“You ready for the interview tomorrow?” Ethan asked from behind her after engaging the safety double lock on the door.

She shrugged. “I’m not worried about that part.”

“Not at all?”

“Why should I be? I’m perfect for the job and I just have to remember that.” Funny how her preoccupation with her pseudorelationship with Ethan made everything else sort of pale in significance on her internal anxiety meter. She didn’t feel even sort of nervous about tomorrow.

“Not worried about playing the role of a woman with an overly possessive boyfriend anymore?”

She turned to face him, hugging herself so she wouldn’t reach out to touch him. They were alone now, no longer on the stage of their pretend life together. “No. I think we’ve got the act down.”

He snorted at that. “We haven’t even started.”

“I’d say that after last night, we’d more than started.”

“That wasn’t part of the act.”

“Whatever you say.” She wasn’t going to argue with him over it.

Maybe he didn’t see it that way. Maybe for him, it was enough that he genuinely wanted her, so he didn’t see the timing and the fact their relationship was bound to the case as actually being part of the act for the case. Whatever his reasoning, she wasn’t about to get into a drawn-out discussion about it.

He tipped her face up with a fist under her chin, his green gaze penetrating hers. “Something bothering you, Sunshine?”

She moved away from his touch and headed for her suitcase. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“If it’s going to affect your effectiveness on assignment, I do.”

She shook her clothes out and hung them up, mentally noting she needed to spot iron the jacket she planned to wear to the interview tomorrow. “I’m good to go with the assignment.”

“You tired?”

“Maybe a little.”

“It would probably be best if we forgo sex tonight and you get some uninterrupted rest.”

She paused in unpacking her case and then went back to what she’d been doing. “Whatever you think is best. You’re the agent in charge.”

He was silent for several seconds, but she just finished unpacking and then slid the small case in the bottom of the closet before turning to face him again.

He was watching her, an odd expression on his sculpted features. His eyes snapped to her face and he frowned. “I could use a run. I hate the enforced inactivity of being on a plane.”

“You weren’t exactly inactive. You did several sets of isometrics in your seat.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is.” Was he asking for her permission? No. Not in character…for either the pretend or real Ethan.

“Besides, if I’m going to leave you alone, I need to work off some of this extra energy.”

“That makes sense.” Not that she really thought it would be all that difficult for him.

“You want to come?”

She shook her head. “I’m not a runner. I like my tae kwon do, but that’s about it. I’ll probably go to the exercise room and use their mats for a workout, or ride a stationary bike for a while.”

“I’d prefer you not go by yourself.”

“Why?”

“It’s not in character for me to let you work out alone.”

“I don’t think we need to be fully in character right now.”

“The sooner we start, the more natural the role will be for you to play.”

“You aren’t going to have any problem with the role. You said so.”

“I’m not the only one playing a role here.”

“My biggest responsibility is to react.” He’d said that, too.

“To an extent, that’s true, but you’ve also got to get in the mind-set of a woman who is used to asking her boyfriend about everything. We’ve been together two years…that would have affected your behavior some.”

“Okay…here I am asking: Do you mind if I work out in the exercise room while you go running?”

He made a sound of frustration. “I already said I’d prefer you not.”

“This is where I assert some of my dormant independence and say tough.”

He laughed. “Fine. If you’re sure you don’t want to go running with me instead.”

“You’re kidding, right? Even if I was used to jogging, I wouldn’t run with you. You’d leave me in the dust and the whole running together point would be defunct by the end of the first block.”

“I’d match my stride to yours.”

“And walk?”

He frowned, but didn’t say anything before grabbing his jogging shorts and T-shirt from his carryall. He took them into the bathroom to change and that surprised her, but she wasn’t going to say anything about it. When he came out, she tried not to look, but it was a lost cause.

The man had an incredible body. His long, muscular legs were exposed by his shorts and his tank top stretched snugly over his chest, making her mouth water.

“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to choose a different form of exercise.”

“And that would be a bad thing?”

“I want you rested and relaxed at the interview tomorrow, not hungover from a surfeit of explosive sex.”

She’d never had so much sex she got a hangover from it, but she’d heard of that happening. “Are you saying that if we start, you don’t think we’ll be able to stop?”

“It’s a distinct possibility. You have a lot of years of fantasizing to make up for.”

The words pierced her mind, but it took a second for her to accept their meaning. “You think I’m sex-starved?” she demanded, her voice going up an octave.

His eyes widened. “That’s not what I said.”

“You may as well have. Apparently, I’ve gone too long without real sex and therefore would make too many physical demands on you, so much so that I would not be in any shape to interview tomorrow morning.”

“Settle down, little Beth, I-”

“Don’t call me that! I’m not little. I’m not a child. And I’m not sex-starved,” she finished from between gritted teeth.

Chapter 13

“I didn’t say you were, but after last night…you’ve got to admit the sex between us can get out of hand pretty damn easily.”

“I didn’t notice it getting out of hand, but then I wasn’t inside your brain, so maybe I just didn’t see our time together the same way you did.” He had seen that amazing experience as the result of a woman who had gone too long without sex?

Humiliated color scorched her cheeks. Because in one sense, he was right. She’s spent so long fantasizing about him that when he’d touched her, when he’d let her touch him…she’d lost touch with reality and found a whole new one. Only, she’d thought he had, too, at least to an extent.

“All I’m saying is that tonight would be a bad time for a sexual marathon,” he said with exaggerated patience.

She deliberately widened her eyes. “Did I offer to engage in one?”

He sighed, sounding exasperated. “No.”

She hugged herself tighter, fighting to hold in the embarrassment and anger that he could see her in that light. “Go running.”

“I don’t think we are done talking.”

“I get your message loud and clear. Don’t worry. Beyond that, this conversation has no further productive value.”

He looked like he might argue, but he didn’t. He turned on his heel and left the hotel room with quick precision.

She stared at the closed door for a long time, trying to grapple with this newly recognized element to having sex with Ethan. He denied thinking she was sex-starved, but what else would he call it? She’d thought that the intensity at least had been mutual, but he made it sound like he’d been reacting to her neediness. That was just so mortifying.

She was not needy. She was horny for him. There was a difference, but apparently he didn’t see it that way. She felt hollow inside, sick with embarrassment that he’d seen her acting out her fantasies with him in that light. She’d been so moved that he hadn’t made fun of her desires, that he’d catered to them, but now that all felt tainted.