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Sure enough, the front desk clerk who had checked them in appeared on the video rummaging through their bags and pocketing the cash he’d left inside the pockets.
“Looks like we got our evidence.” Lucy grinned at the woman stealing from them on the screen.
Will’s phone beeped from the table where he’d left it behind. He ignored it.
Lucy jerked her chin to the table. “You need to check that?”
“Probably.” He reluctantly released her and snagged the phone. He grimaced. Twenty-three missed calls, ten messages. “This might take a minute.”
“Don’t mind me.” She smiled weakly and waved him away.
“It’ll just take a second.” He winked at her.
While he wanted nothing more than to shut out the world and drown in Lucy, he patiently returned each message.
A second turned into an hour, and an hour into two as he put out fire after fire. Lucy had fallen asleep on the bed ages ago. Given the way she yawned, all that she’d been through, and how quickly she’d fallen asleep, he didn’t wake her after his last call—as much as he’d wanted to.
Instead, he poured over the spreadsheets covering the table. They outlined the financial benefit of the upcoming acquisition with the Colorado Springs station. The trouble was that the benefit was all for Crestone. A lot of people in Colorado Springs were about to find themselves out of work. He scrubbed a hand over his hair. His gut told him it wasn’t the right thing to do, but the money definitely talked.
“Hey.” Lucy dropped her feet over the side of the bed.
He glanced at her and grinned. “Hey.”
The ridiculous panda bear nightshirt she wore skimmed her thighs, the cupcake cherry directly over her nipple.
“Thought you were asleep.” He kept the words neutral. He wanted to lift the edge of that panda bear. Unwrap her slowly. Taste her.
“I was. What’s all this?” She gestured to the papers covering the table.
“This…is my empire.” He shook away the corrupt thoughts of what lay underneath the cupcake.
Lucy leaned against the table.
He stared at the cherry on her shirt.
When she crossed her arms, the cherry stretched tight over her breast, taunting him.
He took her in, all of her—her face scrubbed free of makeup, her hair in a messy bun on top of her head, the ludicrous panda that skimmed her bare legs—legs he wanted wrapped around him. She seduced him without even trying. His chair scraped across the wood floor when he stood.
Moving in front of her, he placed his hands on both sides of the table to frame her there.
“What’re you doing?” she croaked.
“You.” The rough word grated his vocal cords.
“I like that idea.”
He felt those words straight in his gut.
“I want this, too, but I worry.”
“Worry about what?”
“That you’ll regret it. That this is a bad idea.”
He kissed her—peppermint toothpaste and desire on her lips. “Sometimes the bad ideas are the best ones.”
“You just made that up, didn’t you?” She ran her lips along his collarbone, her hands settling on his torso.
