I shake my head, finding new horrors in the room the longer I look: heavy red velvet curtains hang limp in the corners, a garish painting in a crimson gilt frame stares down from the wall, and the bedside lamps wear red shades that bathe everything in a syrupy, bloodlike glow. Even the pillows tossed across the heart-shaped bed are silk and scarlet, as if the room is bleeding from every surface. And then . . .
I lose it.
A full belly laugh erupts, and even though I know this isn’t the right time, I can’t stop.
This day has just been . . . I don’t even know. A day.
“It’s not funny,” Haven says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m going to have nightmares about this room for the rest of my life.”
The look on her face, pinched and disgruntled, makes me lose it even worse.
“I mean, it’s a little funny,” I manage to get out between laughs.
A twitch of a smile lifts one side of her mouth. She smooths it away but only manages to hold it together for a few more seconds before cracking. Soon enough, she’s laughing so hard along with me that she’s wiping tears from the corner of her eyes.
Despite everything, I feel lighter when I finally rein it in. Seeing a smile on Haven’s face also does something to me . . . in a good way.
I watched her laughing with her friend on the grass when I spied on her earlier in the day, but she was too far away for me to see how her eyes lighten when her mood does, or that she has slight dimples in both cheeks when she grins. Locklyn doesn’t have dimples.
“Wait here,” I say. “I’ll go ask the clerk for a different room.”
She shakes her head. “No way are you leaving me in this room of horrors,” she says, and then scurries after me.
My good mood stays until we talk to the clerk about switching rooms.
“But you said you wanted two beds,” he says, confused. “That’s our only clean room with two. The couch pulls out.”
I run a hand over my face and glance over at Haven. It’s her call.
Sleep in the honeymoon suite from hell, or share a bed?
“I’m not going back in there,” she says, and I give a nod.
Good choice.
“We’ll take the other room.”
Ten
HAVEN
I’m sore. Everywhere.
With a groan I roll over, my eyes popping open when I remember I’m not the only one sleeping in this bed. I scan the space next to me, my heart beating faster than my mind is processing. When I don’t find Becks lying next to me anymore, I breathe a sigh of relief, but the spike of adrenaline that just shot through me leaves me a little jittery.
Sliding out of bed, I rub the sleep from my eyes. It feels like I’ve hardly slept, but the light filtering through the crack in the blackout curtains tells me it’s morning.
I release another groan. I’m so not a morning person.
It’s at that moment that Becks comes out of the bathroom with just a low-slung towel wrapped around his waist.
Any lingering haze of sleep vanishes the moment my eyes land on his bare chest.
Last night, after I accidentally hit him with a fireball, he didn’t even bother putting a shirt back on. I tried to ignore it for as long as possible, but when we finally got a new room, I asked him if he was planning on covering up.
He looked down at himself like he’d completely forgotten he was shirtless and then just shrugged.
Shrugged!
