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“No, he goes to bed early so he can get an early start on baking in the morning. He wouldn’t appreciate being woken.”
I stared at the screen and tried to pay attention.
The letter A was called. There were five A’s.
“I know the answer,” Tristan said.
“No you don’t. There aren’t enough letters on the board yet.”
“I do.”
“Fine then, what is it?”
“Captain America's Got Talent,” Tristan said.
The next letter was called—N. The blocks lit up in all the places they should for Tristan’s answer. He was right.
“No freaking way.” I clapped my hands together and turned to Tristan, who suddenly felt so much closer. He hadn’t moved, but I could feel the heat of him all over my skin.
And I liked it.
Every inhale filled my lungs with his rich scent—clean citrusy woods and man. I’d first noticed how delicious he smelled when he’d pinned me to the wall outside the hospital. It was diluted now, with hotel soap, but it was still there. Just like his personality beneath his amnesia, and his handsome face beneath his bruises.
His right eye was still swollen shut, the skin around it eggplant purple. A dash of dark stubble on his chin and upper lip softened his angular face. The split in his lip was healing, and the swelling there had lessened enough so I could see the pleasant shape of his mouth. His lips were slightly open now, which felt like an invitation.
I exhaled, and my fingers involuntarily brushed his on the comforter between us. The contact sent a shockwave of awareness up my arm and down to my core. He looked at me like there was nothing else in the world that mattered than this moment, this attraction. It was just the two of us, alone together in this hotel room.
And we were sitting on the bed.
I wanted to kiss him.
The realization ripped the air from my lungs.
I folded my hands in my lap and pretended to be enthralled by what Pat Sajak was saying, but all I could think about was the man sitting beside me. All I could feel was the weight of his attention, the way he’d looked at me, and the way he continued to look at me.
I could hardly breathe.
At the next commercial break, he rose from the bed, snapping my full attention back to him. He walked around the side of the bed, grabbed one of the pillows and the extra blanket, then he lay on the floor, by the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Going to sleep.”
“You can’t sleep on the floor.”
“There’s only one bed.”
Right. Did that mean I wanted him to sleep beside me? Yes. No. I wasn’t sure.
“Good night, Morgan.”
“You can’t sleep on the floor,” I said again, this time with much less of a punch.
The show wrapped up and the credits rolled. I turned off the TV. The room was dark aside from the single overhead light glowing in the kitchen.
It was only nine thirty. A hot man—who was as much a stranger to me as he was to himself—was lying on the floor. And Miso slept quietly in her cage in the corner.
I had no idea how I was going to make myself fall asleep. I couldn’t.
