For now, though, I settled for letting her sleep in my arms. I watched the sights of Seattle rolling by as the city awoke, silently enjoying the peaceful moment and feeling quietly content with Nalia in my arms until we finally pulled up in front of our hotel.

“Nalia, wake up,” I coaxed gently, stroking her cheek. Her eyes fluttered open, and she put a hand on my chest, sitting herself up. She looked around, her eyes slightly worried, as if she was expecting the others to catch us. I smiled, not particularly caring about that myself. I was pretty sure that by now they had a good idea something was going on, anyway.

“We’re at the hotel,” I told her. “So I guess that means it's time to rise and shine, then go wake up and rally the troops. I sure hope the rest of them got as good a night's rest as I did. How about you, did you sleep well?”

“Like a baby,” she said. “I didn't think I'd be able to sleep this well on a bus, but it was as good as any hotel bed.” She smiled and smoothed her hair and clothing as she pulled herself to stand. I got up as well, helping her wake up the others. I woke up Jay and then Talon, and he gave me a sour look after he yawned and stretched. I jumped straight into an apology, though, not wanting any bitterness or resentment to simmer.

“Sorry about snapping last night, Tal. I’m just a bit stressed. I really didn’t mean to throw your shit out there like that. It was a dick move, and it was totally uncalled for.”

“Yeah. It was, dude. But whatever, I'm over it,” he said, shrugging it off as he wiped the sleep from his eyes. “We at the hotel?”

“Yeah. And, we'll have a few hours to chill if you want to rest up more before we start our long-ass day,” I told him, patting his shoulder.

He nodded, looking exhausted. “Might take you up on that offer.”

“What time did you two get to sleep, anyway?”

“Late enough to see you and Nalia curled up together,” he replied as he flashed me a sleepy grin. “That’s the real reason why you were pissy with me last night, wasn’t it? Come on, dude. I know you better than that. Don't try pull the wool over my eyes with this 'I'm feeling so stressed out' crap. Just admit it, man!”

This time it was me who had to shrug. What could I say? He had caught me red-handed with my hand in the figurative cookie jar.

“You two have ha

d sex already, too, haven't you? And don't lie about it, man! You get this look in your eyes and this little twitch on the left side of your face when you lie—I've known that since we were little! So, tell me, what happened to the whole ‘nobody bangs the assistant’ pact, hmm?” He laughed, his signature shit-eating grin glowing on his face now, despite his exhaustion.

My neck grew a little hot. “All right, all right, yeah. I like her. A lot. Probably more than I should. Maybe if we weren’t doing all the touring and everything, there would be something more there, but, yeah. Now just keep your mouth shut about it, please? Got it?” I shot him a look.

He made a zipper-like motion over his lips. “I can’t promise Jay won’t say anything or that the others aren’t already noticing something there, but I won’t say anything else about it. I’ll tone down the flirting, though, even if I was just having fun with her. You know I wouldn’t step on your toes like that.”

I smiled warmly at him. “I appreciate that, lil bro.”

“Besides, she seems to be the only one who is able to shake that damn stick up your ass loose,” he said as the grin returned. “Hell, maybe she'll even be able to pull the whole damn thing out of there!”

I gave him a playful smack on the back of the head.

“Come on. Let’s get settled into the suite,” I suggested. He hopped down from his bunk with a loud thump and followed me out with the others to grab our bags. Nalia already had a couple of luggage carts waiting for us and had the bellman loading our bags. Little things like that made me especially thankful for an assistant—and waking up with her curled up next to me made me especially thankful that I had chosen her.

“Come on, boys, let's get moving. We’ve got a couple hours to rest up, then a busy, but fun-filled, day ahead of us,” she said in a chipper, but somewhat sarcastic manner, causing groans of dissent from the others.

I couldn’t help but laugh, as I’d actually slept great and wasn’t tired at all. Nalia had already gotten us checked in, so we headed straight for the elevator and upstairs to our suite. As soon as the doors opened, Talon and Jay headed for the bedrooms, and I heard the distinct flop of Talon throwing himself on a mattress. The others did the same, just tossing their luggage on the floor and not bothering to unpack anything. It seemed that nobody else, besides Nalia and I, had actually gotten much rest on the bus. I hung back and tipped the bellman, then turned to Nalia.

“You going to get some rest, too?” I asked her.

“Nah. I feel pretty well rested,” she shrugged. “Anyway, there are a bunch of things I want to check on for our next stop and a number of other small details about things that I just want to double check. And, I was definitely thinking of taking a nice, long, relaxing bubble bath before the guys dirty up all the bathrooms, too. I bet the tub here in the penthouse is amazing, you know.”

“Mmm, a bubble bath with you sounds amazing right about now.” A wicked grin crossed my lips, but she put a hand up.

“I said a relaxing bubble bath, and that means alone. The only company I'd want for that would be a book,” she said with a wink. I gave her a playful pout.

She added a teasing, “Maybe later,” before disappearing up the stairs. I watched her go up, wishing I could join her, but in truth, I had some more emails and other business matters to take care of myself. Despite that, a “maybe later” sounded great and was enough to keep my spirits up.

I headed to one of the rooms myself and pulled out my laptop, getting lost in emails and looking over our set list for the night. It wasn’t until Nalia knocked on the door that I realized over two hours had passed.

“You might want to get in one of the showers before the other guys get in. You know, freshen up and wash the road off of you.” She leaned against the open doorway.

I pulled my shirt off, smelling it, and my eyes certainly did not miss the once-over she gave my bare chest.

“Do I smell?” I asked. She leaned toward me and took a sniff, in the process letting me get a nice whiff of how sweet she smelled.

Tags: Claire Adams Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net