our number. We grabbed the bags of food, headed back to the minivan, and drove to the B&B before I could embarrass myself completely.
When we walked in, the Victorian was quiet.
“I’ll take this up to Nolan. Which room is he in again?” I asked.
“The Byron suite,” Vi said, turning to the fridge to get drinks.
I jogged up the stairs with Nolan’s bag and knocked on the door.
He opened it, pushing up his glasses. “Thanks,” he said.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Everything seems calm for now. Any more word on the delivery?” he asked.
I shook my head. Even if I’d heard about the delivery, I wouldn’t have told him. I liked Nolan, but the only person I one-hundred-percent trusted was Malone.
“I’m going to eat and probably pass out for a few hours, so if you need me, call my phone,” I said, waving the secure line at him.
His glance went behind me, and his lips moved upward the tiniest bit before he resumed his stoic face. “Got it. I’ll try not to interrupt your slumber.”
I turned away from him to see Violet standing at the top of the stairs with a tray. It was piled with The Crab Shack bags, waters, and a bottle of champagne. I moved toward her as Nolan’s door clicked shut behind me.
“What are you doing?” I asked gruffly, taking the tray from her hands.
“I thought…” She swallowed. “I thought maybe we could eat in my room so we wouldn’t be interrupted.”
Holy hell, she was going to kill me. I wasn’t going to need to worry about losing a pinky or ending up with a slug in my chest, because Violet Banner was going to do me in first.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” I told her.
“Why not?” she demanded, all Violet, hands on her hips, ready to convince me she knew what she was talking about.
“I haven’t had much sleep in a week. I may not be able to keep that promise to the best of my abilities,” I said as my voice lowered even considering it—her without her clothes, me without mine, tangled together.
“Dawson Langley backing down from a challenge? Hmm, this is quite the predicament,” she said, eyes dancing with humor. She turned and headed down the hall to her room and not the stairs.
I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling, begged the universe to give me a few more hours of energy, and followed the soft curve of her hips in the direction I’d always wanted to go. After her.
I took off my sweatshirt, toed off my boat shoes, and joined her on the bed in just my jeans and a T-shirt. We sat cross-legged on either side of the tray, facing each other. She opened the champagne and poured two glasses while I unloaded the food from the bags. She handed me a glass, and I took it.
“Where’d you get the champagne?” I asked.
“Mandy and Leena have a small stock for when the guests are celebrating special occasions.” She lifted her glass toward me. “Congratulations, Dawson. You broke a twenty-year-old record. You crossed the Atlantic and back in barely five days. Has it even soaked in yet?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, there were fireworks and confetti, crowds and news media, but I think, because there is all this other crap going on, it’s hard to really feel like I accomplished something so big.”
“Monumental,” she said, clinking my glass with hers.
We took a sip, and I watched the movement of her lips on the glass. She tasted like champagne on a normal day. Now that the actual liquid had been inside her, it would be heightened. It would be more intoxicating than the alcohol itself.
I forced myself back to the food, handing her the lobster sandwich she’d ordered.
“We should eat before we waste it,” I said with a low groan.
She laughed softly. “We should, huh?”
“I’d make it a command, but I don’t want to lose my balls when I have plans for them,” I teased back.
We ate the sandwiches and fries in a comfortable silence, and then I went into the bathroom to hit the head and wash my hands. I stopped to look at myself in the mirror. Tired and ungroomed. My hair was wild, and my beard was dark and scratchy. It was hardly what Violet deserved—a man too focused on things that weren’t her.
No good to the core.
I pushed it aside. I was different now. I’d changed from the thoughtless teenager whose father had first called him that. And