Page 26 of Fake Date with the Mountain Man

“Doesn’t count. It was the pillow that touched your ass, and you’ve got at least three layers of blankets piled on top of you. Besides, you’re the one that tried to get naked in front of me last night,” I laugh.

Marlow’s eyes widen and she quickly presses the palms of her hands over her face. She lets out a groan of misery but doesn’t put up a fight when I grab her wrists and pull her hands away. She sits up and glares at me.

“That was a mistake,” she finally says. “I was tipsy and tired and…”

“Horny?” I interrupt.

“What? No. Ew, Ryan.” She throws the covers off herself, standing up and stretching out her arms overhead with a big yawn. Her pajama top rides up, exposing a slice of her pinched waist with the little soft spot below. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed. If I reached out, I could easily pull her to me. I could explore her soft skin with my hands and my mouth. I could run my tongue across the little freckle just above her belly button. I could drag my teeth across the curve of her hip, or slide her pajama bottoms off and find out what it would really be like to touch her ass and her hips and her thighs.

And what the fuck is happening right now? Where are all these thoughts coming from? I need to get home and get laid. I need to purge Marlow from my brain.

“Who’s the horny one now?” she says, breaking me away from my thoughts.

Panic wells in my chest. Did I just say something out loud that I shouldn’t have? I didn’t touch her, did I? Then I follow her eye line down to the bulge in my jeans and laugh.

“Don’t flatter yourself; that’s just morning wood,” I lie. I took care of my morning wood in the shower twenty minutes ago.

“So, it has absolutely nothing to do with the way you were just staring at me like you wanted to club me over the head and drag me back to your sex cave? I presume that’s how you seduce all those women.”

I stand up. It’s a fucking terrible mistake. We’re only inches apart. How we managed to do this for hours at a time last night, I can’t seem to remember.

“You want to see how I seduce a woman?” I smirk at Marlow. Our eyes are fixed on each other, challenging the other person to make the next move.

And Marlow does.

She drives her fist into my right shoulder. It lands with a thump, and I rub the spot dramatically as she walks off.

“Just so you know,” she says over her shoulder, “I may snore in my sleep…but youtalkin yours.”

She winks and walks off toward the bathroom with an extra sashay in her step.

___

An hour later, we’re both dressed, packed, and waiting outside the lobby for the valet to bring my truck around. I’m still racking my brain over what I may have said in my sleep last night. Asking Marlow is out of the question. Letting her know that I even care what I said would be giving her too much power.

It’s not the first time a woman has told me that I talk in my sleep. Usually, it’s pretty innocuous stuff – mentions of food, weird animal facts, and a tirade about the washing machine one time. Even if I was having dirty thoughts about Marlow before falling asleep, I was probably just dreaming about a burrito or a koala or something. She’s definitely just fucking with me.

I hope.

The valet attendant is taking a long time. There are two other groups waiting outside with us, both growing antsy with each passing moment.

I’m looking down at my phone, swiping away a couple of text messages I received in the night from a woman I hooked up with last year who was passing through Gatlinburg over the weekend.

“Shit,” Marlow curses under her breath.

I look up and follow her line of sight past the glass doors leading into the hotel. It’s the woman from our table last night, the one that Marlow told off, along with Blair and Kevin. They’re all headed straight toward us.

“Damn, I thought we could make a clean escape this morning,” I say.

Marlow looks up at me, sawing her bottom lip between her teeth. She takes a tiny step closer and startles me by looping her hands around my neck.

“Pretend that we’re kissing,” she says quietly.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Kiss me, but don’t like it,” she says. We’re closer now and her breath dances across my lips.

My eyes travel down to her mouth. Her bottom lip is wet and swollen from where her teeth pressed down a moment ago. Something swells in my chest when I look at her. Panic, maybe. A bunch of nerves tangle up inside of me.

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