ᴛʜᴇ ʀɪᴠᴀʟꜱ ᴄᴏɴᴛʀᴀᴄᴛ

₀₂₂

𝘙𝘏𝘠𝘚 𝘔𝘖𝘖𝘙𝘌

I TOSS AND TURN IN THE hotel bed. The mattress is too soft for my liking. My body sinks into it-and the comforter is too thick, and i'm partially sweating.

I roll over to see the alarm clock. One in the morning. I groan and roll back into my back. Wren and I checked into the hotel at ten and split up to our separate rooms thirty minutes later.

I close my eyes and move the hair off my forehead. I run the hand down my bare chest and feel the heat of it. I pull the comforter off my body and lay on the bed-huffing.

Five minutes later when i'm finally drifting to sleep, a sharp piercing sound wakes me up. Right up. I can see from the crack in the door that red lights are flashing in the hallway. I grab my phone from the side table and make my way out of the room.

The fire alarm shrieks in my ear as I walk down the hallway. All the other guests are walking out of their rooms and crowding in the hallways. I look over everyone's heads to see if I find Wren. No luck.

I take the stairs all the way down to the lobby. The receptionists are trying to calm everybody down, saying something like 'false alarm' but the buzzing in my ears muffles it.

I stand to the side as I take in the chaos. Everyone is in pajamas, some without shirts-like me-and some bundled up. I watch as the firefighters come in and speak to the hostesses. I cross my arms as-

"Has anyone ever told you that your skin glows?" I look down at the voice and to see a short blonde with hot pink lace pajamas on.

"No."

Her giggle makes me want to suffocate her-and when her hot pink fingernail traces over my bare bicep, the urge to push her back washes over me.

"Well i'll let you in on a little secret. You have the type of glistening skin that just makes me crumble." She tries to whisper in my ear, "I could just lick you up."

I'm about to tell her to fuck off when i see a woman with dark hair approaching us. She's wearing a white tank top-I can see...everything through it-and gray shorts. Her hair is slightly messy and her face is bare; lots of freckles span her nose.

I have never been happier to see Wren.

When she stands in front of me, she totally ignores the blonde woman. Then she grabs the waistband of my sweatpants and pulls me toward her. While my side is to the other woman, Wren mouths 'go with it'. I uncross my arms and place one around her waist, and move my other hand to the side of her head. I lean down and place a kiss in her hair.

Then quietly-just loud enough for the blonde woman to hear-i whisper, "Hi baby." The gruffness in my voice is unusual to me, but Wren's is far more foreign when she whispers softly, "Hi."

I hear a huff of annoyance from behind me and then Wren let's go of my waistband. "She's gone." I nod.

I stare at her. She rolls her eyes. "What?" She says.

"If i didn't know any better, i'd say you were jealous." We're still close together-but not touching. Wren scoffs.

"You're hilarious." Her face remains guarded. "I could tell that she was bothering you, just admit you appreciate me."

"I thought you said we weren't helping each other anymore." I tilt my head, she narrows her eyes at me.

"No. I said you can't help me." She runs a finger down my chest-and it feels different then when the blonde touched me.

My body recognizes her touch, and it reacts in a way it never has before. My whole body seems to light on fire and my senses flare up. Everything she does-every time she touches me-feels one hundred percent more intense. I could drown in her touch.

"Uh-huh." She mumbled an 'mhm' and i reach out to touch her waist again. My palm warms when it brushes her skin.

Then she steps away and my hand falls from her hip. Wren doesn't spare me another glance as we make our way to the hotel elevators.

__________

I wake up to the sound of my phone ringing. I run a hand down my face and snatch the phone off the side table.

"Hello." My voice is scratchy and tired.

"Where are you?" It's Wren.

"In bed." She scoffs. Why is she annoyed? "Would you like to join?" There's a pause.

"Look at the time." She says.

I look at my phone. Eight eleven. So? Wren must read my mind because she explains. "We have the meeting at nine, Mr. Moore." Shit.

I scramble around my room and put Wren on speaker. "Where are you?" I ask as I jump into my pants. Just then someone knocks on my door.

"Come in." I say to the phone. Wren hangs up and a second later the door opens and business-woman Wren walks in.

I'm putting my shoes on as Wren drags her eyes over me. I'm putting on a suit today, because my mom said so. She said that if I wanted to make a 'good impression' i'd have to look the part. To which I told her I always look the part. She disagreed.

She also asked about Wren. Stella had told my mom about her. My mom had the wrong idea and thought we were a thing. It was Stella's fault because she likes to romanticize everything. I had to tell her that we were just work partners. Stella interrupted by saying a 'pretty work partner'. She even found a picture of Wren. I didn't even know Wren took pictures.

Once I grabbed my jacket, I walked to the door, Wren followed me all the way to the car. We both get in and i start driving right away.

"It's a fifteen minute drive to the building, because of you we're going to be late." Wren crosses her arms over her chest and rolls her eyes.

I don't bother answering, instead I use one hand to drive and one hand to try to finish buttoning my shirt. Wren's angry gaze burns the side of my face. I look over at her.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"You're buttoning your shirt wrong." She says staring at my shirt.

"If you want to button my shirt, you could've just asked." I face the road again and see Wren unbuckle her seatbelt.

I was prepared when her fingers started working on the buttons, but I wasn't prepared when she climbed onto my lap. She didn't seem phased when I tensed up and swerved, just kept her eyes on the buttons.

"Miss James." I look around her head and to the road. She mumbles an 'mhm'. "What are you doing?"

"I cannot tie your tie from beside you." Was her response.

Then she grabbed the tie from the console and swung it around my neck. She pulled it down suddenly and my lips slammed into her forehead. Her fingers worked on the tie as I worked on focusing on the road- not the feeling of Wren bouncing on my lap when we went over a bump.

She was killing me.

When she was done straightening out my collar, she slid off my lap and sat in the passenger seat; like nothing happened. I wanted to throw my head back and sob like a little boy-but, of course, I didn't.

Instead I adjusted my hips and continued driving.

____________________