“Mornin’.”
The sun splayed through a gigantic window on the other side of the room, casting a blanket of gold onto the bed. Two lengthy bronze-colored velvet curtains hung on either side of the glass.
“Shit. Sorry. I meant to be up and at ’em before you.” I sat straight up, quickly tugging at the sheets to cover my exposed body. The room was spinning, presumably from last night and the rude reality of what past Scarlett had left for future Scarlett to deal with. “What time is it?”
“It’s just after nine,” he said, holding two diner-like mugs with steam rising from them, standing in nothing but the sunlight and a pair of gym shorts, his camo boxer briefs peeking out from underneath. “Is there a reason why you wanted to be gone before I woke up?” he asked.
The directness of his question caught me off guard.
I fumbled around the bed, pretending to be looking for something while I decided how I wanted to respond. “I just assumed…” I paused, last night had felt like a dream, but we’dobviously got caught up in the moment and the reality of the situation was now staring at me head-on, paving the way for the hangover anxiety to consume me.
Not to mention the pesky little voice in my head that said he’d finally slept with me, what reason did he have to stick around now.
“Let me guess.” A look of discontent rolled across his face. “You just assumed that I expected you to be gone. That I wasn’t much of a cuddle-after-we-fuck kind of guy?”
Wasn’t it a bit early for such bluntness?
I hadn’t meant to offend him; I was really just trying to make this situation as uncomplicated as possible, and unbeknownst to him, there were a lot of other things at play here.
But now thinking about it, I’d already failed at that.
I bit my lip, shifting my weight in the very large but very comfy bed. “Well… yeah. I mean, sort of.” Silence danced around the two of us as I observed his delicious body in the doorway. Damn he looked good, and he looked even better after I registered one of those coffees in his hands was for me.
“I definitely didn’t expect you to be the ‘deliver coffee to my bedside’ kind of guy, that’s for damn sure,” I teased in an attempt to ease the tension in the air.
But he couldn’t let it go.
“If I was, in fact, the guy you mentioned before, don’t you think I would’ve asked you to leave last night?” he questioned, slowly finding his way onto the bed, placing one coffee on the nightstand and bringing the other with him. “Not only did I not ask you to leave, but I begged you to stay and then proceeded to reward you for doing so.” The discontent had disappeared and a smirk had found its way front and center on his face.
“Maybe you’re just really good at role playing,” I offered.
Heat surfaced everywhere as flashes of last night’s events displayed on a big screen in my mind. My thoughts immediatelyfound their way to his hands on my body. He hadn’t left a single inch of it untouched. The thought alone could’ve had me ready for round three—or was it four?
Stetson cleared his throat, no doubt trying to get my attention as he handed over a cup of piping hot black coffee.
Just how I liked it.
“How did you know?” I asked, sipping the brutally strong coffee.
“Because the days you came to the recording studio early you almost always had a cup of coffee with you in this same stark black color.”
“Oh,” I said, unsure how to even respond to that level of attention to detail, especially coming from him.
“And just so we’re clear, I am really good at role playing in every sense of the word, but I can also say without a doubt that what I was doing last night could never be defined as role playing,” he said, reaching for the other cup of coffee that also appeared to be sans cream and sugar, taking a slow sip. “And you can use our little agreement from the bar as an excuse, if that’s what you need to do to justify the events of last night, but you will never be able to convince me that what happened between us was anything other than pure fucking chemistry.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I’d never felt the way I had last night.
The intensity paired with the overwhelming sense of pleasure mixed together to form one helluva euphoric bubble, one that I wished I could’ve stayed in forever.
“You’re not wrong,” I blurted, a sense of urgency finding its way up my throat. “I can’t argue with you on that one, but it’s not just that, Stetson.” The seriousness layered in my voice caught me off guard, and him too. I watched his posture shift; it was firmer and more closed off than before. I hated it, but if I let myself get swept up in all of it again, it would only be harderin the end. “Things aren’t always as they seem, you should know that better than anyone. And between your new album, the article, and you trying to find Ruby’s parents—” I abruptly stopped mid-sentence, our conversation from yesterday coming barreling back.
“What does that have to do with us? Or whatever this is?” he asked. I swiveled my legs around to the floor, doing my best to keep myself covered while also attempting to collect my clothes. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like any of them had ended up in the bedroom. Luckily, I spotted a large white T-shirt draped over a chair in the corner.
“A lot. It has a lot to do with it. Plus, I’ve been avoiding the elephant in the room that is Donna. She entrusted me with this article and to keep things professional. Not to mention, if I know anything about Delilah, she’ll have already told Donna about us and what she saw at The Wheel last night.”
He smiled.
