Page 8 of Gifted

Chapter Five

~ Noah ~

The room had pros and cons.

When I opened the door, it was indeed the smallest hotel accommodations I’d ever seen. The bed, which looked as if it might be a double, took up half the space of the long, narrow room. An electric fireplace was against the angled wall across from it, a desk and chair next to it.

Our bags had been placed near the wardrobe. Heading toward them while Poppy glanced around, probably horrified that there was only one bed, I set down the laptop backpack I’d been hefting around with me. It was so much like an extra appendage lately, I practically forgot I was dragging it around.

“We have our own bathroom, anyway,” I said. I knew not all European rooms did—especially when they were this small.

“Yeah,” she replied, sounding a little choked.

Yeah, definitely the bed thing. My cock thought it was mighty fine, but I had bad news for him.

I pulled open the wardrobe and was glad to find extra bedding. “We’ll get the fireplace going to make it toasty in here.” I tossed the blanket and pillow on the floor where I planned to make my bed. “You need to use the bathroom first?”

“Are we going to bed right away?” she half-whispered.

“We don’t have to. It’s pretty early. I can cue a movie on my laptop for us to watch, if you want.”

She nodded, grabbing onto that as if it were a lifeline. “I’d like that.”

“Great. Go get on your pajamas, and I’ll…” Figure out what the fuck I was going to wear since I usually slept naked. “I’ll hang up our coats and get more comfortable.”

We’d both taken off our hand coverings already and I held out an arm, indicating for her to give me her red puffer jacket so I could hang it with my similar gray one. She slipped out of it, revealing her slim figure in skinny jeans and a red sweater with a white semi-circle of Nordic stars across the top.

“Is red your favorite color?” I asked.

A sweet blush darkened her already wind-reddened cheeks. “This time of year, it is. I like dark aqua a lot, too.”

I noted the information, saving it away in my memory banks, then turned to the closet before I investigated to find out whether or not more of her clothes or body bore the same hue. I needed to think with the big head and not the little one that kept throbbing for her and trying to remind me she was completely legal.

Yet…off-limits.

I put away our outer gear while she dug in her suitcase. When I turned back, she stood there with her bedclothes hugged to her chest.

Right. There might be tension zinging back and forth between us, and she might get the courage to toss out statements that invited my attention, but she was still a shy girl who spent most of her time with her nose stuck in a book.

“I’m going to see about that phone call,” I said. Patting down my pockets, I made sure I had the room key and my phone. I paused on my way out, hand of the knob. “Don’t leave the room. And don’t let anyone in.”

“I won’t, Noah.” Her teeth sank into her lip, and her face got redder. Fuck me. The next few days were going to kill me.

Just looking at her, the way her silky midnight hair framed her gorgeous face, punched me in the gut. All the emotions in her luminous blue eyes wrapped through my nervous system and triggered my basal ganglia, awakening my inner caveman.

My woman. My female.

Mate her.

No one touches her.

Jesus, I had to get out of here before I pulled out my dick and peed a circle around her. No one would be happy about that.

“I’ll be back,” I grunted and stomped out, making sure the door was secure behind me. Shaking my head, I stood still for a moment and took a couple deep breaths.

No matter what I told myself, no matter how I thought about how I’d drag her around this town tomorrow so we weren’t cooped up in the room, my mind kept returning to burying myself eight deep in her. Taking that sweet little pussy and making it mine forever.

And now, my dick was rock hard again, not that it had fully deflated any time since I’d found her peering through that shop window.

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