Page 69 of The Haunted Hotel

His body is trembling, so I pull him into a hug, wrapping my arms and legs around him and plastering our sweaty bodies together while our breathing slows.

I don’t know how long we stay tangled up in each other, but I finally relax my legs, stretching them out to link with his as he lays between my thighs. His head rests on my chest right above my heartbeat, and I lazily card my fingers through his hair.

“It’s never been like that before.” Morgan’s whisper has a puzzled tone to it.

“Not for me either,” I confess.

We lie for a few more minutes and watch the snow, which has lightened up to a few tiny flakes drifting past the conservatory windows.

“Tell me about your life in America.” I want to know everything about this complicated, contradictory man.

“What do you want to know?” he mutters. “It’s not really that interesting. I go to work, I travel for work, I work out in the gym between work.”

The corners of my mouth tug up. “Sounds like you work a lot.”

“Yeah. Honestly, I think I’ve done it for so long that I’ve forgotten how to do anything else.” He twists his head so our eyes can meet. “I came here because I was mad about what had happened. Pissed that the papers had connected my name to this place.”

“That’s understandable.”

“The thing is,”—he settles his head back on my chest and turns toward the window, as if it’s too hard to look at me whilesaying the next words—“I came here because I was angry, but it gave me something I didn’t know I needed.”

“And what’s that?”

“Peace.” He says the one word so softly I almost don’t hear it.

My heart gives a hard knock and I close my eyes.

Damn this man. He’s going to break me, I just know it.

22

As I enter the dining room from the kitchen with a silver warming dish full of bacon and sausage in my hands, I resist the urge to wince.

Or smirk.

I’m a bit undecided.

There’s definitely something to be said for having an older lover. He’s not only sexy as hell, but he’s alsoverythorough. I don’t think there’s a single inch of my body he didn’t worship last night.

Once our overheated bodies had cooled, the conservatory became too cold for lounging around naked, with the added, albeit small, risk of someone stumbling across our intertwined bodies on the chaise. It was so late that most of the staff was probably in bed, but still.

Although you never know with Mr Pennington. I caught him wondering around the hotel in the middle of the night a few days ago so he could, in his words,experience the nighttime terror of a haunted hotelas research for his book.

Yes, it may be haunted, but there’s really not that much terrifying about it at all.

Morgan and I had snuck up the stairs half-dressed and covered in sweat and cum, trying not to get caught, then showered together in his room, and I spent the rest of the night in his bed.

I pause and close my eyes to fully immerse myself in the memory. I’ve never spent the entire night with someone before. He’d made love to me all night long. It was as if he was aware, just as I was, that the clock is ticking on this thing between us.

I’d left him in bed this morning tangled up in sheets that smelled of us. I had to get up since I had duties in the hotel, but god, I hadn’t wanted to leave that warm cocoon or the heat of his naked body. Setting the dish on the table, I look up to see Morgan saunter into the dining room. His dark eyes immediately zero in on me, and I smile.

It’s such a marked difference from when he first arrived. Gone is the tightly buttoned, overly stressed, extremely grouchy man with perfect hair and a thousand-dollar suit, and in his place now is a relaxed and happy man wearing jeans and sweaters, looking perfectly at ease with himself and the world.

He comes up and drops a kiss onto my lips. “Good morning,” he mutters against my mouth, then kisses me again.

“Morning.” Heat travels to my cheeks as my mouth curves into a wide smile.

“Missed you this morning.”