Tove awoke the next morning with a start to twin realizations. First, there was someone in bed with her.
Patrick. That was right. That was fine, in fact. Her heart could stop thudding wildly any moment now.
Second, she was absolutely sure that she’d slept on her hair so that it was snarled and sticking up in every direction. It had that feeling, tugging at her scalp. She tried to smooth it before rolling over, hoping Patrick was still asleep so she could slip away, unseen, to the bathroom.
No.
He was lying on his side, gazing at her with those endless, dark eyes. She ran nervous fingers through her hair again, feeling how it was bent and kinked from sleeping on it.
“Morning,” he said, his dark eyes twinkling as if she didn’t look like a witch in a children’s fairy tale.
“Morning,” she responded, then remembered the night before, mortified blood rushing to her cheeks. “Oh, god. I just realized I must have fallen asleep in the middle of our conversation.”
“You did.”
“On you.”
He reached out a finger and traced her cheekbone. “Relax. You were meant to.”
“Oh. Um. Okay.”
“How’d you sleep?”
She considered this. She didn’t usually sleep well in hotels. “I’m actually quite refreshed, thank you. How did you sleep?”
“Fine. So, what are we going to do until—when do we have to be ready?”
“Ceremony in the tent at five, cocktails on the lawn at five-thirty, and dinner and the rest of the party starting at around six.”
“No family photos?”
“No, the girls don’t want any posed shots, just candids. The photographer will circulate.”
“Seems like we’ve got a good long stretch of time to fill, then. What do you want to do?”
Tove froze. Yet another thing she had failed to consider. What were they going to do to fill all that time? “I don’t know.”
“Don’t look so stressed about it. Let’s get some breakfast, well”—he turned and squinted at his phone—“brunch and see what our options are. Biking or hiking, maybe?”
Tove made a face, thinking of the terrain around the lake. “I’m not sure I’m up for these hills.”
Patrick’s grin crinkled his eyes. “Fair enough. How do you feel about paddling?”
Her mind slipped sideways to such a shocking, sensual image that a nervous laugh erupted from her throat. And, in turn, Patrick blushed. He actually blushed.
“I…uh. Wow. Didn’t mean it that way. If that’s the way you—wait, did you just punk me?”
Tove, covering her mouth with her hand to stifle her inappropriate giggles, shook her head. “It was like some other being took over my brain and…” She realized her body was responding in a very unnerving way to the image that had popped into her head. She clenched her legs together to suppress the feeling and immediately recognized her mistake.
That only made it worse.
Patrick had to regain his cool and do it fast. Part of what people paid for—part of the fantasy—was that nothing fazed him. He always presented a smooth, capable surface, making the people he escorted feel comfortable and taken care of.
But Tove unnerved him in every conceivable way. It had been some time since he’d woken up with a hard-on, and yet. Here he was, unable to get up and start his morning without showing her exactly how much he wanted her. But whether or not they had sex was her call. That was the agreement, and he didn’t want her to feel pressured by his body’s reaction.
He latched on to her response to what had, in all sincerity, not been a double entendre. But what if she’d wanted it to be?
“Does your reaction mean you’ve changed your mind regarding sex?”
Her eyes flew wide and she appeared to think this over. “Maybe. But not…that.”
“What, paddling? For the record, I was actually suggesting a canoe or a kayak.”
At that, her pale face flushed deep red. “I didn’t really think you were suggesting—”
“Kink? Good. It’s never really been in my wheelhouse. Nothing against it, it’s just not my thing.”
She gazed at him as if entirely new concepts were opening up in front of her. “I never considered it at all. It seems very scary.”
“Many people never do consider it. It’s not scary if it’s done right, but it’s also not necessary for everyone. Anyway, how do you feel about canoes or kayaks?”
She visibly recovered. “Very good. I am very pro-boating in general. The only constant in my childhood was summer camp.”
“Excellent. So, you can handle yourself with that kind of paddle.”
“Yes, as long as I get my own boat. I’ve found that a two-person craft is just a floating argument.”
“Whatever the lady desires. Would you like the first shot at the bathroom?” Thankfully, she nodded and slid from the bed, padding swiftly to the door and trying to smooth down her adorably tumbled, rumpled hair.
Unfortunately, her adorableness did not help with the erection situation. He lifted the sheet and glared down at the tent in his lounge pants. Then he lay back with a soft groan and thought about a certain Senator from Kentucky to kill his boner.
Tove stared at her reflection, horrified. Ye gods, her hair wasn’t just messy. It was positively feral.
“I can never leave this bathroom. I live here now,” Tove muttered as she turned on the shower. At least she didn’t have a giant pillow crease in her cheek. Small mercies, she supposed as she stripped off her pajamas and hung them on the back of the door, stepping under the spray and letting the water beat down on her head to erase the evidence.
Right. Like Patrick will ever forget waking up to her looking like a veritable Medusa.
Grabbing the shampoo, she asked herself why she cared. Why should she be concerned with his perception of her when everything they were doing was transactional? He wouldn’t even be here without the thousands of dollars she’d paid him. Any sort of emotional reaction she was having had to be some kind of automatic response, a sort of fake it until you make it kind of situation. After this weekend, everything would go back to normal. Remove the stimulus, and the reaction would fade.
She was so mired in thought that she didn’t realize her tactical error until she was out of the shower and drying her hair. She’d failed to bring a change of clothes with her and the towel she’d wrapped around her body barely brushed the tops of her thighs.
“Oh, hell with it.” She could hardly hide out in here for much longer after all—she was sure Patrick needed to use the facilities. Without thinking about it further, she opened the door and strode into the bedroom, heading straight for her suitcase.
“Well, good morning,” Patrick said from the bed. He was reading again, and in those glasses, which had no right to look as sexy as they did.
“Forgot to bring clothes in with me,” she said, tucking the towel a little tighter.
“No complaints here.” How did he manage to be clearly appreciative of her body without leering? It was a rare skill in her experience.
“Well, the bathroom is all yours.” There was no way she was bending over her suitcase to find clothes in this scrap of terrycloth.
“Okay.” He slid a piece of paper between the pages and took off his glasses, swinging out of bed and walking to the bathroom without any further ado. Tove’s attention snagged on the paperback as the door closed behind him. She’d assumed it was a thriller based on the cover image, but on closer inspection, she’d been wrong. It was a romantic suspense novel.
The man just got more and more interesting.