Page 61 of Meet Hate Love
“Gross. I don’t want to think I stayed inches away from a defecation mattress.”
I’d bet anything her being able to use the word defecation had made her day. I zoomed in to examine the photo a little more closely. The place made the alien hotel with the dead rat look like a five-star resort. “Would you rather have slept inches from a death mattress? Because, if it were me, I’d choose excrement over blood.”
“Ohhh! Good choice of words.”
That was one of the words I’d highlighted in my thesaurus. I made a small bow before passing back her phone.
Frowning, she stared down at the screen. “Regardless of what that stain was, the curse continues.”
“That’s not your curse at work, Blake.” I shoved away from the dresser, grabbing both of our passports and stuffing them inside my backpack. “That’s you making bad decisions.”
A slow smile crept over her face. “Speaking of bad decisions… Did you ever figure out how to make your SistpeenChapel shoot work?”
“Not a clue.” Not that I’d given it much thought. My preoccupation had been with her.
“Well, on the way over here, I had an idea. But it all depends on how comfortable you are wearing a kilt.”
ChapterEighteen
BLAKE
Vance had looked at me like I was crazy on the flight when I’d laid out my plan of how to snap a picture of Paul with “The Creation of Man” in the background. Although I could admit it was absurd, at least I’d come up with a plan. All he’d had was, well, nothing outside of thousands of subscribers willing to pay.
Men… Act first, think later.
“People are staring,” Vance said as we shuffled up in the line leading into Vatican City.
“Of course they are. You’re wearing a kilt. In Italy.”
We’d been in Rome for a total of two hours, most of which we had spent arguing, in broken Italian, with one of the airport staff about Vance’s luggage. They had evidently placed his suitcase on the wrong plane, and it was halfway to Singapore.
Honestly, I wondered if that was the only reason he had ended up in the kilt. Anyone would choose a kilt over jeans in one-hundred-degree weather.
The line moved up a little more. I glanced at the sign affixed to the stone wall.NO ENTRYwas written beneath a picture of sleeveless tops and above-the-knee shorts.
My attention dropped to the hunter-green tartan fabric that stopped just below Vance’s knees. For the first time in my life, I could see why some women were into those historical Highlander romances. Sexy legs and tartan fabric, bagpipes slung carelessly over their bare chest and broad shoulders. I wondered if there were any stories about the men using their bagpipes to get kinky with their lady-in-waiting…
Vance glanced at the sign, then back at me. “I don’t see a man in a skirt underneath the approved articles of clothing, Blake.”
“For the four-hundredth time, it’s a kilt. And it’s below your knees. So, you’re fine.” I pushed up on my toes to see over the line of people. Two guards with serious expressions stood by the arched entranceway. “It’s not like they’re going to arrest you.”
The line slowly moved up. Meanwhile, I sweated my ass off underneath the unrelenting sun. “This feels like literal hell…”
“Better get used to it.” Vance used a map he’d snatched from the hotel lobby to fan me, and I pretended not to swoon. “After today, it’s where we’re both going.”
“Me?” I piled my hair on top of my head, relishing in the small relief provided by his fanning. “You’re the one planning to take pictures of your penis.”
“True, but you’re my dick-pic sidekick.”
Oh, why did that have to rhyme? Dick-pic sidekick. Blake Leigh Brentley…
“My accomplice.” He nudged my shoulder. “The Bonnie to my Clyde.”
I wasn’t exactly the Bonnie to his Clyde. I was pretty sure those two had had sex. Lots of sex. Icouldbe the Bonnie to his Clyde, though… Yep. That orgasm had fried my brain.
I wiped at the sweat dotting my forehead while studying the sharp angles of Vance’s scruff-covered face. Funny. Oddly charming. Sexy. My gaze dragged over his defined chest straining against the fabric of his shirt. The memory of him between my thighs with his holy grail of a tongue surfaced. Maybe it was time I stopped fighting it and accepted it instead of running off and sleeping in murder hotels.
A string of relieved sighs came from the line of people when a heavenly breeze kicked up. An unsettled expression fell over Vance’s face before he slapped a hand over the flapping hem of his kilt. “You really should go into sales.”
