Page 60 of The Stolen Princess
“What if I untie it in the middle of the night?” She lifted her shoulders.
“I’ll feel it.”
She looked at the two cots spread five feet across the room from each other, then down at the foot of slack he’d given. “And how is the rope supposed to reach that far?”
“It’s not,” he said as he moved his cot right up next to hers, pulling her behind him. He straightened and gestured to the beds. “You first.”
Myka folded her arms across her chest. “I refuse to sleep next to you. We’ll be practically sleeping in the same bed.”
“Trust me, I wouldn’t touch you, even if my life depended on it.”
“You know, that is the second time today you have made a statement like that. And I’m starting to get a little offended. You wouldn’t touch meeven if your life depended on it.” She mockingly mimicked his tone.
His brows creased together. “Not everyone is in love with you.”
She let out a puff of air. “I didn’t say that they were.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I thought you were a gentleman.”
He kicked his head back. “I am.”
“A gentleman wouldn’t sleep in the same bed as a single woman.”
Drake pointed to the cots. “It’s not the same bed. It’s two separate cots.”
“It looks like one bed to me.”
“Tell you what, I’ll show you how much of a gentleman I am by sleeping the opposite direction as you. My head will be on one end, and your head can be on the other. Is that gentlemanly enough for you?”
Myka shook her head. “That doesn’t solve anything. The crucial body parts are still lined up.”
He raked a hand through his hair, laughing to himself. “Crucial body parts?”
“Yes,” she huffed. “The oldthere’s only one bed trick. Everyone always acts like sleeping in opposite directions is the answer to problems like this. But it’s not. Body parts are still lined up.”
A mischievous glint shone in his brown eyes. “If you asked most men, they would tell you that having crucial body parts lined up isn’t a problem. They’d say it’s a blessing.”
Myka grabbed the pillow off of one of the cots and started hitting him with it.
Drake laughed as he swatted her hits away, and suddenly Myka froze, dropping the pillow onto the cot. She shouldn’t be having a flirty pillow fight with her kidnapper, and Drake shouldn’t be laughing. She wasn’t sure of the rules but laughing with your captor had to be crossing some ethical line somewhere.
She scrambled into the bed, scooting toward the wall. There were so many parallels between her and Drake’s easy banter the first two times they had met and the barbed way they'd spoken to each other since he’d kidnapped her. It felt familiar, if a bit more strained, but before he’d kidnapped her, Myka had felt jittery, full of butterflies. Now she felt mad at herself and confused.
He threw the pillow at her, hitting her in the head. “Here.”
Suddenly Myka didn’t want to be the recipient of his kindness. She threw the pillow back at him. “I don’t want your pillow.”
“You don’t want a pillow?” His voice was lined with disbelief.
She was going to regret that move at two a.m. when her neck was stiff, but right now, she was a girl standing by her principals.
“Fine. Don’t have it then.” Drake tossed the pillow on top of his own and climbed onto his cot the opposite direction as her. He spread his blanket out over his body and then laid down on his back.
At first, Myka hugged the wall as close as she could, then her anger flared. This was ridiculous. Why was she the one trying to increase the space between them? Irritation burned inside her chest, and she stretched her legs out, letting her bare feet land on Drake’s face and neck.
“I know what you’re doing,” he muttered as he threw her feet away from his body.
