lifted her shirt over her head. She wore a lacy skin colored bra under her white shirt, and the view from my position wasn’t bad at all. I snapped her bra off with one hand and helped her out of it. She lay in just her jeans. I kissed her lips and moved my way down her neck, over her throat, and down to her chest. I took one of her nipples in my mouth while my fingers found the other one, and she arched restlessly under me. I knew she wanted more, and I was fully prepared to give it to her.

Her fingers moved down to my belt buckle. She struggled, so I stood up and took care of it myself, kicking off my shoes and removing my pants. Then I sat on the edge of the bed next to her, and I looked at her sinfully seductive boots. I pulled the zipper down on one side slowly, the sound of the zipper cutting the silence in the room. I followed the path of the zipper with my tongue, and Kelly moaned loudly beneath me. I took off the first boot and then did the same zipper move with the second one. She undid the button on her jeans and I gripped them at the top, pulling them down her legs slowly.

She lay on the bed in front of me in a lacy pair of tan panties, and she looked primed and ready for me. As I glanced down at good old TJ, I knew I was primed and ready for her, too.

CHAPTER 7

Saturday afternoon found me brooding on my new favorite rock on the beach. I was in a bad mood, and I just felt like being alone for awhile. So when I got up, I threw on a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, and my running shoes, grabbed my iPod, and went for a run while Dan presumably slept in.

I ran a little over five miles and ended up on the beach for my cool down. I took o
ff my shoes and socks and walked along the sand, and then I found myself perched on my new favorite rock.