Lavender stepped in quickly. “Ms. Rodriguez, I can help?—”
“She. Can. Walk.” I shut all the arguments down. “Get in the car.”
“Make me.”
I stepped to her and she perked up, running by me before I could grab her and hopping in the seat, slamming the door shut.
“Exactly.”
As we pulled awayfrom the airport, Lavender glanced back politely. “Ms. Rodriguez, we’ll be dropping you at the Archer Hotel in downtown Napa. Your suite is already confirmed. Check-in is under Mr. Sinclair’s account.”
Aurora hummed. “Ouu, a suite? Maybe you do like me, Marlon.”
I kept my eyes on the road.
Lavender cleared her throat softly, like she’s trying to pretend she didn’t hear that.
Fish out of water, that one—professional to the bone, but still blinking through the madness.
By the time we got to the Archer, the sun was low and my patience was lower.
Lavender got out first and spoke to the bell desk, leaving us in silence.
“Marley, I?—”
“Don’t speak to me.”
“Oh, come on. I only wanted to apologize. I’m sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“I am,” she leaned over the chair and whispered in my ears. “But you know you did this to me, right? You got me acting like this. I was a regular woman before you had me. Now I’m dicknotized.”
Her whispering was still loud and I knew the driver was looking at us crazy.
“Yeah?” I met her eyes in the rearview. “If this is how you gone act off that little shit we did, you can forget about it happening again.”
“Liar.”
“Wanna bet?”
“I do,” She ran her tongue over the tip of my ear and surprisingly I didn’t pull away. “I bet I’m in your bed by the summer’s end.”
I readjusted. “Don’t touch me, Aurora.”
“Why? Is it making you hard?”
That made me face her. Aurora was a lot of things but one of the things I actually liked was her subtlety and this was the furthest thing from subtle. In her eyes, were dilated pupils. I felt my pockets.
Shit.
“You got my pills?”
She laughed in response.
“You some kinda junkie or something? When did you even get that?”
More laughter.
