Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series by Holley Trent

thought she’d left behind in Los Angeles. That man had made her feel like she wasn’t much more than a convenient, nearby
body
, and usually had his pants back on before Ariel could clean herself up. Then at work the next morning, he’d be solicitous. Friendly. Until the next pitch meeting she was always excluded from.
    She sighed and shoved away from the elevator wall as the bell dinged and doors slid open. Reaching into her sports bra for the keycard, she heard the honeymoon suite’s door click open, and she paused. She hadn’t decided if she wanted John to still be there when she got back.
    Yes, she enjoyed his company on the road and with two days of driving ahead of her, she’d need his cheerful conversation during that last, grueling push. But, at the same time, she didn’t want him along for the ride if, to him, it was
just
a convenient means of transport. Maybe it was starry-eyed, fairy tale thinking to even consider it, but what a great story it would make if this road adventure turned into a romance?
    People might think they were a little nuts, but there were worse ways for people to hook up. He could have been a prostitute, for instance.
    John stepped into the hallway, being careful to hold the door open behind him. “Heard the elevator. Hoped it was you. You left your phone. I worried you got lost or … ”
    “Dispatched by an axe murderer? Alas, not this time.” She slipped past him, letting her sweaty side graze his clean t-shirt on the way in. He’d showered and shaved and … looked
wonderful
.
    Damn him.
    She heeled her running shoes off in front of the sofa and nudged her sweaty socks off using her big toes as hooks. “The breakfast here doesn’t start until seven. I don’t want to hang around that long. I’ll be out of here in half an hour, max.”
    “Okay.” He’d stepped into the room and now leaned against the foyer wall with his arms crossed over his chest. “I’ve already packed up my stuff.”
    “Great.” She stomped into the bathroom, already clawing her waistband to peel down the tight elastic of her running pants and froze in the entryway. The room was hot and steamy and the air scented with green tea or chamomile or some other herbal thing she couldn’t identify. The source of all that heat and that enthralling small was the sunken tub, filled nearly to its brim with water and foamy bubbles.
    Half an hour wouldn’t do it.
    “You filled that for me?” she asked lamely.
    “Yeah,” John called back from the living room. “I overheard what you said to your gran. I figured this way you wouldn’t have to wait. I worried at one point, though, I’d have to drain it all and re-fill.”
    “I think it’s still plenty hot. Thank you.”
    “Yeah.”
    Well, that was nice of him.
She hated him a little bit for it. She’d started growing attached to her anger, and for him to come along and buff it off like some smudge on car paint … well, she felt a little silly.
    Sweaty clothes off, she dipped one toe into the hot water, found it perfectly comfortable, and sank her tired body into the bubbles up to her neck.
    “Ahh.”
    It’d been ages since she’d had a bath. She never wanted to waste the time. There were always other things she could be doing. Even now she could be taking a five-minute shower and getting her things packed up so she could go. She’d thought a lot about the day’s route while pounding the pavement. She wouldn’t stop and dawdle at weird tourist traps. She wouldn’t swing into a gas station every two hours for coffee. It would just make her pee. Once her butt hit that driver’s seat, she was going four hours non-stop. No distractions.
    She closed her eyes and sighed. The hot water was doing marvelous things to her tight muscles. The run had felt good, too, up until her shins started to cramp, but this was a different kind of pleasure. The exercise had been about endorphins and that burn in her lungs when she reached her wall. The bath — that was