Page 56 of Settling the Score

He nodded, stepping back from her, keeping his hands firmly at his side.

‘Unless you want to stay here.’

He stared at her. Like, really stared. Because he couldn’t speak. It was as if every single word in the English language had upped and left his brain, all at once. A mass exodus of verbal language skills. Of thinking skills. Of everything. Like he was having a stroke or something.

‘The bed’s huge,’ she pointed out, dropping her gaze to the floor between them before piercing him once more with her direct gaze.

‘It is,’ he agreed, glad some words were back, even if they were monosyllabic.

‘I just mean to sleep, obviously. And then tomorrow you can go back to your own room and track down the cricket.’

‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘Are you sure?’

She lifted one shoulder. ‘Let me think about that. Do you snore?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘You know I don’t snore.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ she said. ‘You might have started snoring in the last ten or so years.’

‘If I have, no one’s told me.’

Her smile slipped for a nanosecond and he could have killed himself for alluding to having shared a bed with other women.

‘Because that wouldn’t really be a fair swap,’ she recovered quickly, her tone impish once more. ‘You getting away from the cricket and me inheriting a snorer.’

‘I don’t snore.’

‘Well, you just said you don’t know that definitively.’

‘Are you retracting your offer?’

‘I’m just making sure I know what I’m getting myself into.’

‘No snoring. No sex.’

Her jaw dropped at the brazen statement.

‘Unless you want?—’

‘No,’ she hastened to add, cheeks flushed a pretty bright pink. ‘I really did just mean for you to share the bed. As in, one side of it. With, like, a big, impermeable line, right down the middle.’

‘Got it. Our own Great Wall of China.’

‘Or Mariana Trench.’

‘As unpassable as the DMZ. Got it.’

She stared at him for a few seconds before gesturing to the door across the room. ‘The bathroom’s through there. And that’s pretty much it.’

‘Thanks.’ He moved towards the bed. ‘Do you have a favourite side?’

‘I use the whole thing,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I’m like a starfish right in the middle.’

‘Not tonight,’ he said.

‘Yeah, I should probably apologise in advance if I kick you to the ground.’

‘Try not to.’