Ten Inches by AJ Hardcourt Page B

and his throat was tight. He couldn’t watch
Ian lick his thumb and not imagine those lips wrapped around his
cock. The room closed in on him, and he was suddenly too hot in his
clothes. He needed space between them. “We should bail.” He glanced
past the open pit fire burning in the center of the large room and
stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows. “The snow is really coming
down.”
     
    A woman in pink ski pants
and a sweater clinging to her curves rushed over to the table.
Flakes of snow melted on her wind-reddened cheeks. “You should get
a room.”
     
    Nick snapped his gaze to the
woman. Panic constricted his chest. What the hell had he done to
warrant the comment? “We’re just having lunch.”
     
    She glanced at Nick, and Ian
laughed. “I don’t think she meant us,” Ian said to Nick.
     
    Fuck. Nick hadn’t meant to
speak out. “Oh god.” He bowed his head. She probably wanted Ian to
get a room—to share with her. “I think I’ll excuse myself before I
say anything else.”
     
    “ You look guilty, Nicky. So
don’t think I don’t know exactly where your thoughts were.” Ian
chuckled. “I knew you wanted me.” He turned to the girl. “Hey,
Angie, what’s going on?”
     
    Mortification burned Nick’s
face as heat crawled up his neck. Pressure built behind his eyes.
About now it’d be nice if the floor opened and swallowed him. Ian’s
flippant words punched him in the gut.
     
    “ The canyon was just shut
down. There’s a wreck, and by the time it’s cleared, the snow is
going to be piling up. It’ll be hours. And if the weatherman is
right, not that he usually is, but you never know, and he said six
to eight by morning.”
     
    Ian wagged his brows. “Six
to eight, Nick. Sounds good, doesn’t it?”
     
    Nick rolled his eyes. He’d
never live down the morning phone call. “Six to eight inches would
be perfect,” he countered. “But the weather man was calling for six
to eight feet.”
     
    Ian cocked a brow. “Really?”
He didn’t sound surprised.
     
    “ Yeah, so do you want to get
a room? I’m grabbing a room for me and Cinda. Do you guys want to
share?”
     
    Ian met Nick’s gaze over the
table. Nick’s stomach clenched, and a shiver of awareness—sexual
awareness—crawled over his flesh. Where in the hell was this coming
from? Well, he knew where. Just because his dick didn’t know
better, Nick did. Ian wasn’t gay. He couldn’t be interested in
Nick? Could he?
     
    “ Not this time,” Ian said to
her, but his gaze remained riveted to Nick.
     
    “ Well, you better hurry, or
you’ll be copping a piece of carpet in here. The announcement is
about to be made.” The bubbly blonde danced off toward the
lobby.
     
    “ What are you doing?” Why
was Ian intentionally making him uncomfortable? Nick had to be
reading more than possible into Ian’s body language. The innuendos
weren’t fun anymore. Nick didn’t like being played with…at least
not like this. “I can’t stay.”
     
    “ I don’t think we have a
choice.”
     
    Nick couldn’t stay the
night. Not only did he have work waiting at home, but a sleepover
with Ian would be complicated. It was hard enough to dream about
Ian, but sharing a bedroom would be torture. “No, I can’t stay.”
Shit. He was fucked but not in the way he wanted. “My case of
gotta-tricky-itis is going to cost me my job. I have a status
report due on my boss’s desk first thing in the morning. My files,
that they believe I am working on, are on my flash drive…currently
plugged into my laptop, in my apartment. Remember, I’m supposed to
be sick but still able to work from home, so regardless what time
the canyon opens, I have to go home. Tonight. That report has to be
on his desk either by me going in or by email.”
     
    “ Fine, but I don’t want to
spend the afternoon in a packed lobby or restaurant. Let’s get the
room and wait out the storm. Look, you can take a nap, and then
when the road opens, you’ll be