“Night,” I say back.
She turns at the doorway, holding my gaze as she reaches for the handle. There’s something heating up between us, and she can feel it too. She doesn’t slam the door shut, or do it to close me out….
There’s a hesitation as she closes it softly, as if choosing space out of necessity.
At the end of the day, she’s a virgin and that’s something I won’t take from her. Not when this thing is still temporary… on her side. That’s one thing I can’t give her back when this is over.
I stand there for a long moment in the dim room, staring at the faint sliver of light under the bathroom door, listening to the bathwater run.
We’re okay. In fact, I think we’re more than okay, and that’s part of the problem.
As I sit on the edge of the bed, heart pounding, hands still tingling with the memory of her body against my fingertips… coming undone for me in the Montana night air…
I know with certainty that I can’t hide from this one simple truth anymore…
That I’m already in love with her.,
Chapter Fourteen
SCOTTIE
The next morning, I woke up to find Katerina still fast asleep on the other side of the king-sized bed, her back turned to me but sleeping soundly.
It takes me three whole seconds before last night hits me like a truck, and then I get out of bed quietly and head for the shower.
Katerina.
Her grinding her ass against my erection, her laugh vibrating through my chest, the way her body arched into me, and then the way she looked in the dark behind the roadhouse. Her eyes were trusting, the little gasps she made for me when I did something right, the way she whispered my name into the night sky that felt like only the two of us were standing under it, right before she came for me.
And then I just about took it too far—Scottie… I’m a virgin.
I run a hand over my face and then reach for the shower faucet, turning it on full blast.
Yeah. That part is tattooed on the inside of my skull.
The panic in her voice, the embarrassment on her cheeks as if she did something wrong, the concern that hit me that maybe I pushed too far… took too much.
My own brain slamming into a wall so fast I’m shocked I didn’t get whiplash. I’m not proud of how fast I shifted fromI want hertodon’t touch her.But Christ, the second she said the words, every protective instinct I’ve ever had roared to life.
I’m not taking something from her that she can’t get back.
Not in an arrangement that still has an expiration date.
Not when she’s still halfway convinced she doesn’t deserve a life of her own.
So I backed off. And then I spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling like a guy who read everything wrong. How could I have known she was a virgin? I guess that shows how little we know about each other.
I walk into the spray of the hot shower, the steam billowing out around me, softening the tension in my shoulders. I lean into it, letting the spray run over my head, down my shoulders, as I try to clear my head for just a second.
I run through my usual shower routine, which is basic, and then I dry off, wrapping a towel around my waist.
I open the door quietly to grab my duffle bag and see Katerina sitting up, legs swung over on her side, checking her phone.
She glances in my direction the moment she hears the door open.
“Good morning,” she says, voice a little groggy.
She looks stunning like this. No makeup, freshly woken, just in a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt.
