Page 64 of Sin

Neither is his when he answers. “You should.”

He stands. I hate that I miss his warmth the second he moves away. He returns to his seat across the aisle, but he doesn’t open his laptop again. I recline my seat and pull the blanket up to my chest. Then, because I have no self-preservation, I look at him. He’s watching me.

The cabin is dim, his face half in shadow, but his eyes are clear.

Hot.

Haunted.

Hungry.

I swallow.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“For what?”

I don’t know how to answer that. For holding my hand. For not kissing me.

For almost kissing me.

For stopping.

So I say, “For the turbulence.”

His mouth curves faintly.

“You’re welcome.”

I turn onto my side, facing the window, and close my eyes. Sleep still doesn’t come.

But Mason stays quiet. And every few minutes, when the plane bumps or shifts, I feel his gaze on me like a touch. By the time I finally drift off, I’m thinking one awful, impossible thing. Amsterdam hasn’t even started yet and we already almost crossed the ocean’s worth of lines.

11

Laurel

“What do you mean there’s only one room under my reservation?” Mason asks the hotel concierge. “There should be two.”

The man behind the desk goes pale which is impressive, because he was already pale when we walked in, looking exhausted from what I assume has been a very long day of explaining to very wealthy sex toy executives that the entire city of Amsterdam is fully booked.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he says. “There must have been some kind of mix-up.”

Mason goes very still.

“And let me guess,” he says, voice dangerously quiet. “With the convention in town, there are no available rooms?”

The concierge swallows. “Not in the city.”

Of course this is happening. Because apparently the universe looked at Mason Sinclair and me after eight hours on a private jet, two hand-holding incidents, one almost-kiss, and a suitcase full of poor decisions and thought, You know what would help? One room.

Mason looks like he’s on the verge of having steam come out of his ears. I should let him intimidate this poor man until the hotel magically produces a second room, a spare castle, or maybe an emergency houseboat. Instead, I touch his arm.

Immediate mistake. His whole body tenses beneath my fingers. So does mine. The contact is brief. Barely anything. My hand on the sleeve of his sweater. Still, heat shoots up my arm like I’ve touched something live.

“Mason,” I say softly.

His eyes cut to mine. For a second, the lobby disappears. The concierge. The marble floor. The ridiculous floral arrangement large enough to hide a body. All gone. Just his arm under my hand and the memory of him almost kissing me somewhere over the Atlantic.