Page 7 of Confused AF
“I do not work for Arcana Resorts. I’m pretty sure that counts as fraud or something.”
Vaden rolled his eyes and swatted my arm with his tail. “At best, you’re an accessory after the fact.”
It hadn’t really hurt, but I rubbed my arm and glared anyway. “You’re not even a little bit excited that we got the suiteanda discount?”
“The room prices are artificially inflated for the convention. Maybe even double of what they would typically be.” He fell silent as we filed into the elevator, moving to the back wall to make room for the horde of other guests. “You might have savedten percent,” he added quietly from the corner of his mouth. “And it had nothing to do with an employee discount.”
I tilted my head back to frown up at him, barely resisting the urge to stick my tongue out. “Look, I’m not used to stuff like this. Just let me be happy.”
As more people filled the cab, he hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me closer, holding me tightly against his side.
“By all means,” he said, bending to murmur the words against my ear. “You’re cute when you’re happy.”
I froze.
My breath stuttered, puffing harshly from my lips, and my heart flopped over like a drama queen. Blood roared in my ears, muting the other sounds around me, and I felt dizzy as the scent of his cologne filled my head.
My brain glitched, throwing up error codes like confetti, even as I tried to logic my way out of it.
His arm around my waist served a practical purpose inside the crowded elevator. By standing close together, it made room for other passengers, and his larger, more visible frame prevented me from being trampled.
Completely benign. Totally justifiable. It didn’t mean anything.
Only, itfeltlike it meant something.
I focused on the numbers on the elevator panel, willing them to change faster, desperate for any distraction from the warmth of his hand against my side. So, of course, we stopped on almost every floor between the first and ours.
When the elevator finally slowed to a stop on the fourteenth floor, I sighed in gratitude, but the relief didn’t last. Vaden’s arms dropped away as we stepped out of the cab, that small action bringing with it a pang of disappointment I wasn’t ready to examine.
My reaction to the loss of contact, however, didn’t go unnoticed.
“Everything okay?”
I nodded quickly and flashed him a smile. “Fine.” I swallowed, hating the tightness in my throat and the tremor in my voice. “Just a little overwhelmed, I guess.”
That much, at least, was true. Between the flight and the hotel drama, my nerves felt fried, and the incident in the elevator had damn near pushed me over the edge.
Vaden studied me for what felt like an eternity before he nodded and started walking again. “Try not to stress too much.”
As we approached the door to our suite, I retrieved the keycard from my back pocket and tapped it against my palm with a sigh. “How can I not?”
Sure, we had a room now, and I hadn’t been forced to take out a second mortgage just to afford it. By my estimation, though, everything else sucked.
“Because it’s my job to worry for you,” he answered, his tone steady and confident. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“You can’t know that,” I argued, pausing outside of our room to look up at him.
“Actually, I can.” He plucked the black-and-gold card from my hand and tapped it against the lock. Then he pressed down on the lever-style handle and cracked the door open, but he didn’t enter the room. “Do you trust me?”
“I barely know you.” I couldn’t look at him when I said it, though.
“Fair enough, but at least trust me to do my job well.”
I closed my eyes briefly and huffed out a long breath. “Yeah, okay, I can do that.”
“Then that’s a start.” He finally pushed the door open wide and ushered me inside ahead of him.
The common area appeared spacious and filled with the typical hotel furniture that valued function over style or comfort. Across the room, gold curtains stood open wide, the shimmering material bracketing a wall-sized window that overlooked the Strip.
