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I sober. “You’re right, Kitty. I’m sorry. Of course, I’m not laughing at you. I want to fix things between us and find a path forward. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”
She hitches her nose higher as we exit the elevator. She drags our new rolling suitcase while I tote the duffle bag and Clyde’s carrier. “All right,” she says in a cool voice. “But don’t be disappointed if this doesn’t work. The book I was reading said that once the thought of your partner naked makes you actively want to vomit, it’s very hard to come back around to seeing them as sexually viable.” She stops in front of our room, glancing up at me as she pulls the key from her back pocket. “And the thought of you naked makes me want to vomit, Charles.”
“Is that right, Kitty?” I ask, wanting to kiss her more than ever.
“It is,” she says seriously. “And not a small amount of vomit. I’m talking prolonged, violent, food-poisoning-levels of sickness. The kind that makes your entire body convulse like you’re having a seizure.”
“That’s very descriptive,” I observe, pretty sure there’s something deeply wrong with me. Even puke talk is doing nothing to kill the urge to get Nora naked and under me.
She nods and sniffs. “Thank you. I try. I just want to be sure we’re communicating as well as we possibly can about how very, deeply gross you are.”
“All right,” I mutter, resting a hand at the small of her back. “Just open the door already.”
“I will, but you have to stop touching me first,” she says with a convincing, full-body shudder of revulsion. “It’s just too repulsive for words.”
I remove my hand with a sigh and a pointed widening of my eyes.
Her lips twitching again, Nora says, “Thanks, Charles,” and opens the door, cooing in pleasure as she reveals our room. “Oh, it’s so cute! Look, there’s a sitting room and a little kitchen before you get to the bedroom. You could even sleep here on the couch if you wanted. Then we’d be even farther apart.”
As soon as the door snicks shut behind us, I set Clyde’s carrier on the floor, dump the duffle bag beside it, and drag Nora into my arms.
Her breath rushes out as she braces her hands on my chest. “What’s wrong, Charles?”
“No more Charles,” I say. “And no more troubled couple role-playing until tomorrow morning.”
“But we should practice,” she says, batting innocent lashes my way as her body sways closer mine. “We want to be sure we’re convincing.”
“You’re plenty convincing. I promise.”
Her lips turn down in a faux expression of sympathy. “Oh no. Did I hurt your feelings? You don’t really make me want to vomit. At least not very often.”
I tighten my grip on her waist, fighting the urge to swat her ass. But she made it clear, she’d like that, and I can’t afford to do anything she likes. Not if I want to check out of this hotel without taking her on every horizontal surface in our suite.
Even that tiny coffee table is looking pretty good right now…
“You didn’t hurt my feelings,” I say. “Just giving me flashbacks to high school when I was the runt no one wanted to date.”
Her smile fades. “I wanted to date you. I thought you were gorgeous.”
“Yeah, well, you were the exception to the rule. And I had no idea you were interested.”
“Well, I’m very smart,” she says, before adding in a softer voice as her hands skim up my chest to twine around my neck. “And you’re very stupid. How could you have no idea? I practically drooled on the floor every time you walked by.”
I shrug, loving the feel of how perfectly the curve of her back fits in the crook of my arm. “I guess I just assumed you were too good for me. Too beautiful and popular and put together and always smiling. You made high school look easy.”
Her eyes widen. “Are you crazy? I was a stress case who almost failed every science class she took and had to repeat driver’s ed three times.Three. No one ever had to repeat it more than once before, and I still didn’t get a good grade. I’m pretty sure Mr. Peltzer passed me through with a C- out of pity. I was a mess. You were the one who was a genius with amazing hair and dreamy blue eyes that I could just tell felt all the pain in the world.” She hesitates a beat before adding in a softer voice, “Just like me. The other boys didn’t feel it. I could tell.”
I blink faster, surprised. “Yeah?”
She nods, her lips so close to mine I can smell the faint hint of maple syrup on her breath, sweet and earthy, just like her. “Yeah. You’re deep water, Matthew McGuire, and I want to dive into you.”
I want to dive into her, too. I have since that afternoon in the park, before I even realized who she was, when she was just a gorgeous stranger humanely, but hysterically, trying to get a squirrel pervert out of her messy bun. There’s just something about Nora. She just…shines.
But she shouldn’t waste her light on me. I’m still not good enough for her. Not at this point in my life. Maybe, someday, when I’ve had time and distance from the CIA, when I’ve finally figured out who I am and what I genuinely have to offer a woman like her, then maybe…
But starting something right now would be cruel. To both of us.
I brush her hair from her face, letting my thumb whisper back and forth across her cheek. “If you’re still single when I get back from South America, I’d love to take you out on a proper date.”
