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I followed after Pearl, tugging her heavy-ass suitcase with me.
I had just about a minute to wonder what she was going to say to me once we were alone. She would chew me out for the kiss, probably. I’d deserve it, no doubt. The whole non-consensual kissing and ass grabbing thing wasn’t a move I’d ever pulled out of my arsenal, and for good reason. But I knew we had to come out of the gates strong. I figured if we started with a show-stopping moment, people wouldn’t even think to be suspicious for the rest of the trip. It was actually genius, if you asked me. But I maybe should have run it by her before I pulled my move.
All I had to tell her was the kiss didn’t mean anything and we’d be good.
Only, I’d planned to mean it. I didn’t realize I’d be lying out of my ass when I said the words, but that didn’t matter, I guessed.
I found Pearl pacing in front of a door at the end of the hallway. Her arms were crossed and she looked like she was talking to herself. I couldn’t make out any of what she was saying, but she stopped to glare when she saw me.
“What the hell was that?” she asked.
I set her suitcase down. “Did you pack your rock collection or something?”
She glanced at the suitcase, looked like she was about to answer, then suddenly jabbed her finger up at me, glare returning. “Don’t change the subject. You basically mouth fucked me back there!”
I snorted. “It was a little kiss,” I said. I refrained from saying the other thing I wanted to say. I would love to show you the difference between kissing and mouth fucking, if you’re confused.
“And you grabbed my ass,” she added, eyebrows raised and finger still pointed up at me.
I shouldn’t have laughed. I definitely shouldn’t have laughed, but I couldn’t help myself. She looked so ridiculous and crazy with her brown hair a mess and her eyes wide. A small chuckle escaped me and Pearl practically pounced toward me. She slammed her fists into my chest and tried to shove me, which only propelled her backwards.
She made a frustrated grunting noise. “Apologize,” she demanded.
“Alright. I really am sorry,” I said. And I was. For more reasons than one. “I planned to kiss you on the cheek or something, but everybody was watching, and I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”
She folded her arms. She was standing sideways to me, head turned like she couldn’t even bring herself to directly face me. Finally, after a few moments’ consideration, she nodded. “Good. No more kissing. No more touching my ass,” she said.
“Alright. Any other rules?”
“I get the bed.”
I laughed. “We’ll see about that. What else?”
“I need the keycard. I forgot to get it before I came up here.”
I fished in my pocket and found mine. I’d actually checked in about two hours prior and went out to get breakfast. I tapped the card to the reader, saw the green light, and pulled the door open. I gestured for her to enter.
She eyed me, then pointed to her bag. “You can bring my rock collection in.”
I watched her walk in and plop down on the bed with a bemused expression on my face. This fucking woman.
I dragged her suitcase in and closed the door behind us. “Honey, I’m home.”
“That’s not funny,” she said.
I shrugged, moving to sit in a chair across from the bed. Our room had a King bed, a window couch in a wood-paneled nook with a view of a wooded valley leading down the mountain. There was even a little desk. I sat backwards in the desk chair, resting my arms on the backrest as I faced her. She was sitting on top of the comforter with her arms crossed over her stomach and leaning against the headrest.
“So, how are we going to play this?” I asked.
“Not like whatever that was in the lobby, for starters.” Her voice said rage with a side of ice, but her cheeks were flushing red and something in her body language told me I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed that kiss more than expected. At the moment, I wished she wasn’t just my fake girlfriend, because I would’ve enjoyed plunging my hand between her legs to see exactly how much she’d enjoyed that kiss.
A wise man wouldn’t have teased a woman in Pearl’s current state. It would’ve been the same kind of instinctual wisdom that said you shouldn’t stick your hand in an open alligator’s mouth or poke a snake in the face. Unfortunately, that form of wisdom wasn’t my specialty, so teasing her was exactly my plan.
“Just to clarify,” I said. “When you stuck your tongue in my mouth and made that little moaning noise, it was coming from a place of outrage and disgust? Am I getting this right?”
