Rosa

Chapter 9

Once Rosa finished gathering up all of her belongings, the two of them took the elevator down a few floors to Mr. Massera's room. He even offered to carry her luggage for her, and she let him. When they entered his room, bright, golden daylight was already bursting through the windows. It was close to nine o' clock in the morning.

How long had she been awake? Over twenty-four hours, probably?

She had lost count at this point.

Rosa felt as though she was now teetering between a perpetual state of sleep-deprived delirium and hyper-awareness. As her tired eyes scanned her new surroundings, Rosa was dismayed to find that it was a normal guest room, not a suite, with only one king-sized bed in sight. There wasn't another available bed. Not even a couch.

She wrinkled her nose with distaste.

Even as exhaustion pulled at her again, she didn't like this sleeping arrangement.

"I want the bed to myself," Rosa announced in a hurry.

"Then," Mr. Massera countered, "where am I supposed to sleep?"

She shrugged and supplied, "On the floor?"

Mr. Massera chuckled as though she was being ridiculous. "I do not fucking think so."

She challenged, "You want us to share the bed, then, mon beau?"

"I will stay on my side," he promised, "if you stay on your side."

This gave her pause.

Rosa wasn't inexperienced with men. If anything, she was far too experienced with the entire fucking gender as a whole. Sex didn't faze her. Sleeping next to a man didn't faze her.

Yet, something about the idea of sleeping next to this man, even in a non-sexual manner, sent strange flutters through her stomach.

She grunted in disapproval, "Hmm."

Rosa's disapproval, though, was aimed at herself rather than the situation.

He asserted in cool tones, "Go back to your suite if my room is not good enough for you."

Fuck that.

Rosa forced a smile on her face. "As long as you behave yourself, I guess I can learn to live with this arrangement."

Mr. Massera muttered drolly, "Can you, now?"

"Mm-hmm," she replied, pausing before asking, "can I jump in your shower real quick? I feel... disgusting."

Disgusting—from lugging around a dead man's body and dumping it into the ocean.

He nodded. "Be my guest."

Rosa wondered what he would be doing while she was washing up, helpless and naked, in his bathroom.

Suspicion prompted her to ask, "What are you going to be doing while I'm in the bathroom?"

"Nothing."

"Will you go to bed?"

He shook his head. "Not yet, I will wait for you."

Rosa smiled like an innocent angel. "You do not trust me?"

Mr. Massera grinned like a knowing devil. "I trust you as much as you trust me."

She murmured, "Touché."

He wasn't wrong there.

She didn't trust him very much.

Rosa already assumed that Mr. Massera knew how to pick a lock, so she had been planning to shower with her Beretta close by while barricading the bathroom door with a chair or something.