Page 41 of Worth Every Penny

She nudges the door shut with her foot, then paces towards me. Her bare feet sink into the plush pile of the carpet. When she reaches me, she pokes her finger into my chest. “You stopped me from having sex tonight. That was the plan.” She gestures to her top. “I’m the green traffic light.Green means go.” I don’t know what she’s talking about, but the fact that she’s mentioning sex, even if it is in a drunken, aggressive tone, doesn’t strike me as a good thing. We’re alone in a hotel room, mere feet from a huge bed.

“Haven’t had sex for a long time,” she continues.Sex, again.“My pussy could be full of cobwebs.”

Pussy?“Cobwebs?” I ask, a smothered laugh escaping me, but Kate is so drunk she doesn’t notice.

“Michael Drayton, too,” she continues in a serious tone, albeit a little slurred. “You know what a big deal he is?”

Her words stoke the embers of my jealousy. I should’ve known she wouldn’t thank me for stepping in, but I didn’t expect this.

“He was taking advantage of you. He was sober and you can hardly stand up.”

She attempts to stand straighter to disprove my point, but fails miserably as her shoulders involuntarily slump and her spine curves.

“Who I have sex with is none of your business, Nico fucking Hawkston.” Her finger presses against my pec with each word of my name.

Before she can poke me again, I grab her wrist and she turns those big brown eyes up to meet mine. “You can thank me in the morning when you come to your senses.”

She snatches her arm from my grip. “Fuck you.” Then she stumbles into the bathroom and slams the door.

I wait outside, wondering if she’s drunk enough to throw up. The bathroom is silent, then water begins to run.

“Kate? Do you need any help?”

“Only if you want to get in the tub with me.”

She’s running a bath?

“You can’t bathe now. You’re too drunk. You’ll drown in there.”

“Oh, fuck off, Nico,” she says, but her tone is soft. Softer still when she adds, “Go away. I don’t want you here. I hate you. Ineedto hate you.”

She needs to hate me?

I press the door open slowly so she has time to object if she doesn’t want me coming in, but she says nothing. She’s sitting on the edge of the bath, fully clothed, her knees together. She turnsoff the bathwater and looks up at me through a curtain of dark hair.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell her. “You’re not well.”

Scowling, she replies, “God, why do you have to be so…” Her words tail off as she waves a drunken hand at me.

I brace for her usual abuse. “So what?”

“So damn gorgeous.” She breathes the words like a secret, and a curious warmth fills my chest. I’ve lost count of how many times someone has complimented my appearance, but this one hits differently. I want to tell her she could have me if she wanted, or that she too is gorgeous, but instead I settle for staring at her.

There’s an innocence to her wide gaze that’s absent in sobriety, and I’m reminded of how she used to look at me back when she was a teenager. But I’m simultaneously saddened by the fact she’s so inebriated that her words and actions tonight mean very little. This isn’t a shared experience we’ll both remember. For Kate, this is a blackout she won’t recall.

I step towards her, the soles of my leather shoes creaking against the tile floor. “How did you get this drunk? Did you eat anything?”

She shakes her head. “I was working late. Remember? And then… free drinks.” She shrugs and drags a hand through her long, dark hair. Her fingers get stuck in the tangles and she glances up, catching sight of herself in the mirror. She dances her fingertips over her face as she stares at her reflection. “Shit,” she mutters. “I look horrendous.”

“You always look good.”

Her eyes flash at me before she looks away, her hand dropping from her face to the edge of the bath, fingers curling around it tightly. “I’m really not that drunk. I can only see one of you.” She closes one eye, which looks much harder to perform than it should. “I could definitely have sex like this.”

I don’t know if it’s an observation, a joke or a suggestion. I don’t want to think about it too hard, but the words alone are enough to have inappropriate images springing up in my mind.

I need to get out of here. If I have to hear Kate mention sex one more time, I’ll fucking lose it.

“You should go to bed,” I say, taking quick steps to the door. “Get some sleep.”

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