Page 21

Story: Dead Rinker

His eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Pretend what?”

“That you like me, that we like each other. We can just exist in the same space for the next two days and not fight and then go our separate ways for a detox.”

Blowing out a humorless laugh, he shoves his hands into the front pockets of his low-riding black jeans. “I don’t hate you.”

“But you don’t like me.”

He drops his head between his shoulders and looks at the floor. “I thought you didn’t want to talk.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Then what are we doing here? Let me take your luggage upstairs. One, because it looks crazy heavy, and two,” he pulls his head back up, looking at me with an intense expression that sends my knees weak, “because I’m a gentleman.”

I scoff. “Ha! Okay.”

He lurches forward, grabbing my suitcase by the strap.

“I wasn’t saying okay to carrying my luggage. I was?—”

“Whatever,” he bites out as he stalks up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Kicking off my sneakers, I chase after him. “Give me back my suitcase.”

He stops mid-way to the top and whips around to me. “Remind me. When is it you turn thirty-six?”

“August.”

“Start acting like it then.”

He continues back up the stairs, and I chase him down the hallway until he stops outside a door I assume is to my bedroom.

“And what about you? When do you hit puberty?”

Placing his hand on the round brass doorknob, he twists it open and then turns to offer a smug smirk, which is way too sexy. “I already did. But you keep passing up the opportunity to find out.”

There are so many ways I could dissect that statement. But I ignore all temptation to find out just how mature thirty-two-year-old Jensen Jones is.

Hard pass.

He disappears inside the room, and I follow. A king-sized bed with a brushed brass mental frame sits in the middle of the room. The decorations are soft pink and very girly; even the comforter is pink. I take in my surroundings for the next two days. “This should be Luna’s room.”

He chuckles and sets my case on the white wooden trunk at the foot of the bed. “They’re all like this. Frilly and shit.”

I fight back my laughter at his description—no need to encourage him.

“You can laugh, you know, even crack a smile at me.”

I press my lips together. “I will when you say something funny.”

He walks toward me, and the air crackles with charge. I know sleeping with him would be mind-blowingly amazing, and I hate how aware I am of it.

There’s barely a foot between us when his earthy cologne hits me. I haven’t been close enough to him to notice it lately, but with it comes a flashback of that night in Riley’s when I was perched on his lap.

I squeeze my thighs together, remembering the way he made me feel, just like the reaction I’m having now.

“I’ll make you smile at me if it’s the last thing I do, Princess.”

Princess.