Not Quite Forever (Not Quite series) (2 page)

“Reading is not a vice,” Monica corrected.

Trent pulled her close in the booth and kissed her cheek.

Walt’s gaze moved to the end of the bar and he realized Laker Girl had moved on. Only an empty glass sat at the bar.

Chapter Two

Walt moved past the hordes of women standing in line in front of the conference room door and couldn’t help feeling a dozen eyes rolling over him. He knew, without a doubt, that the women in this line weren’t there waiting for his riveting conversation about improvising medical tools in the field of emergency medicine. Between the canvas bags hoisted over their shoulders sporting half-naked bodies and the names and accolades of an author’s achievements printed on T-shirts, Walt knew he was walking into the wrong room.

Scanning his itinerary, he confirmed the time and room before he pushed inside the double doors.

Chairs were set up in rows of ten separated by a middle aisle, giving the capacity of over a hundred places for an audience to sit. In the front of the room was a single table where two women, one blonde with massive curly locks rolling down her back, and another with long, straight dark chocolate brown hair, stood with their backs to him. The women were speaking with a heavy-set man wearing a three-piece suit.
Management.

The man turned as Walt approached and clutched his notebook to his chest. “You must be Dr. Eddy.”

He set his briefcase on the table. “I am.”

“I’m Robert Cruise.” The man extended his hand.

At that moment, the brunette turned on her pointed heel.

Walt found himself drawing in her appearance in slow and measured degrees. The sexy arch of her foot should have looked ridiculous in four-inch heels. Did she know how bad it was for a woman to wear spikes on the ends of her feet? That thought was brief, and then
hell yes, there is a god and he loves a woman in strappy shoes
swamped his brain. From there, tanned, smooth skin slid up shapely calves until they met a skirt with a slit that gave sight to the perfect amount of thigh.

Her maroon skirt hugged her hips, cinched at her waist, and fanned up to a white silk button-up shirt that wasn’t quite secure right above her creamy breasts.

Walt blinked, twice, and tried to remember he was at a conference and not in a nightclub.

“There seems to be a conflict.”

Walt snapped his eyes to the lips speaking. Her voice was dark honey that should have been reserved for a professional phone operator for the truly desperate, or the sick. Yet nothing . . . absolutely nothing looked ill about the woman standing in front of him.

Her dark eyes laughed, even when her crimson lips hardly held a grin.

“It appears we’ve double booked a few rooms this week,” the hotel representative explained. “With two conferences going on at the same time . . . things like this happen.”

“My session begins in ten minutes,” Walt told Mr. Cruise.

“We’re searching for another room to accommodate you.”

For one brief moment, Walt thought Robert might be speaking to the woman and her blonde companion, who seemed to have taken a few steps back.

“To accommodate me?” He pointed a finger to his chest.

“Yes, Dr. Eddy. We’re very sorry. This entire wing was only supposed to house the guests of the novel convention. All the medical professionals were supposed to be based on the third floor.” Robert pulled the back of his hand across his forehead and shuffled his feet. “There was a computer glitch . . .”

“I understand,” Walt told him. No need for the man to have an MI over the ordeal. Considering Robert’s girth and sudden onset of perspiration, a heart attack might already be in progress.

The brunette’s half grin moved on to a full laugh.

Walt tilted his head and brought her into focus. She stepped around the presenters’ table and kept a giggle close to her lips. As she attempted to control her mirth, Walt recognized her.

Laker Girl. Remove the hard-on-inducing clothing, the heavier makeup, and all the polish that went with it, and there she was. The woman who’d sat at the bar last night sucking back whiskey and listening to other patrons’ conversations moved in front of him . . . competed with him for the very space they stood.

“You find this amusing, Miss . . . ?”

Her eyes met his and she leaned over the table, planting both hands firmly in place. “Laurens. And yeah, I do.”

The blonde rapped her knuckles on her friend’s arm. “Dakota!”

Dakota
. . . snazzy, a national landmark more than a name . . . a beautiful woman full of life. Yeah, the name suited her.

“What?”

“Maybe we should move to another room.” The blonde was in a much more agreeable state than Miss Laurens.

“I’m guessing there are more women out there here to listen to me than professionals here to listen to the good doctor.”

Walt envisioned the women standing in line, knew without a doubt Dakota was right.

In any other situation, Walt would have simply smiled and left the room, but something about Dakota Laurens sparked something inside him and made him want to get under her skin. Something made him want her to stop laughing and to take notice . . . of him.

Robert turned away from them when the phone in his hand buzzed, and he talked in hushed tones.

“You’re part of the romance convention?” Walt asked, already knowing she was.

Dakota removed a stack of papers from her bag and tapped the edges together to align them. “You say ‘romance convention’ as if it’s a disease, Dr. . . . Eddy, is it?”

“Walt. And I didn’t know they had conventions based on bodice-ripping novels.”

The blonde’s agreeable grin slid and Dakota blew out a sigh. Her lips kept her snarky grin, but Walt knew his words dug deep. His own mother wore that look whenever his father said something just to piss Mom off.

“What are you presenting today, Dr. Eddy?” Dakota stood tall, her shoulders back with a chin out in defiance.

“I’m sharing the art of improvising medical tools and equipment when all you have is dental floss and a toothpick. What about you?”

Her eyes would be classified as brown, but damn they looked nearly black when she was ticked. And although Walt didn’t know her well . . . he knew enough to know she didn’t look happy. In a second, those eyes took on a softer shade, almost liquid chocolate mixed with honey. A wicked smile tilted one side of her lips.

Walt had to remind himself not to lick his own in response.

“The art of crafting a gratifying sexual love scene.”

Walt did lick his lips . . . blinked twice, and drew his brows together. “Excuse me?” He pulled on his collar, knew the room wasn’t warm.

Dakota relaxed a hip against the table that separated them and leaned in just enough for him to see the depth of her cleavage.

“I write
bodice rippers,
as you so eloquently labeled them, Dr. Eddy. Safe to say there are a couple of satisfying ripping of bodices in them . . . don’t you think?”

He pointed to the door. “And all those women are in line to hear you talk about that?”

Instead of answering, Dakota Laurens lifted one eyebrow and smiled.

For one brief moment, they stared at each other.

Stalemate.

Or maybe it was just her way of holding power . . . didn’t matter, and Walt wouldn’t call her on it. He’d probably say something that would embarrass him eternally.

Robert returned to their side, shoved his phone in his pocket. “We found a room . . .”

The doors to the room opened and women shoved inside to capture a front-row seat.

Fascinated, Walt stood back and watched as a few women nudged past him and shoved books on the table in front of Miss Dakota Laurens.

“Can you sign this?”

Dakota pulled away from the table and scooted into the chair. She scooted the book into her hands while the blonde beside her handed over a pen.

“What’s your name?”

Walt didn’t hear it . . . he only noticed when Dakota glanced at him and squeezed her eyes together as if to say,
you can kiss my ass
.

Damn if Walt didn’t want a chance to try.

Walt? Was that short for Walter? And what parent named their kid Walter?

Stuffy, Dakota decided. Parents that were stuffy and stuck on tradition. She would lay her next advance on the line to say that Dr. Walt Eddy’s parents were doctors themselves . . . or at the very least, pompous elite who named their son after some long-dead beloved grandfather. Probably both.

Make that her next two advances.

What was that upper-crust lip about bodice rippers?

Screw him. And his strong-jawed, short-haired, hazel-eyed loveliness. Didn’t matter that he filled out the suit he wore as if he weren’t a stuffy doctor, but maybe a closet bodybuilder instead. Shoulders like his should come with a warning label.

She knew better than to be attracted to a man like him. The night before in the bar she noticed him briefly before he was joined by a beautiful blonde and a man who had to be her husband or at the very least an attentive lover.

What would his pickup line have been? She wondered then . . . wondered it even more now.

Damn if he wasn’t fun. Getting under his skin had been invigorating.

After her class on the fine art of crafting meaningful sexy intimacy concluded, Dakota signed more books and moved along with the stream of women rushing to their next class, to meet their next author-crush in person.

She had two more appointments for the day . . . a meeting with her editor, another with a boatload of her author friends to get pissing drunk in the hotel bar. But that wasn’t until much later.

“Dakota?”

Behind her, Mary called her name and Dakota slowed her steps.

“You’re in an awfully big hurry,” her friend said as she hoisted the conference-issue bag up onto her shoulder a little higher.

“I need coffee.” She did. Not the watered-down stuff the hotel liked to give in the massive urns stationed at a few watering stations along the convention floor. A shot or two of espresso might help fight the fatigue nipping at her eyelids. The Starbucks on the ground floor was calling her name.

Mary fell in step alongside Dakota as the halls emptied, the women at the conference streaming into individual rooms like water in a multitude of funnels.

“I don’t know how you manage any sleep with all the caffeine you consume at these things.”

Dakota offered a short laugh. “That would be the whiskey chasers with dinner.” They rounded the corner to the escalators and she stepped on the one leading up to the third floor.

“I thought you wanted coffee.” Mary stepped alongside her and glanced at the level they’d just left.

The third floor was much quieter and less crowded with advertising. Dakota twisted her name tag around so the back side faced out.

“You’re checking out that doctor.” Mary looked around and lowered her voice.

“You’re smarter than all that blonde hair implies.”

Mary pushed her shoulder and offered a playful frown. Dakota was always giving Mary crap about all her hair. The snarky comments stemmed from sheer jealousy. Mary might complain about how her hair took on a life of its own, but every inch of it was beautiful and the envy of many.

Two volunteers sat behind a small table with a slew of packets and registration sheets.

Dakota offered a practiced smile and turned to the women at the table. “I’ve lost my itinerary,” she told them.

Without question, the woman picked up the doctor conference pamphlet and handed it over. “No problem, Dr. . . .”

Dakota didn’t offer a name, simply took the material and thanked the woman.

“How do you do that?” Mary asked as Dakota led her friend away.

“Do what?” She opened the conference schedule and scanned the list of doctors . . . focusing on one name. Walt stuck out like a cat in a room full of dogs.

“Make people think you belong when you don’t?”

Sure enough, Dr. Walt Eddy’s first scheduled class was in her room . . . but where had they put him? She glanced around, found a handwritten
change in venue
billboard along the main hall.

“I belong.” She twisted and started toward the room to which the hotel had moved Dr. Eddy.

Dakota found the room and turned. “This won’t take long. Meet you downstairs for a double shot latte in ten?”

Mary eyed the door with a frown. “You were kind of mean to him, ya know.”