Escorting the Groom (The Escort Collection 4)

"Well, when you've finished admiring all available shiny objects, come out and join me in the dining room."

Blake sat up and looked at me skeptically. "You cooked?"

"Don't be crazy. I ordered room service, and I set it up on the table."

"Well, in that case," she said, smiling, "I'll be out in a minute."

She joined me exactly one minute later, wearing a T-shirt and a pair of leggings. Her hair was mussed. She sat down at the table and smiled at me shyly. "Hi."

"Hi." I tried to ignore the chills that shot through me when she smiled at me like that. "It's sort of awkward, right? We're newly married and newly consummated, all at once."

"It's totally sort of awkward. And awesome." Blake nodded, still smiling, and dug into her fruit cup. "Wouldn't it be nice to live at a hotel like this? You could always order whatever you want, whenever you want?"

"That's why I live at The Stratum. Room service twenty-four hours a day. And housekeeping."

Blake shook her head. "That's so not the real world. And neither is this." She looked around at the suite and the view beyond.

It's your world now, I thought. Blake deserved all the good things in life, and I was determined to give them to her this year. After that, the money I was paying her would help her have a bright, secure future.

One that didn't include me.

But I didn't want to think about that, so I pushed the thought roughly from my mind.

"If it's all right with you, I'd like us to stay in today. I think I've had enough company for one weekend."

Blake nodded. "Of course. When are we leaving for our trip?"

"Tomorrow morning." I couldn't wait to whisk her away to the beauty and peace of the islands. "So we have the day to ourselves to relax. I scheduled massages. Is there anything else you'd like to do?"

"I just want to check out that pool." She motioned to the deck outside. "It looks amazing."

"We can certainly do that." I pictured her in a bikini, and I felt a strong pull of desire in my belly. "Anything else? Do you like to gamble?"

"No," Blake said. "I don't like to take chances with money."

I smiled at her. "Me either. But how about we make plans to go to dinner? Just the two of us?" The hopeful tone in my voice disgusted me. Who else is she going to hang out with?

She smiled at me. "That sounds great. Everything was wonderful yesterday, but I'm definitely feeling wiped out from it all."

"Me too."

We finished breakfast in silence. I couldn't tell if it was awkward or not. "You want to hit the pool?" I asked.

Blake flashed another smile at me, putting me at ease. "That sounds great." She headed off to change, and I mentally kicked myself. I was acting like a crushed-out schoolboy, for Christ's sake. We met outside on the private deck, which overlooked the strip. The sun was climbing in the sky, but the temperature was still perfect, warm without being overbearing.

"This is so amazing," Blake said. "I never even knew that a hotel room could have its own pool." She stripped off her cover-up to reveal a black string bikini, and any response I might have been formulating froze on my lips. She noticed me watching her and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "What?" she asked nonchalantly as she stepped into the pool. Her nipples immediately hardened underneath the scraps of fabric covering them.

I felt myself getting hard again. "Is it cold?"

Blake went all the way into the water, splashing a little. "No, it's amazing. You should come in."

She didn't need to ask me twice. I stripped out of my T-shirt and headed into the water, hoping it was cold enough to calm man-land. Blake went under and then sat on one side of the pool. I climbed in and sat on the other.

"So… this is still awkward, right?" she asked.

"Seems to be." Another silence ensued. This one was definitely awkward.

Blake watched me from her side. "So, here's the state of our union, as I see it. We got married, and we had sex last night. And you said that we only had to consummate once in order for the marriage to be legal. So where does that leave us?"