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“Also true.”

“And—”

I turn toward her. She stops.

“What?”

I’ve spent the entire day wanting to do this.

Watching her lick the rim of a milkshake glass. Watching her walk ahead of me through the city, like a beacon. Watching strangers look at her.

Wanting her.

I close the distance and kiss her firmly; an arm wrapped around her lower back so she can’t escape. Not that she tries to.

For once, she doesn’t have a clever response.

Neither do I.

When I pull back, her eyes are wide.

“Still want to argue?”

She scoffs, but her eyelids are hooded and her lips are wet.

“Maybe.”

I smile.

“Good.”

Matilda is speechless for several seconds, which I enjoy far more than I should. I’d rather it were me making her speechless. Then she clears her throat and steps back.

“We can’t keep doing this.”

I raise an eyebrow, leaning away from her against the wall, as the floors ping by quietly. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.

“Doing what?”

“You know exactly what.”

I do. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about just what we keep doing, and I want to do it more, and over and over again. Nightly. In the morning, before breakfast, in all the empty new lodges I’ll build all over New England just to fuck her in them.

She folds her arms, trying to recover the composure I’ve spent weeks disrupting.

“People are going to start thinking this is real. It was never supposed to be this noticeable.”

I look at her, feeling the fire in my veins turn slowly to stone.

“What if it is?” The question comes out before I can stop it, with a slight tinge of hope that I hate with everything in me.

Matty’s expression changes. For one suspended second, I think she might answer.

Then the elevator doors open. Floor twenty-eight.

Without speaking, we walk down the hallway to the suite, and when I unlock the door, the silence follows us inside.

There are two bedrooms, a living area between them, a kitchen and full bath off to the side, although both rooms have en-suites as well. Plenty of space.