I huff, eyes closing briefly. “Yes, Anjalee. I think you’re sexy.”
“Oh good. I have never been sexy before. I quite enjoy this feeling.”
“Fuck, babe.” I tuck her face against my chest, totally powerless to stop myself from acting like she’s mine, like I deserve a single shred of her goodness. “You’ve always been sexy. You just never got told.”
“This is true, I believe.” It’s a whisper. “You tell me many things which are true, that I do not know.”
“Like?”
“That I am cute.”
“Anything else?”
“That the Ding Dongs are delicious.” She laughs. “I must have another of them. It is dangerous, I think. I will eat them and then my bottom will become fat.”
“They’re in my saddlebags.” I laugh again, only just barely resisting the urge to move my hands down to that bottom. “You’re so fuckin’ funny. I’ve never laughed so much in my life, you know that?”
“Really?” Pleased, breathy.
“Really.”
“Good.” Definitive, firm. “Your laugh is very attractive. It does unusual things to my stomach when I hear it.”
I clench my jaw. She’s so innocent, so fucking pure. “Unusual things to your stomach?”
“Yes. A flutter in my belly. Butterflies.” She looks up at me. “I believe it means I like you very much.”
You can’t like me. I don’t say it. I should, but I don’t.You don’t know. If you knew, you wouldn’t like me so much.I don’t say this either. Fucking coward.
“I am very sleepy, Kane.”
“Nowhere outside to sleep around here, I’m afraid. We’ll have to settle for a hotel.”
She perks up at this. “Oh, can we stay at a not-very-good one? I have always wondered what they are like. Always we stay at the best, always the best. Never anything less than the very best for Rohit Sharma.” She sounds very bitter about this.
I snort. “Yeah, well, I can’t afford the fuckin’ Ritz, so that’s what’s happening anyway.”
“Good. I am pleased.”
“To the bike, then, and a room at something less than the best for Anjalee Sharma.”
“You are teasing me again, I think.” She looks up at me as she says this, walking hand in hand with me.
“Yeah, babe, I am.”
* * *
I sure asfuck ain’t about to bunk a princess like Anjalee in a Motel Six, even if she thinks she wants that. So I take her to a Hilton Garden Inn in the old town. Nice, clean, comfortable, some amenities, but sure as hell ain’t the Ritz. It’s not until I’m at the desk with the clerk asking if we want a king suite or a double queen that I realize that’s a damn good question.
Anjalee is looking around in something a lot like awe. Kinda the inverse of what it is—like she’s a girl who ain’t ever been to anythingbutMotel Six, and I’m taking her to Chateau Marmont. Except it’s a Hilton, and she’s probably used to places that make Chateau Marmont look cheap.
“Anjalee, babe.” She jerks her head away from the bar across the lobby, where businessmen sit and watch sports and sip whiskey, and women try to get their attention. “One bed or two?”
She gives me a long, blank expression. “I…what?”
The clerk endeavors to seem totally disconnected from the conversation.
“We gotta pick a room. They got rooms just one big bed, or they got rooms with two smaller beds.”
