Amelia steps into the doorway behind him and stops.
Her face changes.
I don’t know why.
Maybe because the room is too personal. Maybe because it’s too bare. Maybe because she is about to sleep in a bed that belongs to me, and that thought just hit her the way it hit me.
A hot, inconvenient awareness crawls up my spine.
I imagine her in that bed.
Hair loose. Bare legs. My dark quilt wrapped around her hips.
No.
Absolutely not.
Not doing that.
This woman has been in my life less than twenty-four hours. She is scared, married, possibly my president’s sister, and holding her life together with duct tape and spite. I’m not going to stand in my own room and get hard over the idea of her in my bed.
My body once again refuses the memo.
I step back. “I’ll clear the nightstand.”
Her cheeks turn pink.
So she thought it too.
Well, hell.
Sophie, because she is both an angel and a menace, chooses that moment to appear behind us. “This will work.”
I mutter, “Glad my bedroom meets your approval.”
“It needs softer sheets.”
“They’re sheets.”
“They feel like they were woven from punishment.”
“They were on sale.”
Amelia’s mouth curves. “They’re fine.”
Sophie gives her a look. “You don’t have to accept bad sheets as part of your healing journey. You need clean sheets. Not sure if Derby washed them after his last guest.”
“Of course I did.” I point at Sophie. “Out.”
She smiles. “In a minute.”
August climbs onto the bed with Blue Rex before anyone can stop him. He bounces once.
Amelia makes a small distressed sound. “Shoes off.”
He freezes, one sneaker already on my quilt.
I should care.