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I shift against him, trying to wiggle away, and he groans as I accidentally slide against his hard dick.
We both freeze, fully awake.
For a breathless second, I think he’s going to act on what our bodies want. But then he abruptly rolls away. He sits on the edge of the bed, his back to me. “Go get dressed.”
I roll my eyes. “Cole, it’s not a big deal—”
“Get dressed, Amelia.” His rough, growly voice is the stuff of erotic fantasies. Except this isn’t a fantasy, it’s reality, and he’s doing everything he can to put distance between us.
So I scoop a pair of jeans and a red sweater from my suitcase, and I scurry out to go take a shower.
It’s for the best, I tell myself. Six months from now, when I’m launching my business with the money from my deal with Cole, I’ll be so glad we didn’t mess this up with sex.
Six months feels like a long time away.
My parents havesome plans they can’t get out of, so after breakfast Cole and I drive into town to have a wander around.
“Where should we go?” Cole asks.
“Rose’s Books,” I decide.
He finds a parking place, and we climb out of the rental car. As we walk toward the small brick bookshop on main street, he takes my hand. I throw him a questioning glance.
“Small town, right? Best to keep up the act in case we run into any of your parents’ friends.” His voice is so bland and nonchalant, you’d never guess he woke up hard and hungry against me this morning.
“Sure,” I say. My own voice isn’t quite as steady.
Once in the bookshop, I show him the art and design section, where the owner used to let me hang out for hours on end and read. When I spot a new book about the work of a designer I love, Cole buys it for me.
I tell myself he’s just playing the part.
But it still feels better than it should when he turns to me, eyebrows raised, and asks, “Where next?”
So we spend the morning touring my favorite spots. We go to my favorite park. Drive past my high school. I point out my favorite stained window in the church we used to go to every Christmas and Easter.
Cole has a sarcastic comment about everything, but he’s smiling as he says them.
We end our tour at the local dive bar, where my friends and I snuck in when we were sixteen. We thought we were real slick, ordering margaritas, getting loud and giggly and drunk. Then my friend’s mom showed up. Turned out the bartender had called her, and she’d told him to serve us virgin cocktails and keep an eye on us until she could get away from work to pick us up. We weren’t actually drunk at all.
Cole laughs so hard he nearly snorts beer.
His laugh is rich and rolling, and I fall a little in love with it. It’s the kind of laugh that fits perfectly under the wide-open Texas sky. I wonder if that’s why he doesn’t laugh in New York.Everything is packed too tightly to make room for a laugh like this.
Cole rubs a hand over his face, getting his breath back. “Poor thing. You tried so hard. You’re just too damn sweet to rebel right.”
“Shut up, old man,” I say, but I’m grinning as I say it.
He clinks his empty glass against mine. “Can I get you another? I’ll even make them put alcohol in it.”
“Better not. I’ll just get sleepy.”
“I can carry you home,” he jokes, and I’m briefly swept away in a fantasy of Cole scooping me up, gently carrying me to bed in some New York apartment we share.
What iswrongwith me? We have to live and work together for six more months. Given that my last relationship barely made it to the three-month mark, and Cole doesn’t seem interested in anything that lasts more than a night, I’m pretty sure fantasizing about anything romantic is a truly terrible idea.
At least I’ve finally made him laugh. I’d promised myself I would, and I did.
He nudges my knee with his. “Anything else you want to do then, Sleeping Beauty?”
