Page 21 of For the Love of Animals

“What the hell are you doing? Get off!”

“Querida, you’re the one who’s lying on top of me.” On the floor. In her parents’ house.

She rolled away, which only made things worse.

“Where are my pants?” she screeched.

“Shh, or you’ll wake the whole house.”

The death glare was so much better.

“Where. Are. My. Fucking. Pants?”

“In the laundry hamper along with your shirt. Don’t you remember anything that happened last night?”

Now she fell silent. Silent and a little worried, judging by the way she bit her bottom lip. Her hands shook as she lifted the sheet he’d covered himself with, the sheet she’d wormed her way underneath in the middle of the night, totally unaware of what she was doing. He’d kept his shirt and pants on, and somehow got her and her spaghetti arms into a clean T-shirt, but she still couldn’t meet his gaze.

“We didn’t, did we?”

“Didn’t what?”

“Didn’t… You really want me to spell it out?”

“I think so, yes.”

There was something incredibly hot about her when she got all flustered and angry, and the devil in Nate just couldn’t help winding her up.

Carmen covered her eyes with her hands, then gritted her teeth and whacked him with a pillow.

“Well, I’m not going to. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Would it have been such a terrible thing?”

Silence. Nate figured that was better than an outright no.

“Nothing happened, okay?” He decided to put her out of her misery. “I tried to put you to bed, but you insisted that I was the guest and you’d sleep on the floor. Three times, I moved you, and three times, you grabbed the spare blanket and threw yourself down in front of the window. In the end, I gave up, so we both slept here.” Nate allowed himself a smile. “Can’t say I minded.”

Carmen closed her eyes again and groaned. “I threw up, didn’t I?”

“So you didn’t forget everything.”

“I’m so sorry. I just got nervous, and I didn’t realise how much I was drinking, and…”

Nate pressed a finger to her lips.

“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. Who proposes to the man she supposedly loves, then vomits on him?”

“If it helps, you only got my shoes.”

She burrowed under the covers, curling herself up in a tiny ball. Fuck. The woman was certifiable, but Nate’s inner caveman didn’t seem to care about that. He realised at that moment that when he got on a plane back to Virginia, he wanted her beside him, every last kooky atom in her.

“Carmen?”

“This is all a nightmare. I’ll wake up soon.”

Nate got to his knees and lifted her into the same position, facing him. She was fit, but although Carmen was an inch or two taller than Emmy, she didn’t have the same bulk that Black’s protégé had packed on over the last year. Or the same obstreperous attitude, thank fuck.

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