Olly opened his mouth to amend the lame-ass compliment, but Scarlett began talking again before he had the chance.
“Thanks.”
She kept her smile steady, but he’d seen the way the light in her eyes had dimmed. Feeling like a total dick, he cleared his throat and started to try again.
And once again, Scarlett beat him to the punch.
“So…that’s it for me for tonight,” she announced. “Vic only scheduled me for the one spot, just as a trial run. But I guess he thought I did okay, too, because he wants me back tomorrow. Same start time, but he wants me to do at least two dances instead of just the one.”
She had a small backpack slung over one shoulder. A cheap one she’d picked up while they’d been out and about earlier that morning. With a quick hitch, she adjusted the bag’s wide strap while waiting for him to respond.
He wanted to tell her she was forbidden from ever doing anything like that in public ever again. But there were two glaring problems with that approach.
One, the whole point was for her to be on the inside so she could hopefully glean some new information where Rose was concerned. That couldn’t happen unless she danced. And two, given the woman’s clear independence when it came to following his overprotective orders, Olly knew any attempt to pull the plug on this little undercover gig would go over about as well as a turd in a punch bowl.
So he chose to say nothing at all.
Rising to his feet, he reached for his wallet and pulled out a five. He tossed the tip onto the table before returning the wallet to the back pocket of his jeans.
Scarlett’s gaze searched his a moment longer, the confusion behind her stare obvious. Thankfully she didn’t say anything more, and simply fell in line beside him as he took her hand and guided them to the front door.
The ride back to the hotel wasn’t just quiet. It was dead fucking silent. He didn’t talk. She didn’t talk. They just listened to the sound of his tires rolling along the highway, both lost in their own thoughts for the duration of the drive.
When they got to the hotel, Scarlett bid him a quiet good night. They entered their separate rooms, first her and then him.
Olly stripped off his clothes and took the coldest damn shower he could stand. But even that did very little to rid his body of the massive erection jutting out from between his thighs.
Great.
That’s what he’d told her. That she’d done great. A compliment by anyone’s standard. Except he hadn’t said it with any semblance of enthusiasm.
Even to him, his voice had sounded flat and unimpressed. He could only imagine how it had come off to Scarlett, who’d clearly been hoping for something more.
Olly went to his bed and pulled back the covers. Grabbing the remote, he plopped his ass down and flipped on the T.V. Twenty long, frustrating minutes later, he was still flipping through the channels trying to find something,anything, to take his mind off of the woman in the other room.
He turned off the T.V. and tossed the remote back onto the nightstand. With a muttered curse, he threw the blankets roughly to the side and climbed out of bed.
Sleep clearly wasn’t going to happen until he apologized for his standoffish behavior. So Olly marched straight to the door connecting his and Scarlett’s rooms, and then…he knocked.
He could hear a slight rustling sound coming from the other side, and instantly felt guilty for getting her out of bed. For a split second, he contemplated hurrying back to his room and pretending he hadn’t knocked at all.
That would be easy enough to convince, right? He could totally play it off as if he’d been in bed this entire time, and that she must have heard another knock coming from a different, nearby door.
But just as he started to retreat, Olly heard the soft snick of the lock being disengaged. And when the door slowly opened, and he caught sight of Scarlett standing before him, he remembered his earlier vow.
I won’t walk away from her again.
“Olly?” She looked up at him with an inquisitive stare.
He’d expected there to be sleep in her eyes. There wasn’t. The woman was awake and fully alert. She was also freshly showered and wearing those same, cute-as-hell pajamas.
You’re here to apologize. That’s it. Say you’re sorry, tell her she kicked ass tonight, and then go back to your room so the woman can sleep.
“Did you”—Scarlett’s gaze dropped before rising back up to his—“need something?”
Olly glanced down to see what had caught her attention, only then realizing he’d stormed over here wearing nothing but his boxers. As for the hard-on he’d been fighting earlier, the damn thing was fuller and more painful than ever.
And there was no possible way Scarlett had missed it.