Chapter 6
By the time I get to my hotel, I’m hot and sweaty and so exhausted that all I want to do is take a shower and then crawl straight into bed.
The hotel’s décor is definitely a unique blend of Americana and pigs, if that’s a thing.
Think dark blue wooden stars with red and white borders and a big pig face right in the middle for wall décor.
Or a faux-Tiffany chandelier hanging over the small table in one corner of my hotel room, with stained glass pigs frolicking beneath a billowing American flag.
Or a coverlet printed to look like a quilt, with blocks of earthy shades of blue and red and cream mixed with blocks of pigs in various sizes and colors.
It would be a perfectly fine hotel room if there weren’t a pig in the one and only bed.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask, dropping my suitcase as the door to the room swings shut behind me.
“Relaxing after a long day’s work,” Grayson says. He’s lying on his back, arms behind his head, watching what I’m pretty sure is The Mummy on the tiny TV situated on the oak dresser.
“You’re in my bed.”
“I’m in the bed, yes. Unfortunately, you didn’t book a room with two queens.”
“Because there’s only one person in the room. Why aren’t you in the barn with the other pigs?”
He rolls his head to the side to look at me. “I agreed to go undercover as a pig for the show. But I’m not spending an entire week as a pig. And I’m definitely not sleeping in the barn.”
I would really like to be angry about this violation of my personal space, but there are two things working against me. One, I’m just so freaking tired that working up a good mad feels like too much effort.
But two—and more worrying—is the fact that he appears to be shirtless under the covers.
I can see a set of shoulders and a narrow slice of bare chest. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a shirtless man anywhere outside a mugshot or a cologne commercial, a fact that my body is desperately trying to remind me of.
So I could fight for my room, but that seems like more effort—and a more risky endeavor—than just surrendering it to the pig.
“Fine.” I turn and grab my suitcase. “I’ll just get a different room.”
“Two problems with that. First, who are you going to say you need the room for? You’re here by yourself as far as anyone else knows.”
“I’ll just say I need a room for my pig-showing gear or something. Don’t hockey teams book an extra room because their gear smells so bad they can’t sleep with it?”
But he just goes on talking. “Second, the hotel is fully booked for the show.” He stretches out one arm and then tucks his hand behind his head again. “So you’re stuck with me.”
The hotel is full. No rooms available. I’m stuck in a room with a pig shifter and a single bed.
I squeeze the handle of my suitcase tightly before releasing it.
Okay. This may be the only hotel in Farrowville, but surely there are hotels within relatively easy driving distance.
I could let Grayson have this room and find something a half hour, forty-five minutes away.
I pull out my phone and do a quick search. There has to be something—
Hell’s bells, Jensen. You’re on the trail of the deadliest magical criminal in a lifetime and you’re fretting over sharing a room with your partner?
I sigh. Cressida—or at least the version of her in my head—is right. I’ve done a lot in the name of the job. I’ve gone on multi-day stakeouts. I’ve slept on the floor of a van while my partner took her shift. I’ve literally crawled through a sewer to make an arrest.
Although that turned out to have not been necessary, now that I think about it.
Regardless, this is my job, one that I love and that, despite recent evidence to the contrary, I’m actually pretty good at. I can handle a few nights crashing on the floor of my hotel room.
“Fine,” I say, putting my phone away. “You take the bed. I’ll take the floor.”
A slow smile spreads across Grayson’s face, making my stupid, desperate body flush in response.
The man’s a pig, Olive, I tell myself. Literally, a pig.
“I’m just going to…” I trail off, waving one hand toward the bathroom. Dragging my suitcase in behind me, I close the door, relieved to have a little bit of space. I look in the mirror, sighing over the unruly mass of brown hair caught in the act of trying to flee my head.
Me too, hair. Me too.
Turning away, I strip down and turn the shower on, letting the water stay relatively cool.
A cold shower is probably what I need at the moment.
I step in, and even though the water is cold enough to make me shiver, it doesn’t quite manage to wash away the warmth I felt when Grayson did that stupid sexy smile.
He’s your partner. And a pig.
That’s it. When I finish this assignment and capture The Witch, I’m going to let my colleagues fix me up with someone. Someone nice and a little boring, someone I don’t work with, someone who doesn’t regularly shift into a pig named Petunia.
With that decided, I rush through my cold shower and turn off the water. Drying myself off quickly with a towel thin enough to see light through, I pull on the pink-and-white striped flannel pajamas I’d imagined myself lounging around the room alone in and push open the door.
Grayson is still there, that sexy set of shoulders still visible above the edge of the bedspread. “Feel better?” he asks.
“Not really.” I carry my suitcase out and stow it beside the dresser, then walk to the far side of the bed and grab the pillow.
“You’re really going to sleep on the floor?”
“Are you offering to take the floor instead?”
“Nope.”
“Then yes.” I drop the pillow at my feet and grab the edge of the bedspread. “I’m taking this.”
“Pretty sure you don’t want to do that.”
“Pretty sure I do.”
He rolls onto his side, his head propped up on one arm, the bedspread falling to his waist. “I may or may not have anything on under here.”
I drop the edge of the coverlet like it burned my hand. “Ground rule one—you have to wear clothes in here.”
He studies my face. “You don’t seem to have a problem with the fact that I’m naked in my pig form.”
“That’s your pig form. It’s different.”
He adjusts the bedspread over his hip. “Why?”
“Because it is,” I say through gritted teeth. “How do you not get that?”
He shrugs, and the bedspread shifts, revealing another bit of taut male abdomen.
Which I glance at. For a brief instant. Because as an MBI agent, I’m trained in the art of observation and not because damn, the man has a nice set of abs.
“I guess nudity doesn’t bother me that much. I mean, all of my patients are nude.”
“They’re dead.”
“So?”
“So hopefully you’re not attracted to your dead patients,” I say.
His face lights up. “Ah. So you only have a problem with nudity when you’re in a position to find the naked person attractive.”
“Yes.” Wait. “No, that’s not it. I…”
I have no idea what to say. This whole area feels dangerous, like I’m walking blind through a swamp. “You know what?” I finally manage to choke out. “Keep the blanket. I don’t need it.”
“So generous of you.” He stays on his side, watching as I crouch down to plump up my pillow. “You know, I read an interesting article about the number of germs found on hotel room floors.”
I freeze. He keeps talking.
“Most people don’t take their shoes off when they walk into their hotel rooms, so they track in everything they’ve stepped in all day. In a normal town, that would mean germs from dog feces and chewing gum and everything else. In this town, I think we can safely add pig crap.”
What would Sally do? Would she sleep on a pig-crap-infused carpet, with only a pillow, just because her pig was snoozing naked in the queen-sized bed beside her?
I snatch up my pillow as I make up my mind. “Ground rule two—no touching,” I snap as I stand up and drop the pillow back onto the bed.
His smile turns distinctly smug, that obnoxious dimple flashing. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“I mean it.” I slide gingerly under the coverlet, keeping enough slack in the blanket that I don’t expose Grayson’s…anything. “If I wake up to find you cuddling me, I will break your arms.”
He rolls back onto his back. “Believe me, Agent Jensen. You may be the least cuddly woman I’ve ever met.”
“Believe it or not, I take that as a compliment.”
I shift around, being careful not to cross the invisible center line between us. If I just hold very, very still, I won’t accidentally brush against…anything.
A moment later, Grayson throws the blanket back and swings his legs over the side of the bed. I open my mouth to object to what he’s doing, but before I can speak, he’s on his feet and I finally see that he is, in fact, wearing something: a pair of low-slung gray sweatpants.
Which, in many ways, is even worse than being actually naked.
“I thought you said you weren’t wearing anything under there,” I say, my mouth dry.
“I said I may or may not be wearing anything. Turns out I was.” He heads for the bathroom, his shoulders impossibly broad above his narrow hips.
“You may be the most annoying man I’ve ever met,” I say to his retreating back.
He pauses at the bathroom door. “Believe it or not, I find that to be a compliment.”