Page 16 of Love in the Time of Conversation Hearts

For how notoriously uncomfortable hotel beds typically are, I sleep like a rock. Blame it on the alcohol or my frayed nerves, but I have to force myself into consciousness at the summoning of my alarm clock.

I groan, snuggling deeper into my pillow. Only it’s not a pillow. It’s hard and prickly, and it smells like winter spices. My forehead crumples. I crack an eye open, and gray cotton greets me. Weird, I could’ve sworn these sheets were white.

I stretch each limb awake, pointing my toes and flexing my fingers. My left hand meets a warm, rigid expanse. When I sink my nails into it, I hear a yelp.

“Oh my God!” Jolting backward, I clutch the nearest thing I can find to my chest. A throw pillow, the one that was meant to be our divide, which was instead resting at the edge of my side of the bed.

Adam gazes up at me blearily. “Can you please turn off your alarm?”

Right. The foghorn blares along with my pulse, filling my head with whatever the heavy metal version of white noise is. I scramble for my phone, slamming the screen with my index finger several times until silence finally settles over the room.

My chest heaves like I’ve run a marathon. I glance back at Adam, eyes wide, to find a lazy smirk plastered on his face.

“So what part am I not meant to mention at work? The fact that we shared a bed, or that you tore down our barrier to get to me?” he asks.

“Oh. My. GOD,” I repeat, this time with a voice so shrill it could wake the guests in the neighboring rooms. I jam a finger in his direction. “Don’t tell a soul. Adam Sullivan, I swear, you will take this to your grave. Do you hear me?”

He holds up both hands, palms out. A picture of innocence, if he didn’t have smartass written plainly on his face. “Relax, Cora. I get it. I’m irresistible. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

The comforter pools at his hips, and the hem of his shirt hits just above his navel, thanks to my speedy escape. I swallow hard as I drag my eyes from the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath his waistband, back to his stubbled jaw and sleepy gaze, which notes my path with self-satisfaction.

I press my eyes closed for a moment while I take a deep breath. Calmer, I blink them open again. Big mistake, because he’s still there looking like that.

“I’m taking a shower.”

He rests his interlocked fingers over that exposed expanse of abdomen. “You showered last night.”

I slip out of bed, righting my bottoms that have gone askew. “Right. Two-showers-a-day Cora, that’s what they call me.”

“Who calls you that?”

I gather my clothes for the day and a makeup bag that I hope contains something strong enough to disguise my embarrassment. “Everyone. My friends. You don’t know them.”

He quirks a brow. “You mean Lauren, Dorothy, Charlotte, and Aubrey? Did I miss anyone?”

“Why do you have my friends’ names memorized?” I ask, pausing halfway to the bathroom door.

“So I can fact check when you say ridiculous things like that.”

A groan rumbles my throat. I’m not continuing this discussion, not with him. Not while he looks like sex warmed up and topped with ice cream. “Be dressed when I get out,” I say through gritted teeth.

He scratches his jaw again, the scrape of his stubble sending a chill down my spine. “Or what?”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek. How did the dynamic between us flip so quickly? A little over a week ago, we were verbally sparring on the floor of the elementary school gymnasium, fighting for what we believed was best for our city. The picture of professionalism, albeit with a sprinkle of animosity.

Now he’s lying in the bed we shared, a dare in his gaze. Heat settles at the base of my spine where I can still feel his touch from last night. My thighs clench tight. Whatever Adam is doing to me, I don’t like it one bit.

I don’t trust my voice not to convey the thoughts I’d much rather keep sequestered to my brain, so I simply turn my head and charge into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me as I go. It takes the blast of the shower turned all the way up to drown out his smug chuckle.

Booking us into entirely different seminars almost gets Bianca back in my good graces.

Almost. She did make me sleep next to my coworker, after all.

I shudder at that thought as I settle into yet another hard plastic seat in a ballroom-turned-classroom for my last session of the day, a presentation on the pitfalls of tourism in a community and how to avoid them. I should be excited. Or, at the very least, intrigued. But I’m at the end of my attention-span’s rope. My feet ache, my head is pounding, and I’m already dreading another night next to Adam. The last thing I care about are Heartsong’s pits.

Just as the presenter is taking the stage, the empty chair to my right grinds against the floor. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Well, it was empty before Adam’s cocky self took it over. A quick sidelong glance tells me that, much like the armchair in our room, he has to fold himself awkwardly to fit into the thing. Serves him right. I hope his back hurts tonight from all the hunching.