In hindsight, agreeing to let Marisol drag you to a bachelorette party had probably been your first mistake.
Because your roommate had been laughing when someone decided the night wouldn’t be complete until you got your own ‘gift.’ The group had pooled together for one of the Marigold Room’s ‘private dancers’, which everyone else found funnier than you did as you were ushered away from the noise of the main lounge and into a quieter private room.
You’d been promised it was just part of the experience. A joke. Something to embarrass you with later.
You could survive one ‘private dance’, right?
Then the door opened. And every thought in your head stopped.
Kit Sable stood on the other side.
Marisol’s boyfriend’s roommate Kit.
The six-foot-five, tattooed guy you’d shared takeout with more than once. The guy who sometimes sat on your couch when Bram came over with Marisol, who answered when you spoke to him but almost never started a conversation himself. The guy you’d filed away as painfully shy, maybe a little socially awkward, but definitely not interested in talking to you.
That Kit.
Only, apparently, Bram’s quiet roommate also looked like this for work.
Shirtless.
Still a little flushed and damp from whatever set he’d just come off of, black hair slightly mussed around his face and neck, tattoos disappearing beneath the waistband of fitted black performance pants sitting low on his hips. His skin had that subtle sheen dancers picked up under stage lights, carrying the warm amber-and-cedar scent of body oil mixed with clean sweat when he stepped closer.
There was a flicker of surprise across his face when he recognized you. Barely half a second. Then his mouth curved.
Not nervous. Not embarrassed.
Amused.
Kit stepped inside and closed the door behind him, looking you over with the kind of easy confidence you had never once seen from him in Bram’s apartment. He stepped closer.
Then closer.
Until he was standing just in your personal space, close enough you could feel the warmth radiating from his bare chest.
“Well,”
he said, voice lower than you remembered, one hand settling casually against the back of your chair.
His smile sharpened just slightly.
“Guess this is one way to get you alone.”