The Dealmaker (Sex & Bonds 1)

We grab a taxi and head back to the hotel.

I’m suddenly a lot less tired when we walk into the Four Seasons fifteen minutes later.

In fact, I’m shaking with nerves. And in true Nora Frasier style, I can’t stop talking.

“I’m going to double check nothing opened up,” I say, and make a beeline for the front desk, where a woman with the coolest cat-eye glasses ever tells me I’m now number nineteen on the waitlist for room cancellations.

“But we did have your bag taken to the Mariposa Suite,” she says with a smile. “Enjoy your evening.”

I glance over my shoulder to see Theo standing behind me, eyes locked on my face. I can’t read his expression, maybe because he’s feeling as conflicted as I am.

I don’t want to share a room with Theo. I also really do. I’d be lying if I said my stomach didn’t do a happy little flip when Glasses Girl said no luck. Which is ridiculous, because I can’t touch Theo again no matter how much I may want to right now.

No matter how fantastic he’s been today, and yesterday, and the day before that. In the back of my mind, I’m already thinking about doing a repeat of our accidental Honor Bar date for lunch tomorrow. Start with that insanely good dip, end with Theo telling me more about his family as we walk barefoot on Butterfly Beach, which just so happens to be across the street from our hotel.

Pump. The. Brakes.

The woman at the front desk hands me a key, and then I’m following Theo out a side door and onto a path lined with towering palm trees and flower beds overflowing with lilies, their fresh, clean scent heavy in the night air.

My heart is pounding.

We head inside one of the outer buildings and up a winding flight of stairs. Then, just like that, we’re at a door marked with a porcelain placard that reads Mariposa Suite.

“Remember,” I say as Theo glides his keycard into the lock, “I get the bed, you get the bathtub.”

He chuckles, a sound that rumbles inside the massive barrel of his chest. “Please don’t smother me in my sleep though. I still have three sisters to put through college.”

My heart twists. He keeps dropping these tantalizing tidbits, but then he moves on before I can dig a little deeper, find out why he’s paying his sisters’ tuition when every other single guy his age making seven figures is buying mountains of blow in Las Vegas and/or a Ferrari.

Theo opens the door and holds it for me, hand spread wide, forearm two inches from my face. I want to bite it.

By the grace of God, I do not. I step inside the room, and I’m overtaken by a full body shiver. It smells like expensive hotel toiletries and fresh flowers.

It smells like him. I catch just a hint of that crisp, woodsy aftershave in the air, and when I glance to my right at the bathroom, I see a fancy-looking bottle on the counter there, along with an electric razor, a toothbrush, and Crest toothpaste. Bottle of contact solution and a bright green retainer case too.

The intimacy of bearing witness to these things—his routine, his preferences—the intimacy of him allowing me into his everyday world—makes my chest hurt.

“You still wear a retainer?” I blurt.

He chuckles again, following me inside. The door sighs shut behind him. “I didn’t get my teeth fixed until I was a senior in college. Guess because I was older, I have an appreciation for never wanting to get braces again. I’m anal about wearing it—my retainer.”

Good. Maybe if he wears his retainer tonight, I’ll be slightly less attracted to him, and therefore slightly less likely to invite him to get naked in my bed.

Only I suspect that if I ask why he didn’t get his teeth fixed until he was in his twenties, he’ll give me an answer that’ll only make me fall in love with him.

Love. Where the hell did that come from?

I focus on the word anal instead—butts are always funny—but that just leads me down another path I shouldn’t be on. So I make a beeline for my suitcase, which has been placed on a luggage rack in the bedroom to my left. I notice the room is a suite in the true sense of the word: it’s divided by a wall and a door into two sections, the bedroom and the living area, each with its own TV. There’s also a sweet little patio with a pair of chaise lounges that appears to overlook the ocean.

It’s an absolute stunner of a room. The decor is plush without being stuffy, done in a very California palette of crisp whites, cool greens, and soothing taupes. The fact that the wall is there makes me breathe a little easier.