Page 18 of After The Storm

“So are you here alone, Roman?” she asked in that purring voice he had to admit he liked.

He shook his head and saw the bartender hold up the bag of food he’d ordered from the restaurant next door. “No, and I have to head back up to the room to get back to work.”

Cheri’s hand slid up his thigh toward his crotch to stop him from leaving. “So soon? I won’t have anyone to keep me company once you’re gone.”

Standing, he angled his hips away from her and grabbed the bag from the bartender. “Sorry. Wish I could stay, but duty calls.”

Roman tossed two twenties on the bar and turned to leave, but Cheri touched his arm to stop him. “Wait.”

He turned and saw her push a napkin toward him as she smiled. Taking it, he glanced at it and saw her name and her room number 515. He couldn’t say Cheri didn’t make the effort until the bitter end.

“See you later, Cheri.”

“I hope so, Roman.”

As he walked back through the lobby toward the elevator, he silently thanked her for helping him take his mind off the woman who waited upstairs. Cheri had successfully distracted him at least for a little while and helped him remember that he needed to push down whatever he was beginning to feel for Kate and forget it.

Forever.

It was the only thing he could do. She didn’t need any more problems in her life. She had enough to deal with right now, and he couldn’t offer her or any other woman what she deserved.

When he reached the second floor, he checked out the exits on each end of the hallway and the stairwell just in case they needed to get the hell out of there in a hurry. No one odd or suspicious looking lurked near their hotel room. In fact, he saw no one at all after leaving the bar.

Satisfied they hadn’t been found out yet, he returned to the room to find Kate sound asleep on the queen size bed wearing the white robe he’d seen hanging on the back of the bathroom door when he went in there. She lay on her side with her left leg peeking out from under the robe, the tan skin a stark contrast to the pristine whiteness of the fabric. Just seeing her wearing it brought back the memory of how sexy she’d looked in that tub with too few bubbles to cover her.

Christ, he didn’t want to think about how her body looked all wet and slick as she lay there.

Staring at her as she slept, he tried to think of anything but how much he’d wanted her. He needed something to distract him or he’d spend the rest of the day thinking about Kate and how much he now wanted to climb into bed with her and run his hands over her body to see if what he’d thought as he looked at her in the tub had been true.

Focus, man. This is a job. Not to mention that the woman is a huge hassle. She argues with you constantly. Who needs that shit in their life? Think about Cheri. She wouldn’t argue. She’d never argue. Cheri is all about giving men what they want. Think about her and eat your damn food. Forget about that woman in the bed right there.

This was the second time he’d had to give himself a talking to about Kate. He sat down in the chair and pulled the coffee table toward him to make a table so he could eat his hamburger and fries. Anything to keep focused on the job at hand.

Looking over toward her, he thought about waking her so she could eat her cheeseburger but decided against it. She needed sleep more than she needed a greasy burger at that moment.

And he needed to stay away from her and focus on his job.

He kept telling himself that as he turned on the TV and tried to get into some basketball game he found on ESPN College. He hated basketball, so it didn’t exactly help to keep his mind off the woman who lay fast asleep just a few feet away.

The hamburger and fries tasted like something that Bayou Motel might serve up for its guests, surprisingly. Roman ate his meal because it had been nearly a day since he had any food, but for the amount they charged, he’d expected better than a greasy beef patty on a stale bun and soggy fries.

When he finished, he tossed the wrappers in the bag and tried to busy himself with flipping through the channels to find something—anything—interesting to watch. He watched some early morning television with its shows created to amuse and dull the senses, but this morning, it wasn’t accomplishing either goal.

He’d gotten some sleep on the plane to New Orleans, so he wasn’t tired yet, and until Kate awoke and they could talk about who she thought would want to kill her boss and his client, he couldn’t even start on the case.

That left sitting there in that chair next to the bed and doing everything humanly possible not to let his gaze drift over toward Kate as she slept.

As he started to give himself the third pep talk since they got to the hotel room, Kate began thrashing around, kicking her feet and flailing her arms at the air like she had when she first saw him back at the other motel. He watched as her face grew dark, and then she sat up and began to scream in a way that made his blood run cold.

He hurried over to her side and sat down next to her on the bed. Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, he tried to calm her. “Kate, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m right here.”

She turned to look at him, her eyes wide with pure fear. “Where am I? What happened?”

“We’re at the Allton in the French Quarter. We came here after we left the motel you were at. You’re okay. You just had a nightmare.”

Kate took a deep breath and looked around the hotel room. “The Allton? And you’re Roman Madson, the guy who’s supposed to protect me, right?”

He smiled at her mistake with his last name. Of course she would have assumed that was his real name since he’d used it to pay for the room. Just one of his aliases he used on the job.

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