Chili Con Carnage by Kylie Logan Page A

direction. There were a couple guys already in the Palace poking around, and Phil the perv was just walking into the RV. That pretty much helped me make up my mind about not wanting to go in there.
    “What the hell am I supposed to do?” I asked no one in particular. “I can’t work if they’re in the Palace, and if I can’t get into the RV . . .” Another thought struck, and I turned on Nick. “How long are they going to be in there? Where the hell am I supposed to sleep tonight?”
    Puff’s lips twitched. “You can always bunk with me,” he said.
    I actually might have accepted the invitation if not for the sudden gleam in Puff’s eyes.
    “Thanks.” The way my lips squeezed the life out of the word told him all he needed to know. “I’ll stay—”
    “I’ll take care of it.”
    Again, Nick’s hand closed over my arm. This time, he didn’t give me a chance to pull away. He maneuvered me to the right, then turned me in the other direction. “I’m staying at the Taos Inn,” he said, once we were away from Puff and closer to the Palace. “You’ll come with me.”
    Honestly, I’d had more romantic invitations in my day. Plenty of them, actually. And it wasn’t like I wasn’t interested. In spite of the fact that Nick had the whole macho mystery-man thing going on—or maybe because of it—he was plenty hot. And I was plenty intrigued. But that didn’t mean I was going to cave in without at least the pretense of a fight.
    In front of the Palace, I locked my knees and refused to budge another inch. “That’s how you invite a woman to spend the night with you? By telling her where she’s going and what she’s going to do? You haven’t learned very much about wooing a girl, have you?”
    “You haven’t learned very much about making assumptions.”
    “But you said—”
    “The Taos Inn, where I’m staying. Yeah, I know what I said.”
    “And that means—”
    “No, it really doesn’t.”
    Nick was tough enough to read under normal circumstances, and this particular Friday was turning out to be anything but normal. Boy, how I wished could get a look behind those sunglasses of his and see his eyes.
    Then again, maybe not. Because when he finally did slip off his glasses and tuck them in his pocket, I still couldn’t figure out what was going on behind that gorgeous face of his. “Do you expect every guy you meet to try and take advantage of you?” he asked.
    I’d never thought about it. Which didn’t mean I had to admit that to Nick. Instead, I chewed on my lower lip. “I expect when a guy says—”
    “That you can stay where he’s staying, you think it means he wants to jump in bed with you?”
    “Don’t you?”
    Unfair question and I knew it, but really, it wasn’t like I could help myself. Every time Nick was around, I felt like there were ants nibbling at the edges of my self-control. I wasn’t used to not being in charge—of my own life or of the men in it—and the least I could do was fight the feeling.
    Nick pivoted toward the parking lot. “I’ll call and see if we can get you a room,” he said. He pulled out his cell and made the call, but before he started talking he slid me a sidelong glance. “No strings attached.”
    It was what I’d wanted all along, right? I mean, I’d already decided my life was complicated enough, that I didn’t need another guy to make things any messier. And that was before Sylvia got arrested. Which means that in the great scheme of things, I was coming out of this particular argument on top. Right where I liked to be. All well and good, but it didn’t explain the sudden stab of disappointment that hit between my heart and stomach.
    “I’ll need to get into the RV. You know for my tooth brush and clothes and stuff.”
    Nick looked to where Phil and a couple other guys walked down the steps of the RV, boxes of our possessions in their hands, and I realized that if I hadn’t decided to go through Jack’s things earlier, they would