“Do you have any idea how fucking horny that makes me?” I growl, keeping my face close to hers. “The idea of you on your back, your hand between your legs, rubbing your perfect pussy as you think of me? Is that what you were doing when I caught you last night?”
“Hmm,” she moans, as though full sentences are beyond her. “I couldn’t help myself.”
“Just like you won’t be able to help yourself when I finally claim you,” I growl. “You think you’re going to be nervous. You think you won’t know what to do. But when your fantasy becomes a reality, you won’t be able to stop.”
Her eyes flicker with warring emotions, as though part of her wants to believe me but part of her can’t risk it.
I sit back with a smirk, nodding. “You’ll see, my perfect virgin. You’ll see.”
She bites her lip for a moment, and then lets it go, glancing out her side of the window as the city passes us by. It’s still busy despite the time, the sidewalks packed, the traffic moving in sporadic movements.
“Miller.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think it’s possible my aunt had a part to play in our meeting?”
I reach over and touch her shoulder softly, my chest tightening at the heavy emotion in her voice. “What do you mean?”
She reaches up and clasps onto my hand. “On her deathbed, she said she wanted me to find a man, a man who’d…”
Who’d love me, she was going to say, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe if I blurted that out now, she’d withdraw.
I can’t risk it, not when we’re finally on the same path.
“She wanted me to find somebody,” she goes on firmly. “But I told her I doubted that would ever happen. So she said she’d wish for it as she passed, her final wish. I know it sounds silly.”
“No,” I growl, with hot certainty in my voice. “Or maybe it does. It should. But it doesn’t to me. Not even a little bit. You’ve unlocked doors inside of me, Macie, doors I didn’t even know existed.”
She turns to me with the most heart-touching smile I’ve ever seen, as though she’s been waiting all her life for this moment, and for a terrifying second I think tears are going to spring to my eyes. It’s the suddenness of the emotion, the closeness, the unexpectedness that a man like me could ever feel something so deeply.
I lean in and softly kiss her cheek, stunned at how quickly we can go from banter to lust to love, to fucking love.
Because that’s what this is.
Even if saying it this soon could be a mistake.
Chapter Seventeen
Macie
“This place is amazing,” I murmur, as Miller pulls out my chair for me.
Our table is on the upper balcony, a private area separated from the rest of the restaurant by a curtain, half-pulled right now so the waiters can come and take our order. Beneath us, the ballroom-style restaurant expands massively, with chandeliers glittering from the ceilings and a large stage where a jazz band plays soft ambient music.
“It used to be a theater,” Miller says as he walks around to his chair.
He looks dashing and powerful in his dark suit, his shirt open at the top to reveal a preview of his sculpted flesh. My body is still hot from all the craziness in the car, the banter and the emotion and the magic of it all, but it gets even hotter when he unbuttons his suit jacket, revealing the way his shirt clings onto his rocky abs.
“Yeah, I can tell,” I say, forcing my attention back to our conversation so I’m not just ogling him. “It’s really beautiful.”
He smirks, and I know what he’s going to say before he says it.
“Nah uh.” I giggle. “No cheesy lines, thank you very much.”
“What?” he says, laughing.
“You were going to say not as beautiful as you, right?”
I can’t believe I can summon the confidence to make this sort of assertion, to tell him that he was going to call me beautiful. I expect him to laugh at me, to call me deranged, to tell me I need to stop letting a few compliments flood my mind with confidence.
But instead, he chuckles and nods. “I told you, Macie. You can read me like a book.”
“Sir, madam,” the waiter says, appearing at the edge of our table like he freaking teleported.
He has a British accent and stands stiff-backed, proper in the extreme.
“Would you like to start with some drinks?”
“Sure.” Miller nods. “I’ll take an orange soda.”
The waiter turns to me. “And for the madam?”
“I’ll have the same,” I tell him.
“And we’ll need some time with the menus.”
“Of course, sir.”
The waiter bows and retreats.
“You could’ve ordered something stronger if you want to,” I tell Miller, once we’re alone again.
“I’ve never been much of a drinker.” He shrugs. “And anyway, you could’ve ordered something too. You’re twenty-one.”