Page 22 of Filthy Rich Santas

6

LANA

“Is that it?”I ask when Tristan puts on the blinker for an exit a few hours later, peering at the brightly lit sign for a familiar hotel chain.

“Sure is,” he says, making me sigh in relief.

Ryder catches my eye and raises his eyebrow, obviously having heard.

“Tired of us already?” he jokes.

I grin at him. Nothing could be further from the truth. “Just ready to stretch my legs.”

Next to me, Beckett huffs out a breath and if I’m not mistaken, actually almost smiles.

“Tell me about it,” he says, not quite grumbling.

I bite my lip as I let my eyes shamelessly wander over his huge frame. He’s got a point, and I’m sure we’re all more than ready to stop for the night.

This road trip has already been more fun than I’d hoped for when I thought I’d be doing it with just my favorite audiobooks for company. But still, being trapped in a car with the three of them for so many hours has been its own form of torture.

Spending so much time in the back seat, pressed up against one or the other of their large bodies, has had me fighting not to notice how good they each smell. And after the conversation drifted to kink, raising the temperature in the car by several degrees, I need a little breathing room for sanity’s sake.

After we park outside the hotel, Beckett steps up to handle the check-in process. As he turns away from the desk, he hands me a little plastic card.

“Here’s your key, little menace. You’re in room 1304.”

“Just me?” I blush when the question makes him give me a strange look.

He nods. “We’re in 1306 and 1308. So we’ll be close if you need anything.”

“That’s great,” I say quickly to hide my embarrassment over ever thinking we’d somehow all be rooming together. Heck, even with the three of them, they’re splitting into two rooms, so of course it’s crazy of me to have been low-key expecting, or at least hoping, that we’d end up in some kind of intimate sleeping situation.

As we all head to the elevators, I notice the guys talking quietly amongst themselves about something that sounds like it has to do with their club.

“Ten minutes?” Tristan asks the other two as we reach our floor.

Beckett is already headed down the hall, but Ryder nods at him, then slings an arm around my shoulders when he catches my curious look.

“We’ve got a little business to do,” he explains. “A video conference we scheduled with some of our key employees, since we left L.A. earlier than expected.”

I stop in my tracks. “You did what? But I thought you said you were already headed back to New Hampshire! Please tell me you didn’t all take extra time off just because Caleb guilted you into looking out for me.”

“We didn’t all take extra time off just because Caleb guilted us into looking out for you,” he quotes me, making me laugh and lightly punch his arm.

He grins down at me, giving my shoulders a quick squeeze before dropping his arm and moving farther down the hall, turning to walk backward as he moves away from me, so that he’s still facing me.

“Yes, we were already planning on heading to New Hampshire,” he says, easing some of my guilt. “We just moved the date up a little. No big deal, but this meeting might take us a while, so don’t wait for us, okay? Go grab yourself some dinner if you want.”

“Oh.” I tamp down a surge of disappointment. “By myself?”

Ryder spreads his arms with an apologetic look. “Or order in if you’re too tired? Because you know Beckett will turn into a drill sergeant in the morning and insist we hit the road early. He doesn’t just reserve his Dom tendencies for the club.”

Beckett can’t defend himself since he’s already gone into one of the rooms, and Tristan, who’s using a keycard to open the other door, overhears Ryder’s words and snorts a little. The three of us share a look and then all burst out laughing, because if there’s one perfect word to describe Beckett, it’s “bossy.”

I’m still smiling when I enter my room, but the emptiness of it drains the moment of good humor. It’s silly, honestly. I expected this trip to be a solo one, so it doesn’t make sense that I’m feeling bummed just because I actuallyamgoing to be on my own tonight.

I settle in, drawing for a while before my stomach starts grumbling enough to remind me that Ryder was right. I should definitely get something to eat.

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