How bad could it be?
People were generally skeptical of salacious gossip, right?
What if the commenters would give her the benefit of the doubt as opposed to calling her a slut like some kind of misogynistic reflexive action?
What would it hurt to take one quick look to gauge the reaction?
She picked up the phone, but the unexpected sound of someone banging on her door when it was still o’dark hundred shocked a yelp right out of her and she dropped her cell back down on the pillow.
“Shelby,” Ian said through the door, sounding barely awake himself. “Let me in.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and went bunny-hears-a-noise still. No doubt he was here to yell at her, probably assuming that she’d tipped off the tabloid photographer just like he’d figured she’d leaked the story about Alex being his brother. Maybe he hadn’t heard her squeal. She hadn’t been that loud.
“I know you’re in there—I heard you.”
The breath she’d been holding whooshed out of her on a well-fuck-me groan and she went and opened the door, regretting it immediately. Ian stood in the hallway wearing joggers, an Ice Knights hoodie, and a surly expression.
“It wasn’t me,” she said and started to shut the door before her pheromones got a whiff of him.
He stopped the door with his hand. “You saw it?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was hoping to warn you before you saw it. Tell me you didn’t read the comments. I swear to God, I’d like five minutes alone with some of those jackholes. It’s bad enough that there was that lying article without having some dim-witted numbnuts call you a—” He stopped abruptly and grimaced. “Never mind. They’re assholes.”
Great. So not reading the comments had been her best decision ever. It had to be bad if Ian was all grumbly bear about it when he had barely spoken to her after one of her worst decisions ever to kiss him after that big goal.
“No comments. Got it.” She looked pointedly at his hand on the door, already planning to sprint for her phone as soon as the door clicked shut because she was a total glutton for punishment. “Thanks.”
He didn’t let go of the door. Instead, he rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, looking everywhere but at her as the tips of his ears got redder with each second. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was embarrassed for coming to warn her. But that couldn’t be right.
She pressed her palm against her stomach that was suddenly all sorts of jittery. “Do you want coffee?”
He nodded. “Sure.”
Ian followed her inside, and all of a sudden her normal-size hotel room felt extra small. They were three tiny steps from the bed. Two normal steps to the couch. Four steps to the shower where they could get naked and—
“You gotta promise you won’t read the comments,” Ian said, interrupting her thoughts that had no business going the direction they were.
Doing her best to keep her hands steady, she put a pod in the coffee maker, poured in water, and hit start. “Are they that bad?”
His silence served as confirmation.
How completely awesome. This was just the way she wanted to start a new job. First, she accidentally spills a parentage secret, firebombing a friendship and sending the team into a losing spin cycle, and now she was the team skank. Did it get any better than this? God, she hoped so.
Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her chin and looked at a spot over Ian’s left shoulder, determined to lie her ass off.
“Okay, well, as long as it wasn’t anyone I care about saying it, I guess I’ll live.” She added a sassy chuckle as if absolutely none of this bothered her in the least. “I’ll save reading the comments for when I have peanut butter cake nearby.”
“Make jokes all you want, but thanks to my dad and my choice of careers, the media has made sure I know about other people’s negative opinions of me for as long as I can remember,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes, everything about him focused on her. “You don’t want to let these people inside your head—it can be hard to get them out.”
The way he said it without even a hint of sarcasm or teasing but with absolutely sincere concern hit her right in the chest and sent her pulse into the stratosphere. “Ian Petrov, are you looking out for me?”
He took a step closer so that they were nearly touching. “Yeah.”
“Why?” The question was out before she thought about the fact that she may not want to hear the answer.
Really, who wanted to hear because I pity you or we’re part of the same team or because we’re dinner buddies? Not her—not when it came to someone she was having inappropriate thoughts about on a way-too-regular basis.
He gave her a look. It was the kind where his eyes went dark and intense and every fluttery part of her body—which she would have sworn hadn’t existed—rose up in response. Maintaining eye contact was unimaginable. Glancing away was an impossibility.
“Because,” he said, dipping his head lower, “I like you.”
She laughed, that stupid high-pitched squeak of a giggle that always seemed to come out at the wrong time—like when the last guy she should be kissing looked at her like that. Luckily—or unluckily, she wasn’t sure—he didn’t pull back.
Instead, he cupped her face with his hands and kissed her, sending a sizzle of desire through her entire body. It wasn’t hard. He teased her with his tongue, drawing her
