Page 27 of Heathen

I see the challenge in her eyes, as if she's expecting me to tell her that's too much food.

"Can I make that a dozen tacos with extra cheese and two orders of frijoles?"

She doesn't say a word as I pull around and pay.

As we sit and wait for the food, I try and think of a way to explain this to Kincaid, but I can't formulate one that doesn't leave me jobless.

My parents would love me crawling home to them after such a failure, and I swear I'll live under a bridge before I ever do that.

I grab the massive bag of food and set it in the center of the seat before driving off.

"I'm going to go to a hotel," I explain. "I don't live alone, and that's not a conversation I want to have right now."

"I knew it," she says on a gasp. "You have a partner and kids. All of that junk food."

I pull in a deep breath, sort of happy that she thought about me at all after our meeting the other day.

"I do not have kids," I assure her. "And there's no partner. I live with... coworkers."

"That's the strangest thing I've ever heard," she mutters as I pull into the parking lot of a well-known hotel chain.

"That's the strangest thing?" I challenge.

She shakes her head in frustration as she glances out of the windshield at the hotel. "You know what I mean."

"Is this okay?"

"It's fine," she says, her eyes dipping to the bag of tacos.

"You can stay in here and eat while I get a room."

"I can wait until I get into my room," she assures me.

The check-in process is super easy, but when I turn around to face her with the key card, I catch her eyes a little lower on my body than necessary. I try and tell myself that she's just lost in thought and looking more through me than at me, but her cheeks turn pink when she notices that I caught her looking at my ass.

"The elevator is right over there," I instruct when I approach and she doesn't budge.

I follow close behind her, the bag of tacos in hand to the elevator, and she doesn't speak until we get on.

"We aren't consummating this marriage," she snaps, as if we're in the middle of an argument and I missed the first half.

"Okay."

"We have to get an annulment as quickly as possible," she continues.

"Is that the only reason we can't hook up?"

She sneers at me, and I swear she looks just like I imagine a wet, angry cat would look.

"Don't flatter yourself," she mutters.

I think I like this feisty side of her. It's much better than the crying one, that's for sure.

I open the door with the provided keycard and hold it open for her.

She doesn't hesitate to leave me standing alone in the small living room area as she heads into the bedroom.

A couple of seconds later, I hear her on the phone, and I can tell she's calling into work.

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