Page 23 of You, Me, and Lucky Number 13

“I hope you know your breath smells like beer and contaminated bar nuts,” Lola mumbles, her voice muffled against my chest.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “You’re welcome for carrying your drunk ass from the car, Sleeping Beauty,” I retort, my voice drier than a mouthful of sawdust.

“Please,” she slurs, her breath warm against my neck, sending a shiver down my spine that has nothing to do with the chill in the air. “I’ve seen those biceps. You could bench press two of me, easily.”

I highly doubt that—Lola’s got curves that could distract a monk, and a surprising amount of muscle under that feisty exterior—but I don’t correct her. Instead, I keep walking, heading toward the sanctuary of my bedroom.

“Just go back to sleep, Lola,” I say, my voice softening despite my best intentions.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she shoots back, her words laced with a surprising amount of venom for someone who’s half-unconscious.

For the love of… “I’m not telling you what to do. It was a simple request.”

“Well, request not granted,” she mumbles, shifting slightly in my arms. “Where are you taking me anyway?”

“My room.”

Her head pops up, eyes wide and wary despite the glaze of tequila. “Your room? Why not my room?”

I freeze, my mind scrambling for a response. Her question hangs in the air, heavy with implications and the unspoken history that simmers between us like a live wire.

Yeah, Cole. It’s a valid question. Why notherroom?

“I have an early meeting tomorrow,” I say, my voice betraying nothing of the internal battle raging within me. “In case you’re still asleep when the team gets here, it would be better for them to find you… here. In my room. To keep up appearances and all that.”

The words taste like ash in my mouth, even as I mentally high-five myself for coming up with a semi-plausible excuse on such short notice. There’s just one tiny problem: It’s a complete and utter lie. I don’t have a meeting tomorrow. Hell, I don’t evenhave pants picked out for tomorrow. But Lola doesn’t need to know that.

“Oh,” she murmurs, her breath tickling my ear. For someone who just accused me of having dragon breath, she sure seems to be enjoying our close proximity. “Are you sleeping here, too?”

My cock, the traitorous bastard, springs to attention at the thought, at the image that flashes through my mind: Lola, tangled in my sheets, those long legs…

I mentally slap myself. “No,” I say, my voice a little rougher than intended. “I’ll sleep in another one of the guest rooms.”

“What if they come in and find you in another bed?” she asks, her voice small and uncertain.

It’s almost cute how concerned she sounds about maintaining our fake love story. Almost. “They won’t,” I say, forcing myself to sound confident, even as my pulse quickens at the thought of her worrying about me, about us.

“But what if they do?” she persists, her fingers digging lightly into my shoulder.

“They won’t, Lola,” I say, my patience wearing thin. “I don’t sleep late.”

“But what if you do… tomorrow?”

Every muscle in my body tightens, every nerve ending on high alert. This close to her, her scent wrapping around me like a forbidden drug, it’s getting harder to remember why I’m fighting this, why I should push her away.

“I won’t,” I growl, my voice a low rumble in the quiet room. “Because there is no meeting. No one is coming over tomorrow.”

Her eyes widen, a mixture of surprise and something unnervingly close to amusement dancing in their emerald depths. “You lied?”

I let out a long-suffering sigh, feeling like an idiot teenager caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I don’t know, okay? Maybe I had too much to drink.”

It’s a pathetic excuse, and we both know it. I had one beer—okay, maybe it was a really big beer—but I doubt Lola was keeping track of my alcohol intake while she was busy charming the pants off my best friend. Plus, there’s no way I would drive if I had too much to drink.

“So, no one is coming in the morning?” she asks, her voice softer now, losing some of its earlier bite.

“No.”

“But you’re still putting me to sleep… in your bed,” she says, her gaze darting around the room as if just noticing where we are.

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