Marina presses the button for the top floor, chattering nervously about the suite’s amenities. Something about an infinity plunge pool and a complimentary champagne service. I’m barely listening because the mirrored walls are giving me approximately nine different angles of Alec’s profile, and everysingle one of them is unfairly attractive. I feel the heat of him radiating off his tall, annoyingly fit body and my pulse does this annoying little skip that I’m choosing to attribute to the elevator’s upward momentum.
I look at my sandals. I look at the ceiling. I look at the digital floor numbers ticking upward. I look at literally anything that isn’t the reflection of his jawline and broad shoulders multiplied across four mirrored walls.
In one of those reflections, I catch him watching me. Just for a second, his gaze catching mine before it flicks to the floor numbers. His hand tightens on the railing beside him, knuckles shifting under his skin. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this tiny box was getting to him too.
“Here we are!” Marina announces with the forced brightness of someone delivering a puppy to a house that’s already on fire. She swipes the keycard and pushes the door open with a flourish. “The Coral Crown Honeymoon Suite.”
I step inside, and for about three seconds, I forget everything. Because the suite is freaking stunning. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame a view of turquoise ocean that doesn’t even look real. There’s a sprawling veranda beyond the glass doors, complete with a private plunge pool that overflows into nothing but sky. The afternoon sun pours in, warming the white marble floors, and the whole space smells like plumeria and sea salt and luxury I could never afford if not for the Arizona State lottery.
Then I see the bed.
It sits in the center of the room like a throne, a four-poster king draped in white linens with an obscene number of decorative pillows. Rose petals are scattered across the duvet in the shape of a heart. A silver champagne bucket sweats on the nightstand beside two flutes and a card that probably says something romantic I’ll never read.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I say. “Did they leave us a towel swan too?”
Alec, who’s been surveying the suite with the expression of a man cataloging structural deficiencies, glances toward the large en-suite bathroom. “Two.”
I follow his gaze. Sure enough, two white towel swans sit beak-to-beak on the marble vanity, their necks curved into a heart. Because this suite wasn’t mocking us hard enough already.
Marina does a quick tour of the space, pointing out the minibar, the veranda controls, the soaking tub, then excuses herself with a promise to call the moment alternative accommodations become available. The door clicks shut behind her and the silence that follows is so thick I could serve it on a plate.
The bed is enormous. California king, at least, maybe bigger. One of those beds you see in magazines and think, who needs that much sleeping surface? I’ll tell you who doesn’t need it: two complete strangers who met on a plane six hours ago, and can hardly stand to be sharing the same air, never mind sharing a room and a bed.
And yet somehow it still feels too small for the two of us.
I tighten my grip on my tote bag, scanning the room with increasing desperation. There’s a sitting area with a loveseat that might work as a bed—if I were four feet tall and didn’t mind waking up shaped like a pretzel. A chaise longue on the veranda that would be perfect if I wanted to listen for most of the night to other resort guests actually having a good time on the beach below.
“There’s got to be a couch,” I say, mostly to myself. “A hammock. I’ll take a rollaway cot. Hell, I’ll sleep in the bathtub with the swans.”
Alec huffs a sigh as if he’s the one who’s more put out here. “We’re both adults.” He shrugs off his carry-on and sets it down with the precision of someone parallel parking a luxury sedan. “I think we can manage to share a bed without incident.”
He says it so matter-of-factly, like we’re discussing who gets the window seat and not the prospect of lying unconscious next to each other for eight hours in a bed designed for newlyweds. I try very hard not to let my brain supply images of what sharing that bed might actually look like. His big body stretched out on those white sheets. The warmth of him close enough to feel in the dark. What he sleeps in, or whether he sleeps in anything at all.
Shit. Now, I’m picturing all of it. All of him beneath his starched shirt and neatly pressed pants.
“Thanks,” I say, my voice coming out a little higher than intended. “I feel so much better knowing I won’t have to sleep with one eye open during this entire nightmare of a situation.”
He cuts me a look, and I’m expecting the standard Alec irritation, but that’s not quite what I get. His gaze holds on mine a moment longer than it should, dropping just briefly to my mouth before he catches himself and turns away. I watch him swallow once, the muscles of his throat working, before he unzips his suitcase on the luggage rack with a crisp, deliberate motion.
Interesting.
“We should establish some ground rules,” he says, acting as if the room is his and I’m the interloper. “Boundaries. So neither of us is... inconvenienced more than necessary.”
“Rules,” I repeat. “Why am I not surprised that you’re already handing down rules?”
He ignores the sarcasm. “The sleeping arrangements are the obvious place to start. We each get half of the bed. You stay on your side. I’ll stay on mine.”
I watch his jaw set as he lays out more of our separate territories, the muscles tightening with each decree like he’s reading terms at a board meeting. His hands move with that same controlled energy I noticed on the plane, dividing invisible space in the air between us. He’s got great hands. Long fingers, broad palms that suddenly have me picturing them moving on my skin instead of drawing lines between his space and mine.
When he shifts away from the veranda, the damp patch on his shirt from the earlier coffee spill incident pulls across his muscled chest, and I have to actively redirect my eyes to something less distracting. Like the wallpaper. Or the floor. Or literally anything that isn’t the way cotton clings to this man’s body.
“The closet is yours,” he continues, his deep voice sounding perfectly reasonable despite the air of assumed authority. “I’ll use the dresser drawers. Bathroom counter, we split down the middle. And if one of us is on the veranda, the other gives space.”
I press my lips together, fighting a smile. “Yes, comrade. Should I also submit a daily ration report?”
He doesn’t laugh, but something shifts at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. More like the ghost of one that died in committee.
“I’m being practical.”
