The bellboy wheeled in a cart. He was maybe eighteen. He looked at my wet hair and Murphy’s bare arm against the king-sized mattress. Paddy’s exuberant singing vibrated the shower curtain which was visible through the open bathroom door.
“Niiice.” He gave me a lewd smile and made a production of removing the silver covers off the plates. Appetizing smells wafted into the air—eggs, bacon, butter, toast.
I fumbled a five dollar bill from my pocket and shoved it into his hand. He continued to gaze at me lasciviously. I could only imagine the tales he’d spin for the hotel staff when he left the room.
I herded him to the door and, after I locked it, I leaned my forehead against it and counted to ten, which didn’t help matters.
Paddy stopped singing and shut off the water. When I heard him enter the bedroom, I turned around. “We’re checking out.”
Paddy elevated an eyebrow. Just one. I’d only ever seen Mister Spock on Star Trek pull that off. Paddy had one blue eye and one brown eye. The raised brow was above the blue eye.
Black curls were plastered down onto his skull and he wore nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. The man’s chest hair was marginally less curly than the stuff on his head. His bond pendant dangled from a gold link chain around his throat. I couldn’t see which two birthstones made up the pendant because they were buried in the chest hair.
“In approximately fifty-five seconds, the entire staff of this hotel will think we spent last night in a torrid threesome.”
“So?” He had another towel in his hands which he used to scrub at his hair. Curls sprang back into shape.
“So I don’t care to be the object of all their lewd speculations. Plus, I hate it here.” I stalked over to the room service cart and plucked up a crisp piece of bacon which I devoured in two bites.
Paddy looked around the room. “It’s not the grandest hotel room in the world, but it’s not hideous. For three hundred dollars a night, it better not be.”
“Here as in Hartford, Connecticut, not this hotel in particular. Although now that you mention it, Paddy, this peach-and-cream color scheme gives me headache.”
Perhaps in response to my rant, he nonchalantly dropped the towel around his waist and headed for the dresser.
I rolled my eyes. “Can you put on some pants, damn it? I’m trying to have a conversation about how indignant I am at the hotel staff’s delusions and you’re walking around without your pants. Or anything else.”
He had a nice ass. Not as nice as Murphy’s, but still nice.
“If you hold on for about twenty seconds I will have pants. I promise.” Paddy cast me an amused look and opened one of the dresser drawers. “What do you care what Others think? They don’t understand. You, Liam and I are pack mates. Pack mates frequently sleep in the same bed together. As many as the bed will hold sometimes. With or without sex involved.”
I curled my lip at him. Yes, he had a point. When I’d been a member of Riverglow we’d go back to Callie, Peter and Vaughn’s house after every hunt and pile in an exhausted heap on Callie’s bed. No carnal thoughts in any of our heads, just exhausted sleep together.
We’d wake in an affectionate tangle half on top of each other. If I’d opened my eyes first and was on the bottom of the pile, it had sometimes taken me five minutes to extricate myself.
That seemed so long ago. Maybe I had forgotten some things about belonging to a pack.
I picked up the carafe of orange juice and took a slug. I couldn’t be bothered with a glass.
“Hey, save some for me. That was supposed to be for all of us!” Paddy hastily withdrew a pair of black boxer briefs from the drawer and pulled them on.
“He who hath not pants, getteth not the orange juice,” I declared and swallowed half the contents of the carafe in one long gulp.
Paddy balanced on one leg like a hairy stork and when he laughed, he had to grab the edge of the dresser so he wouldn’t crash to the floor. The boxer briefs slipped down to his ankles. Truly a nice ass.
As Pack, we were not prudes and were used to group nudity. Group sex for that matter. But I still preferred to have most of my conversations with people who had their clothes on.
“I have pants, damn you, woman!” Paddy roared as I continued to suck down the orange juice.
Murphy unclosed one eye and peered blearily around the room until he found us.
“Liam, this woman is taking shocking advantage of her Alpha. My word should be law!”
Murphy struggled to focus. “Take care of Stanzie. Please, Paddy?” His fight to push aside the covers ceased as he fell back to the pillows and into sleep.
Offended, I set down the mostly empty juice carafe and stalked to the peach-colored chair by the window. I threw myself into it and drew my knees up to my chest as I stared out at the goddamn shiny glass building next door. I did not need to be taken care of. Who the hell was Murphy to delegate the assignment to Paddy as if I were some sort of weak little girl?
Paddy finished dressing—he put on a pair of dark brown corduroys over the boxer briefs, but nothing else, and fixed himself a plate of breakfast.
As he scooped eggs and bacon into his mouth, he watched me, but I refused to be drawn.
After he set down his empty plate, he got one for me and padded over on bare feet to hand it to me.
“Not hungry.” My stomach gurgled. Paddy elevated an eyebrow again, this time the one above his brown eye, and put the plate on the little side table by the chair.
He went back to the cart and took the plate which would have been Murphy’s if he’d bothered to get up and balanced against the edge of the dresser before he dug in.
Murphy abruptly began to snore.
I pressed an apricot-colored pillow to my chest and resisted the urge to throw it at his head.
Paddy’s chewing didn’t help me either. Resentment, seething and malevolent, swirled around me in an almost visible mist. Paddy smelled it—he couldn’t help it with his enhanced senses—but continued to eat until his plate was once again empty.
He regarded the orange juice carafe for a moment and chose coffee instead. My stomach gurgled again. Murphy rolled over and stopped snoring.
“Are you pissed off because we haven’t had the torrid threesome the hotel staff is supposedly gossiping about?”
I aimed the apricot-colored pillow at the coffee mug in his hand and scored a direct hit. Hot coffee splashed along the bottom of the dresser. The mug hit the brass handle of one of the drawers and cracked in two.
“A simple ‘no, Paddy, that’s not the friggin’ problem, you idjit’ would have sufficed.” Paddy surveyed the damage with a rueful shake of his head. He found another mug and, before he poured more coffee, cast a wary look to make sure I had no more ammunition.
“Eating something might improve that temper of yours,” he remarked and ducked to protect his coffee when I winged my fork at him.
“I don’t want to spend the whole damn day in this cramped hotel room listening to him snore and you chew, Paddy.” The smell of breakfast drove me crazy but I did not give in and grab up a handful with my fingers. Not even the bacon.
“So, who’s stopping you?” He sounded impatient but not mad. Yet.
That response took me aback for a moment. He had a point. I was no longer a “guest” of the Councils, unable to leave the premises without an escort and permission. House arrest was over. I was a free woman.
Still suspicious, I said, “I can go out? Like leave the hotel?”
“The