George turns around to follow my gaze, but Sam punches his keycard into his door and disappears into his room.

“Well.” George clears his throat. “At least you know the neighbors, right?”

I give a shaky smile.

“I hope we can try this again sometime, maybe without your ex staring lasers into my back.”

I bite my lip, not wanting to commit to anything. “Maybe for now you and I could just be . . .” I am the worst. The worst.

George sighs. “It was always about him, wasn’t it? I’ve been friend-zoned before. I can handle it.”

“Do you hate me?”

“Nah.” His gaze drifts to Sam’s door. “Jury’s still out on him, though. Good night, Liz.”

Chapter 8

Sam

I just want to get drunk and think about Liz. Liz smiling. Liz naked. Liz moaning. Liz screaming my name as I make her come.

Liz anywhere but cradled in another man’s arms.

I pour myself two fingers of bourbon, but I sip when I want to guzzle. I’m hoping the buzz about the video will die down soon, but for now, I always have to be “on”—ready to smile for the cameras and lie to the world. Probably better not to be hungover.

There’s a knock on the door, so soft I almost miss it. But it comes again, a little louder this time.

Security had better not have let one of those asshole journalists from downstairs up to my floor. I swear, those soul suckers would do anything to get a new detail to add to their nothing stories. I open the door without removing the chain and feel as if I’ve been punched in the gut when I see the woman on the other side.

Liz is worrying her lower lip between her teeth and watching down the hall. Is she looking for Sabrina or trying to make sure no one sees her coming to my room? My insides twist at the sight of her—an internal tug-of-war between conflicting emotions. I want to pull her into my room and kiss her until she can’t see straight, touch her until she promises never to leave me again, and at the same time, I want to demand that she go back to her room because having her close makes me hope for things I can’t have.

I remove the chain and tug her inside by the arm before closing the door behind her.

“No one saw me,” she says, her eyes locked on the floor. “I made sure.”

“I saw you,” I growl. It’s painful to be this close—to breathe her air, to smell her perfume. I never knew how much it could hurt to want and be denied.

She swallows and avoids my eyes. “Is she here?”

“What do you want, Liz?”

She lifts her head and stares at me. “Is she here?”

“Sabrina’s on her way to meet her mom in South Dakota for a campaign stop.”

Her gaze dips to my bare chest and back up. “I’m surprised they didn’t ask you to go with them.”

“They did. I declined.” I sound like a fucking dickhead, and I make myself take two steps back so I don’t do something equally dickish. Like kiss her until she melts in my arms and forgets about the other guy, until we both forget that this is hopeless.

“I’m sorry that video was leaked. You didn’t deserve that invasion of your privacy.”

She has red lipstick on, and it matches her shoes. Ever since I saw her tonight, I’ve been picturing her on her knees in nothing but those shoes, those red lips stretched around my cock. I can’t help myself, and I skim my thumb over her bottom lip.

The second I touch her, she draws in a ragged breath. “You came to my apartment yesterday.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

I trail my thumb down her neck and over the red strap of her dress. “Probably for the same reason you came here tonight.”

“To talk about Sabrina?”

“You knocked on my door in the middle of the night to talk about Sabrina?” I follow the strap down and graze my fingers across her cleavage. “Is this about her, or is it about you and me?”

“There is no you and me,” she says. “We both know that.”

“There’s so much you and me, there’s no air left when we share a room. There’s always you and me.”

“Even when you’re making sex tapes with someone else?”

“And even when you’re keeping warm in another man’s arms,” I say. “Who is he?”

“A friend.”

I slide a hand behind her head and take a fistful of her hair. “Are you fucking him?”

Her face goes hard. “What if I were?”

“I’d have to keep you here. Touch you. Tease you. Taste you until you begged me to fuck you against this wall. Then I’d drive so deep inside you that you’d remember no one can get you off like I do.”

She drags in a breath and licks her lips. “He’s a friend.”

I grunt but soften my grip on her hair. “Have you told him that? Because the way he looked at you when you two danced, the way he held you, he wants to be a hell of a lot more than your friend. Then there was that kiss in the hall . . .” I cup her jaw in my palm and try to talk myself out of pressing my mouth to hers.

“This is none of your business,” she says, but she leans into my touch and her eyes float closed.

“But my relationship with Sabrina is yours?”

“I’m worried about you,” she says. “I worry you’re trying to protect her by lying about the extent of your relationship, and I’m wondering how far you’ll go to perpetuate it.”