hidden by a row of lockers a few rows away from them.
“Careful, you two,” Stella teased. “There’s a no-kissing policy here.”
“Found that out a moment ago ourselves,” Hayden told her, smiling.
“We’re going to exchange our shoes,” Tony said, and Owen winked at Stella before he left, causing a shaft of awareness down her back.
Beside her, Hayden seemed to be experiencing her own struggles because the woman couldn’t focus on anything but Tony’s backside as the two men walked away.
“Good for you,” Stella told her.
Hayden nodded. “Yeah, it is good. I’ve been working so hard lately, I needed a bit of distraction,” she confessed, her gaze once again straying over to Tony.
“I know what you mean. Everyone always says how rough the third year of med school is on a person, but I guess I hadn’t realized just how much of a toll it was taking on me until tonight, when I finally relaxed. I don’t think the tension has left my body in two and a half years.”
“Well, tonight I plan to get all tense, then relax. Then tense all up again.” Hayden wiped a hand over her face. “Oh, I make such terrible jokes sometimes.”
But the two of them began to laugh. Hell, Stella had just been discovered making out like an errant teenager at a school dance, but instead of feeling mortified, she was giggling with a near stranger, and it felt great. Really great.
Tony reached for Hayden’s hand just as Owen draped an arm around her shoulders. And that felt even better.
“I don’t know whether to be relieved or frightened to find two women laughing,” Owen teased.
“Oh, it’s both,” Stella assured him, trying to insert every sexy tone she’d ever heard in a movie straight into her voice.
Must have worked, because the smile faded from Owen’s face. “See you guys later,” he said, not even bothering to look away from her to address Hayden and Tony.
Hayden gave her the thumbs-up.
After stopping only to put on their shoes, they fled the rink like two teenagers who’d snuck out of the house without being caught. The cool night air caressed her skin as they stepped outside.
“You don’t mind walking back to the car instead of waiting on Tony and Hayden? I doubt we got too far from PharmaTest.”
But who was to know since they’d spent the entire ride in the backseat in each other’s arms? Stella shook her head; a little night air would do her good.
“How’d you end up at PharmaTest?” he asked, matching the length of his stride to hers as they walked. He draped his arm around her shoulders again; the heat from his body warmed her.
“I volunteer for a lot of medical studies, or at least I used to. I’m in med school now, so I don’t have much time. But since it’s fall break and this was an overnight trial, I thought I could fit it in. What about you?” she asked.
“I knew someone.”
That’s all he needed to say. At some point in his life, Owen had lost a friend. It struck her as something special that he cared enough to try to make sure others did make it to see another day. “That’s the real reason doctors do what we do. To help others.”
This wasn’t just a guy she could take to bed and leave all emotion behind. Owen was a man she could actually like. Which made him not the best candidate for a one-off night of ecstasy, but she wasn’t backing away now. Owen was the man she wanted.
“Where to?” he asked when they were alone in the PharmaTest parking lot. He’d been right; they had traveled only a few blocks in Tony’s sports car. “You want to find someplace else to go? Wanna grab something to eat?”
But Stella didn’t want to talk or think. “What do you want to do?” she asked, knowing he wasn’t the kind of man for delay tactics. He’d made it clear he wanted her, and right now she wanted to hear it. Again.
He gifted her with that sexy half smile again. “I don’t care what we do. Or where we go. I just want to be with you.”
Exactly. She just wanted to kiss this gorgeous, sexy man again and again. She sank her fingers into the short hair behind his neck and urged his lips toward hers.
Not much urging was required. With a groan, his lips once again settled against hers. “I’ve thought of nothing else since spotting you at this place,” he admitted against her mouth. Then his tongue slipped inside her mouth and along her tongue and she was done. Done in. Done for. Exactly what the doctor ordered.
Seriously? What the doctor ordered? Had she just made that crack in her head? So Hayden wasn’t the only one who could make bad jokes.
Time to get serious. “Your place close?” she asked between kisses.
He cupped her face, stroking her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. His eyes were heavy-lidded with desire, his hazel eyes almost brown. “I don’t live in Dallas. I’m only here a few days, visiting for my grandmother’s birthday, and the place is too crowded. You?”
She shook her head. “Same. I have three roommates.”
“I want to be alone with you,” he said, the warmth of his breath teasing her temple.
Had this guy actually made her shiver with just a few whispered words? Him. Exactly.
“Alone with you sounds about perfect.”
His eyes squeezed shut for a moment, and a small smile played along his lips. Had he doubted how much she wanted him? Well, yeah, probably, because when did this kind of devastating instawant actually happen? His show of relief made warmth spread throughout her body.
His hazel eyes opened and his smile widened. For her. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in Dallas, but I think there’s a hotel not far from here.”
Stella nodded. “I know the one. By the park.”
“My car’s that way,” he told her, pointing toward a battered truck with Colorado plates. They raced together toward his car.
The hotel was far swankier than she’d remembered. A landmark boutique hotel in the Dallas area, it had a lush art-deco lobby, complete with a large crackling fire. The rubber soles of her shoes didn’t do justice to the sleek hardwood floors beneath them, set in striking geometric designs. Chevron-patterned wallpaper lined the walls. Thick, luxurious drapes in gold and burgundy flanked the deep-set bay windows, many of them displaying stained glass that she would have loved to inspect—if she weren’t with the world’s sexiest man.
Everything about the place screamed luxury and expense. Except a place like this didn’t scream. Never anything that crass. This was the hotel that enforced a dress code, and while Owen looked amazing in his jeans and casual polo shirt, his clothes were not fit for the Market Gardens hotel. Or hers.
But Owen kept walking to the ornately carved wooden desk that was less like a check-in counter and more like the kind of thing a millionaire shipping tycoon—no, a billionaire investment banker—kicked up her stilettos
