Unable to cease herself, Addison imagined what her life can be like if she’d grown up in a spot this like. If her mother and pop had been collectively, perhaps even married. If she lived in a single place with the identical folks her complete life, as an alternative of bouncing round Santa Fe earlier than being shipped off to her granny’s in New York.

If she’d by no means been alone. Or terrified. Or ravenous.

How completely different would her life look proper now? What sort of particular person would she be?

“I didn’t imply to upset you,” Mason mentioned, watching her with a deep frown.

It took her a second to course of what he mentioned. “I’m not upset,” she assured him, smiling. “I simply obtained misplaced in my ideas for a second there.”

“Are you certain?” He studied her face, clearly not believing her smile. “If it makes you are feeling any higher, an Airbnb in middle-of-nowhere Missouri prices means lower than our lodge did final evening.”

That made her chuckle. “I suppose that is smart. All the things’s most likely cheaper in the midst of nowhere.” It wasn’t that she cared how he spent his cash anyway. She was simply already so tremendously indebted to him for each single facet of this journey, staying at a Motel 6 perhaps would’ve assuaged her guilt a bit of bit.

After all, then she’d should really feel horrible about making Mason sleep at a crappy motel.

“Do you need to see why I picked this place?” he requested, the merest trace of pleasure in his voice.

“Completely.” When he prolonged his hand, she took it with out hesitation, letting him pull her down the hallway to the bedrooms.

Cracking open the primary door, he peeked inside, then stored going a second later. When he did the identical on the second door, he stopped lifeless in his tracks. “Okay, that is it,” he mentioned, taking each her fingers, watching her with eyes that sparkled with pleasure. “Are you prepared?”

She couldn’t have stored a smile off her face even when she wished to. “What shenanigans are you as much as? For you, that is virtually giddy.”

With a smile taking part in at his lips, he backed into the room, letting go of considered one of her fingers to flip the sunshine change. “Ta-da,” Mason mentioned with a bit of flourish.

In that second, Addison fell in love with him a bit of bit. Her coronary heart didn’t give her any alternative.

The lengthy, slim room sported a pair of matching bunk beds pushed up towards reverse partitions, a scant three ft of area between them.

“We each have seniority right here, which suggests we each get prime bunk,” he introduced proudly, puffing out his chest a bit of bit.

Phrases fully failed her. Wrapping her arms round his neck, Addison pulled his face down low sufficient to kiss him, hoping to indicate him how profoundly grateful she was as an alternative.

The kiss was gradual and delicate—nothing like their typical frenzy. When finally they broke aside, she rested her brow towards his chest. “Thanks,” she managed finally. “I can’t let you know what it means to me.”

He pressed his lips towards the highest of her head. “It means loads to me, too. Why don’t we prepare for mattress? We nonetheless have virtually 13 hours to drive tomorrow, so we should always get some sleep.”

Twenty minutes later, Addison snuggled up below the fuzzy red-and-black plaid comforter as she stared throughout the slim hole. Mason lay on his again in his personal bunk, his ft protruding between the bars on the foot of the mattress—maybe the one flaw in his in any other case superb plan.

Not that she spent a lot time his ft. He had the comforter folded right down to his waist, revealing his naked chest. Even within the dim gentle of the nightlight she introduced on the journey, he seemed ok to eat. God, she may stare at his lovely physique for hours.

The emergence of his favourite Prada frames when he returned from brushing his enamel solely made him sexier. He was beautiful with the contacts in, in fact, however the glasses made him seem like an attractive professor. An exceedingly strict professor who would gladly punish a naughty scholar if she required correction.

Sometime, she’d construct up the nerve to ask him to deliver that little fantasy to life. In spite of everything, she’d been having it because the first time she spent the evening at his home. Not tonight, although. She had rather more essential issues on her thoughts.

“Do you could have an older brother?” she requested as soon as they each settled in.

He rolled his head to the aspect, so he may see her between the bars of the black steel railing. “No, however I’ve a youthful brother. Why do you ask?”

“What you mentioned earlier than,” she began tentatively, hoping she wasn’t studying an excessive amount of into issues. “About this which means loads to you, too. I assumed perhaps you had an older brother, and he by no means let you could have prime bunk.”

That earned her considered one of his backward smiles. “Very astute.”

The reward warmed her from the within out, and she or he hid her smile behind her comforter. “What’s the true story?”

He didn’t reply at first, although he didn’t look away both, so she knew the query hadn’t made him indignant. At the least a pair minutes ticked by earlier than he lastly began speaking. “I went to a sleepover after I was a child. My pal had the good bunk mattress I’d ever seen in my life. A twin mattress on prime, however a full on the underside, with precise stairs as an alternative of a ladder.”

Addison smiled. “That sounds magical.”

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