The kitchen area had glaring yellow tile with some busy pattern on it, the cabinets painted red, with big chips in the paint. There was a step up to the left, and a bed featured prominently there. Then there was a lattice divider with the couch right next to it.
“There’s only one bed,” Elsie said, suddenly feeling a strange prickle of...panic.
“Hang on,” he said. He moved one of the cushions on the couch. “Yeah. Hide-a-bed.”
Elsie frowned. “Not exactly as advertised.”
“No. I wasn’t aware that a lattice half wall constituted a separate sleeping quarters. Or that a hide-a-bed was considered a bed unless it was noted as such.” He chucked the cushions off and folded the bed out. It was the old-school kind, with the bar that ran in the center.
“No worries. I’ll take this,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “Are you sure? It’s just... I wouldn’t want you to hurt your back.”
“Elsie,” he said. “I’m thirty-four. I’m fine.”
“Well, I know you’re thirty-four. That’s why I was worried about...” She trailed off.
“Honestly.”
He went over to a closet and found some extra bedding, and set about making the bed while she took her duffel bag up the step to the lumpy-looking queen bed with the big sunburst headboard. She plopped the duffel on the end of the bed and started to rifle through it, looking for her pajamas. She hadn’t really anticipated...well, them sleeping in the same room. She was not the most okay with it.
She stomped off to the bathroom, which was equally tacky, with a blue sink and toilet, and a counter with little daisies. She changed quickly into her sweatpants and purple thermal top, stashing her bra deeply in the other clothes that she had, so Hunter wouldn’t see it.
Because the idea of Hunter seeing her bra was suddenly horrific.
She felt an echo of that feeling she’d had when she sat on his chest on the field and she hurriedly shoved that away.
When she got out of the bathroom, Hunter was already lying down in bed with the lights off.
She noted that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. And then she looked away. Forever.
She climbed between the sheets and ignored the fact that it was comically early.
They were going to have an early start tomorrow. And tonight had just been... Well, it had been exactly what they’d agreed on. It wasn’t Hunter’s fault that it made her feel weird. It wasn’t Hunter’s fault that she didn’t have any experience with men, and it made even this obvious farce feel like something it shouldn’t.
She heard his breathing go even. And Elsie ended up falling asleep, but with great difficulty, listening to the sound of Hunter McCloud breathing only a few feet away from her.
CHAPTER SIX
HUNTER FELT LIKE literal hell the next morning, and he got up before the sun, went for a jog, then went and grabbed coffee from a neighboring chain before heading back to the motel room.
Of all the dumb fucking things.
He had felt edgy going back to the room, edgy after that... It was supposed to be... It was stupid. He wasn’t even that cheesy when he picked up a woman.
I know what you like...
Hell.
But there was something about the way that Elsie responded to it that was screwing with him. And he didn’t particularly like it.
He’d thought it was the best course of action to go to sleep as quickly as possible, to do something to break the weird tension that should not exist between him and a woman he had known since she was a baby. Him and his best friend’s younger sister. She was practically his sister.
But she’s not.
Whatever.
They had work to do today. And it was going to get them back on even ground.
“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty,” he said.
She was still beneath the covers, her dark hair tangled and wrapped around her face.
The covers were up so high he couldn’t even see her. But she had one bare foot sticking out the bottom of the blankets. And he chose not to look at that.
She stirred, turning over and sitting up, stretching.
And his eyes went to the last place they ever should.
To her cute little figure. To her damned adorable, pretty, breasts, which were way too visible beneath that purple waffle print shirt with... Hell.
It had owls on it.
And he could see her tits. And they were...they were good. They were very good. And that was the thing he didn’t need to know. That Elsie Garrett had the prettiest set of small boobs he’d ever seen. And he was pretty sure he was only noticing them because she had mentioned them. And normally he didn’t even like them small. Well, that was a lie, he’d take them however he could get them, but, it wasn’t his preference.
But he was suddenly obsessed with hers.
“I brought coffee,” he said.
“Oh good,” she muttered sleepily, getting out of bed.
Those pants she was wearing were soft, and they cupped her ass in a particular way, which he noticed when she bent over to straighten the blanket.
“I’m sure even this dive has housekeeping. You don’t have to make your bed.” He sounded like a dick, and he just... There wasn’t anything he could do about it. Because he felt like a dick.
Because he was looking at Elsie’s body.
And thinking things.
She straightened and rolled amber eyes—which seemed especially bright this morning—at him. “You’re grumpy. Drink some coffee.” She padded over to where he was, and he was extremely conscious of her bare feet.
He didn’t typically do mornings with women.
In fact, he never did. He didn’t spend the night with women.
But this wasn’t “women.” This was Elsie. And it was remarkably different than “women.”
“Is there sugar in there?”
“No,” he said.
She scowled, and opened the cabinet in the kitchenette, finding a hot chocolate packet and getting it out, taking the lid off the coffee and dumping the powder in.
“That’s disgusting,” he said.
“Sugar and caffeine,” she said. “Best start to the morning in my opinion.”
“Flawed opinion,” he said.
“You were so charming for, like, five minutes last night,” she said.
“Yeah. Well, that was... You know what that was.”
He wasn’t sure he knew what it was.