The Proposition

‘You said it yourself—you spent half the night working. Have you even slept? You don’t have time for breakfast…’ He shrugs, his point illustrated.

I roll my shoulders back, defensive—his censure reminds me a little too closely of my ex-husband’s complaints. ‘I don’t need more than a couple of hours’ sleep.’ But he’s right; my work habits do make me rather a dull travelling companion.

‘As good as last night was,’ his eyebrows flick up in that roguish way, ‘I’m not interested in spending the next six weeks watching you working in between snatched naps only punctuated by the odd fuck. I prefer my dates—’

‘We wouldn’t be dating.’ My temperature soars. How dare he see me so…clearly?

He ignores my interruption. ‘I prefer my hook-ups to have a pulse, to have the energy to offer me a few scraps of attention and to be awake long enough for us to have a good time.’ His lip curls in that playful way he’s so good at. ‘I’m old-fashioned like that.’

I bristle, lifting my chin. ‘I know how to have a good time. You just said so yourself about last night.’ It wouldn’t sting quite so much if his assumption wasn’t true, but I’d never admit such a thing.

He steps closer, his beautiful eyes holding me captive. ‘You’re right,’ he looks me up and down in a way that makes me feel naked again, ‘you look too put together to be as hot as you are, but once you let your hair down the sex part was great.’

‘But…’ I say, because I know it’s coming, despite his compliments.

‘But, when I woke up and reached for you because I wanted more, you weren’t there.’

I fist my hand on my hip. ‘I work odd hours because of international time zones.’