“The Polynesian,” I answered effortlessly. “What about you?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t booked a hotel yet. Polynesian seems as good a place as any.”
I frowned. “You came all the way here without first having reservations somewhere?”
He nodded, looking amused.
“Yes,” he answered. “Is that bad?”
“But…what if the hotel you were originally going to stay at didn’t have any openings?” I asked, flabbergasted.
His lips tipped up at the corners as he smiled slightly.
“You do realize…” He turned to stare me directly in the eyes, partially taking my breath away. “That Vegas literally has hotels out the ass. There’s bound to be one open room in all of Vegas.”
I licked my lips.
“Yeah,” I said. “But what if the one you wanted didn’t have any openings, and you had to stay at one off the strip?”
He started laughing at that.
I wasn’t sure whether or not I should be offended that he was laughing at me, but I couldn’t find it in me to be too upset seeing as he looked absolutely gorgeous laughing. It really suited him.
The muscles in his throat bunched, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.
And Jesus, that sexy, rusty, rarely used part of his voice was downright vagina-tingle inducing.
I’d never been one to want to break my vow of waiting for marriage on anyone before…but Jonah Crew? Yeah, I’d definitely consider breaking it for him.
“What was that look for?” he asked, sobering quickly.
I swallowed hard and tried to come up with a plausible lie.
“I was thinking that you could stay with me,” I said softly. “The hotel room has two beds since I was supposed to come with my dad.”
He frowned. “That wasn’t what you were going to say.”
“That’s all you’re getting,” I shared.
He snorted. “Fair enough.”
Our taxi ride to the Polynesian took less than fifteen minutes.
“That’ll be sixty-two fifty,” the taxi driver called from the front as we arrived at the hotel drop off.
“Umm,” I hesitated.
That sounded high.
I’d been here quite a few times before, and the last time I’d done this exact same trip it only cost thirty, and that was because my father had made him stop by the tattoo parlor first to make sure that he could get an appointment later with his good buddy. We hadn’t taken any detours this time, and it’d only been two years since I’d last been. There was no way in hell they’d doubled their cab fair price in all that time.
And Jonah, apparently, was on the same page as me seeing as he started growling from his seat beside me.
“I don’t see a meter,” Jonah argued. “Normally there’s one that the client in the back can see. I don’t even see one up front with you. How do you know what the price is?”
“The price is the price,” the middle-aged man said. “Now pay up or I’m calling the cops.”
Jonah snorted. “I’ll give you thirty, and you can go ahead and call the cops all you want. Do you want to take a photo of my license? That way you can tell the cops who I am, and have my picture for them to see, that way they can get in touch with me and I can tell them that you’re scamming your riders.”
The man’s jaw tightened, and he narrowed his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said as he turned. “I would like a picture of it.”
Jonah pulled it out and pressed it up against the glass.
“There,” he said. “Do you want my number, too? I have an email as well.”
The guy’s eyes narrowed.
“I don’t have to deal with this shit,” he hissed. “Ungrateful tourists like you. The price is sixty-two fifty. Either pay it or get out of my cab and I’ll call the cops.”
Jonah pulled out thirty-five dollars, tossed it on the seat of the cab, then dropped a business card on the seat.
“Left you a card back here,” Jonah said as he quickly slid out of the cab, grabbing my hand and helping me out.
Luckily I had the wherewithal to grab my bag as I was exiting because before both of my feet had even hit the pavement, the cab driver was peeling away from the curb with an angry ‘fuck you’ thrown Jonah’s way.
“You really have a habit of pissing people off,” I mused as I shouldered my bag.
Jonah grunted and gestured toward one of the bellhops that was waiting to help people with luggage.
“We’re good, thanks, man,” Jonah said his way.
The bellhop nodded and got the door for us, eliciting a ‘thank you’ from me and a ‘thanks again’ from Jonah.
We were inside the large lobby when Jonah said, “Guy was scamming us. I knew as soon as I got in and didn’t see the meter what he was going to try to do. Fucker.”
“You’ve had that happen before?” I asked curiously.
He shook his head and said, “No. I’ve heard about it, but not actually had it happen to me. You remember anything about the guy’s name?”