If anyone other than her boyfriend were to see her in her underwear, she would be most comfortable with it being Fletcher.
Theoretically.
But, while she wasn’t uncomfortable, she wouldn’t call what she was feeling comfortable either. She felt a little jittery. Not nervous, not worried, not awkward. But like she’d taken a shot of espresso and needed an outlet for the energy.
In other words, she was feeling turned on.
Girl, you’re just horny. You should have brought your vibrator with you.
She grabbed for something to put on her bottom half. The white capris wouldn’t have been her first choice for a day of travel, but she just needed to be covered up. Now.
She shimmied into the pants, grabbed a pair of white, rhinestone-studded canvas tennis shoes, and slipped them on.
Then she smoothed her hand down the front of her outfit and finally looked at Fletcher directly.
“No fucking way.”
“What?” she asked.
“You’re not wearing that.”
His tone was bossy and firm and he was no longer grinning.
She looked down. Her t-shirt had Jason’s face on the front of it.
She looked up at Fletcher. And snorted at his expression. He looked like he’d just smelled a dirty diaper.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Jordan teased.
“Take it off,” Fletcher told her.
Now, see? Having her best childhood friend tell her to take her clothes off should not be hot. Funny maybe. Weird for sure. But not hot.
It was completely hot.
“It was just the first thing I grabbed,” she said. “But it will work.”
Fletcher took a step forward. “Take it off. Or I’ll take it off of you.”
Jordan’s heart thumped hard inside her chest and her stomach swooped. What? a little voice in the back of her mind asked.
But she knew what. And so did that little voice.
She immediately flashed back to the night she and Fletcher had spent in Galveston, stuck in a roadside motel, just the two of them, in the middle of a tropical storm.
Her nipples remembered too. They were suddenly tight and hard and she was pretty sure he noticed. Again.
She wet her lips. “It’s really that big of a deal?”
He took the three remaining steps between them, stopping nearly on top of her toes. He reached for the hem of the shirt and, without a word, tugged it up. For some reason, she raised her arms over her head so that he could strip it off of her.
Yeah, her nipples really liked that. And the rest of her seemed to as well.
Fletcher’s eyes were hot and his voice was rough when he said, “Find something else.”
What were they talking about again? She couldn’t really think when he was standing this close. If his hands in her hair had been distracting, this was forget-her-own-name stuff.
“I…” Yeah, she couldn’t come up with anything.
Without breaking eye contact, Fletcher reached for her suitcase. He grabbed something from the top. “Here.”
Jordan simply raised her arms again, possibly because her brain seemed to have disconnected. He drew the garment over her head and arms, sliding it down her body, and tugging it into place.
Jordan managed to pull her gaze from his to look down. She was now dressed in a pale pink tank top, white capris, and her sparkly tennis shoes.
Well, okay then. At least she was dressed. And not in a Fletcher-offending t-shirt. She could totally go to the airport like this. It was fine.
“We need to go. We have a plane to catch,” Fletcher said. His voice was still rough and he hadn’t stepped back yet.
Yep. An airport was a good idea. A busy place with other people. Where she would not be half-naked. Or fully naked. Or thinking about her best friend since first grade in very inappropriate ways.
“Great.” She looked down and spread her arms. “I’m ready.”
Fletcher just studied her face. Then he nodded, turned, flipped her suitcase shut, zipped it, pulled it off the bed, and left the room.
Jordan huffed out a breath. Holy. Shit. What was going on with her and Fletcher?
She followed him to the door. Fletcher pulled it open and waited for her to step out. She looked down at the suitcase he was pulling.
“You know what? Leave that.”
“Leave the suitcase?”
“Yeah. There’s nothing in there I need. Most of it is dresses and heels for the events here in Vegas. I definitely don’t need those in Louisiana. There are plenty of girls back home I can borrow clothes from until Jason’s assistant can send me my stuff from Nashville. Heck, I probably still have clothes at my mom’s house I can use.”
Fletcher dropped the bag and held up a hand. “I’m fine with leaving everything about Jason behind.”
Jordan grinned and started out the door. But she stopped in the doorway and looked up at Fletcher as a thought occurred to her. “Jason knows you’re here, doesn’t he?”
Fletcher sighed. “How did you know that?”
“He hasn’t tried to call me this morning. I’m guessing he called you because he knew you would know how I was.”
“I was already in the New Orleans airport when he called me last night,” Fletcher said. “I told him I was on my way.”
She nodded. “That’s why he hasn’t checked on me.”
“Yes.” Fletcher didn’t look a bit apologetic.
It made sense. Whether he liked it or not, Jason knew if Fletcher was here, Jordan was fine. She nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”
They were in the elevator and halfway to the lobby before Jordan turned to him again. “Thanks for coming.”
Fletcher was leaning against the back wall, his hands braced on the wooden railing that ran around the elevator at waist height. “If you’d thought about it for even ten seconds you wouldn’t have been surprised to see me.”
“You’re right.”
She looked forward again. They were quiet as they passed two floors.
Then she said turned again and said, “You’re a good guy.”
He lifted a brow. “Thanks.”
She was quiet for another second. Then she asked, “Know any great guys you could set me up with?”
“No.”
She’d been expecting that answer too, though she wasn’t sure why. Fletcher had never introduced her to anyone, obviously. She hadn’t dated any of his friends. She’d been dating someone, the same someone, from the time any of them had actually been “dating”.
But she didn’t want to date anyone else.
She wanted to date Fletcher.
She’d been thinking about him differently, in spite of her best efforts, ever since Galveston. She’d been thinking about him very differently, and not even really trying not to, ever since the weddings in Autre.
She’d been planning to go home and ask him if his offer to stay there with him still stood when her fake engagement to Jason was over.
And, well, now her fake engagement to Jason was over.
But she was supposed to let Fletcher make all the decisions today.
So Fletcher had to bring it up.
She turned, resting her left shoulder against the back wall of the elevator, facing him. “You know me best. You’d be a great matchmaker for me. And you know the guys around home. I bet you could pick the perfect guy.”