“There’s that romance again.”
The lamp hummed. The air conditioner coughed and pushed a cold thread through the motel’s stale warmth. Crystal shifted under the covers, and the thin sheet slid down an inch, baring one shoulder and the black strap beneath it.
My mouth went dry.
I could control my hands. I could control my voice. I could control where I sat and where I looked if I worked at it hard enough.
I couldn’t control the fact that every inch of the bed seemed to know she was in it.
She saw me swallow.
A slow smile touched her mouth. “You’re worried.”
“I’m thinking.”
“That sounds painful.”
“It is when you’re involved.”
“You’re worried about me running.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re worried about getting too tired.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re worried about the bed.”
I didn’t answer fast enough.
Her smile deepened.
I leaned back in the chair, spreading my knees because there was no comfortable way to sit with my cock this hard and my common sense this loud. “I’m worried about you trying to use my better judgment against me.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“That’s what it is.”
“Better judgment,” she repeated, and her voice turned softer. “Is that why you checked the restraints twice? Gave me water? Bought me terrible pretzels?”
I looked at her.
She didn’t blink.
“That’s the job,” I said.
“Liar.”
The word landed low this time. Not sharp. Not playful.
She was right enough to make me angry.
A half-awake man in a chair was useless. A man with his boots off and his keys in his pocket could still block a door. I stood, dragged the second chair in front of the window, and checked the bathroom sight line one more time.
Crystal watched me. “That looked like surrender.”
“That looked like strategy.”
