Page 39 of Tough Nut to Crack

"I want to rent your guest bedroom."

That sentence stops the next round of insults that were forming in my mouth. "What?"

"But only if you switch out the beds."

I shake my head, rejecting the idea fully.

"I'll pay you rent, the exact amount I'd pay if I were still at the hotel."

Those words make me clamp my mouth fully closed. What does a night at one of the hotels out on the highway run? A hundred dollars a night? That's enough to keep me afloat and put money back for the months well after he leaves, but it also feels like I'd be swindling him.

Can you swindle someone when it's what they're offering?

"That's insane," is what I settle on instead. "What does the hotel run? A hundred a night."

"One seventeen thirty-four with taxes," he clarifies. "A night."

"They don't offer weekly or monthly rates."

"No," he says. "They don't. I won't get in your way. You won't even know I'm here."

That's so far from the truth, it's comical.

"I'm having a hard time focusing at work. I'm snapping at my crew. The twins threatened to walk off the job today if I didn't, and I quote, 'stop being such a bitch.'"

I chew the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. It's not that I take joy in his troubles, but I'm still not a hundred percent over the fact that he told everyone in the bar within hearing distance that sex with me was bad. To make it worse, old man Hinkle thought it would be appropriate to chastise me at the post office for even having premarital sex in the first place when I was there sending a birthday package to my niece.

"Why would I agree to let you have my guest room?"

"With your bed in it," he repeats. "Because-"

"If you say that I owe you, I'll claw your pretty eyes out."

He grins like he's already won this battle.

"You're a kind human," he says instead. "Seriously, I'm a good roommate."

Roommate. The word rolls off his tongue so easily, despite the fact that he's made me come more than once with that very same muscle.

"I can't believe I'm even entertaining this idea," I mutter, pinching the bridge of my nose. Honestly, the thrill of him being right down the hall, the possibility that he'll slink into my room in the middle of the night and wrap his meaty hands around my thighs, is all too appealing. "The duplexes aren'tthat bad."

He scoffs as if what I've said is positively ridiculous, and I know he's right. I've seen the duplexes. Most of them don't even have full-sized refrigerators, much less enough room to prepare a decent meal. I'd have to downsize my cooking supplies, and the thought of that makes me want to weep.

"You have to promise not to get in my way," I demand, wishing I was looking away rather than witnessing the smile that spreads across his handsome face. "And you go to the hotel if you plan on hooking up with someone."

"Perfect," he says as he backs off the porch.

I close the door, wondering what I've just agreed to, but I only have a minute to myself before there's another knock on the door.

I pull it open to find Mac standing there with a duffle bagin his hand.

He walks past me and into the house like he owns the place.

"What's for dinner?"

"Mac?" I growl, but he simply chuckles and heads down the hall to the guest bedroom.

I busy myself pulling dishes from the dishwasher and putting them away. If he plans to switch out the beds, then he can do it all by himself, but rather than hear the scrapping of metal across floorboards when I head back toward my room several minutes later, I hear the hall shower running.

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