“You know what I find funny?” he asks.
I hum.
“One minute, I can be ready to fuck you senseless. Then the next minute, I want to do this.” He tugs me tighter against him. “I can’t figure out what I want to do with you. You drive me crazy.”
“I can’t figure out what I want you to do to me either. What a conundrum.”
I smile, knowing that he can’t see my face. I feel his body tense behind mine.
“What do you mean by that?” he asks finally.
“Do I want you to fuck me senseless? Or do I want you to leave me with a guy like Marius so I can ensure that I keep my job?”
His body vibrates with a low, borderline-angry chuckle. “I assure you, Ms. Brewer, that the avenue to keeping your job is not to entertain any ideas whatsoever about Marius.”
“So Curt is okay?”
“If you want decrepit old men, then he’s your guy.”
I rest my hands on his at my belly. “But what if that’s not what I want? What if I want a younger, late-thirties, early-forties man with striking eyes and a tendency to leave me alone with men who ask me to sleep with them—”
“He did fucking not.”
Oliver whirls me around and takes me in. As soon as he faces me and I can see the anger, surprise, downright fury written on his face, I can’t contain myself. I laugh.
“You did this to yourself,” I say, wagging a finger in his face. “You left me alone with him like an imbecile.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“About what?”
“He didn’t ask you to sleep with him?”
I consider screwing with him. It serves him right. But I don’t want to intentionally make him jealous and then end up sleeping with Oliver tonight.
No, if this is where this is going and we end up in bed together, it will be because we choose to do that without any outside interference.
I cup the sides of Oliver’s face with both hands. “No. He didn’t. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.”
He searches my face for any thread of doubt before leaning down and hovering his lips over mine.
“Are you going to kiss me or not?” I ask him.
“I don’t know.”
“Oliver …” I protest.
He laughs, scooping me up in his arms and marching across the room. My shriek—a response to the unexpected move—echoes down the hallway. My shoes brush against a lampshade on a table beneath an oversized painting of a shipyard.
The house is too dark to see too much; the doors coming off the hallway are closed. We finally make it to the door at the very end, and Oliver opens it with the flick of his wrist.
He swipes his hand against the wall and the lights come on. They’re dim, glowing just enough to give me an opportunity to see where we are.
And holy cow.
He sets me on my feet. I venture deeper into the bedroom.
The room is grand, luxurious—fit for a king. The windows are floor-to-ceiling like in the living room. A dark wood, four-poster bed faces a fireplace that begins to flicker when Oliver pushes a button on a remote. Above the fireplace is a wood-beam mantel and, above that, a large television. A light-colored rug lays in front of a cozy sofa with pillows.
I look over my shoulder. Oliver is standing next to his bed.
His eyes are hooded. His breathing is shallow. His tie is undone, and he’s watching me with one-hundred-percent attentiveness.
My dress shifts against the floor as I turn around and face him.
“My God, you’re gorgeous,” he says.
“I think you’ve said that already tonight.”
He stalks my way, a grin playing on his lips. “Do you mind if I tell you over and over again? Because I think I’m going to find it difficult not to tell you.”
I hum as he presses a kiss to the side of my neck. “I’d rather you show me, Mr. Mason.”
He nips the skin just beneath my ear, making me jump. Only, when I do, he holds me tight and kisses me again.
The contact, the unpredictability—the overwhelming anticipation—has me breathing ragged breaths.
“I’m afraid,” he says, kissing down my neck and back up again, peppering kisses between the words, “it would take all night to show you how beautiful you are.”
“Well then, I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have anywhere to be.”
His lips crash onto mine, taking me in a move of uncontrolled, relentless desire. My brain spins, my body aches—it’s all I can do to be present and soak up the sweet, sweet attention of Oliver.
He works my zipper, dragging it down the center of my back. The fabric falls from my body and, as he steps back just enough to give it room to fall, it does. It becomes a heap on the floor.
Despite the crackling fire, the air is cool against my skin. Oliver, however, is undeterred. He kisses, touches—runs his hands over my body as though he must prove to himself that I’m here. In the flesh.