There’s only one woman I’ve had an instant obsession with.
She is standing in front of me with furrowed brows.
After placing down an ornament on the mantel, Emerson twists to face me. “Did Zoya tell you what happened that night?”
“Not in explicit detail, but I got the gist.”
She smiles at the disgust on my face before pacing closer. “Not the parts that include Andrik… though you’re more than welcome to share if you need to get them off your chest.” I screw up my nose, sending her laughter echoing throughout the penthouse. “More the events leading up to the main event.”
“They’re just as X-rated,” I say with a laugh, willing to do anything to stop me from being sick.
Emerson continues as if I never spoke. “The scene where they arrived at your apartment to a woman on her knees, naked and eager.”
I step back, shocked. “What?” When she nods, I speak at a million miles an hour. “A woman was here, in my penthouse, naked?”
Her nod continues. “And posed in an extremely submissive way.”
She couldn’t have shocked me more if she had slapped me. “I swear on my mother’s grave…” My words trail off when I recall I can no longer use that analogy. My mother is alive. Not close to living, but very much alive. “I’veneverinvited anyone here. Except Zoya, but she doesn’t count, and it wasn’t like that…” I struggle to finish what I had planned to be a lengthy plea whenI realize it isn’t jealousy now burning Emerson’s cheeks. It is understanding.
What. The. Fuck.
“Why aren’t you pissed?”
She saunters close, her swinging hips effortlessly seducing me. “Why would I be? You said you had no clue she was here.”
“And you believe me?”
I’m confident I am dreaming when Emerson nods. “Yep.” While smiling at my shocked expression, she nudges her head to the kitchen. “Hungry?”
Too stunned to speak, I nod.
“Good.” I’m hard in an instant when she reaches for the crotch of my jeans and lowers the zipper. “Because once you’ve finished dipping my calories into the negative, you’ll need to feed me.”
She pushes me back until I land on the sofa with a thud before she frees my cock from my pants and arrows her lips toward the head.
Hours later, sexually gorged and in a carbohydrate coma, Emerson lies in the crook of my arm, rolling the coin I stole from the jukebox before Lynx could bank it through her fingers. She’s naked—how she should be every damn day of her life—and a satisfied smirk is on her face.
Although I’m still curious about her earlier confession, I can get answers about the stranger in my house by requesting the video footage covering every inch of the penthouse floor. Only one person can answer this snippet of curiosity.
“Does that mean your mom knows about us?” I nudge my head to the coin frozen between her index finger and middlefinger before lowering my eyes to her sweat-drenched face. We ate more than we fucked the past hour, but dessert is strenuous when the ultimate treat comes in body parts.
Rolling over, Emerson pops her chin onto my naked pec before peering up at me. I smile like a pig in a muddy hole when she jerks up her chin.
“I couldn’t give them all the details, much to Aunt Marcelle’s disgrace, but they got the gist of it.” She hits me with a frisky wink that shouldn’t make me hard but does. Her aunt Marcelle is the type of woman who will put a glass to a bedroom wall to make sure she doesn’t miss a single moan. She is why Emerson and I spent so much of our time at the pub.
The fact she didn’t drill Emerson is shocking. Marcelle lives precariously through her niece.
I learn the cause of her sudden change of demeanor when Emerson whispers, “Andrik isn’t a man you can have a womanly conversation around.” She huffs, blowing my hair away from my eye. “Zoya may get away with it, but the rest of us are a little wary.”
Words leave my mouth before I can stop them, and they’re shocking. “He’s more bark than bite of late. Almost a pussycat.” Curious, I ask, “Did you ask him to drive you to Ember’s, or did he volunteer?”
“Um…” Her focus is shifty, and it places me on the back foot. Emerson can’t lie even if it would save her life, so I’m a little put off by her sudden wish to be shady.
“It isn’t a hard question, Em. He either offered or you asked.”
“He offered,” she answers, her tone low.
I rub her arm, assuring her I have no intention of fighting with her for at least a decade unless it is in foreplay, before asking, “Why was he near Zelenolsk?”
