“And what qualifies as interesting?”
Jasper considered him, the clean lines of his profile, the tension in his neck. “I will let you know.”
The hotel lobby was chaos.Guests clustered near the front desk, voices overlapping. Phones pressed to ears. The sign announced limited availability due to weather conditions.
Jasper reached the counter first. He listened, nodded, then turned back to Bennett with an apologetic expression.
“Good news,” he said.
Bennett closed his eyes. “There is no good news.”
“Only one room left.”
Silence stretched between them. Bennett’s posture stiffened.
Bennett opened his eyes slowly. “No.”
“It is a very nice room.”
“No.”
“One bed.”
“No.”
Jasper lowered his voice. “Two days. Maybe three. Every other hotel within fifty miles is booked.”
Bennett exhaled through his nose. “I will sleep on the floor.”
“You will absolutely not,” Jasper said. “You will wake up unable to move, and then I will have to carry you, and that will raise questions.”
Bennett stared at him. “You’re enjoying this.”
“A little,” Jasper admitted. “But mostly I am trying to keep us from freezing in a rental car.”
The room was warm, at least. Modern, clean, with a wide window overlooking a snow-covered slope. One bed, king-sized, neatly made.
Bennett set his suitcase down and looked away.
“I am taking the shower first,” he said.
“Fair,” Jasper replied. “I will make a list of house rules.”
“There are no house rules.”
“There absolutely are,” Jasper said. “Rule one. We pretend this is normal.”
Bennett paused. “That is not a rule. That is a lie.”
“Semantics.”
Jasper sat at the edge of the bed, exhaling slowly.
He had clocked it earlier. The way Bennett reacted to proximity. The way his attention snagged and held, just a fraction too long. Jasper had seen it before, in men who thought attraction had a very narrow definition.
He was not here to force anything. He was not interested in being anyone’s experiment.
But he was interested in Bennett Shaw.
