She looked over at me, her expression smoothed over into unimpressed, but her eyes fond. “Cute.”
“If you’re worried I’ll peek at a manuscript I shouldn’t, I can promise you I won’t.”
Her lips quirked up at that.
I stopped and held out my hands. “Hand them over.”
She took a few more steps, then came to a stop as well, turning on her heel to face me. Someone else might have saidyou don’t have to, oryou really want to?but instead she just looked at me for a while, assessing, then heaved the tote bag off her slim shoulder, holding it toward me. I grabbed it.
“Fuck, thisisheavy,” I said.
“All those billionaires are solid muscle,” she said, smirking, then turned back, walking away. I jogged a few paces to catch up, falling into step beside her again.
“Thanks for noticing,” I said. “It’s the private trainer.”
She didn’t deign to respond.
“This is nice,” I said, swinging the heavy tote bag between us. Itwasnice. It meant I wasn’t tempted to reach for her hand again, to feel the soft, warm skin of her palm against my larger one. It was enough to have her walking beside me, our whispered conversation in the library feeling like a promise between us.
“It must be a change for you, feeling useful,” she said, but with none of the annoyance of a few months ago. I grinned, humming agreeably.
“Toyou, yes.”
“Well,” she said, walking confidently, staring straight ahead. “You told me yourself. You don’t vibrate.”
I laughed, the sound coming up from my belly, resonating through a chest filled with warmth before bursting into the night air.
I didn’t vibrate, but there were other things I could do for this wonderful, frustrating, beautiful, funny woman, and I would do them all if it meant that I could see this side of her: when the ice melted, leaving just the cream behind, rich and sweet and delicate.I love her, I thought, looking over at her half-smile.
* * *
“Wine?” I asked. I sat her heavy tote bag down on a barstool, and Sami sat herself down in its neighbor. She nodded, smoothing her hands over the smooth countertop.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Poured concrete,” I said. She probably hadmarbleat her place. I smiled to myself. Fitting.
“It’s… interesting.”
My smile grew. “Thanks.”
“I’m not being sarcastic,” she said. “Your place is much different than I imagined it.”
I looked around, trying to see what she saw. My home was a few short blocks from the school, a few longer blocks from Ryan. Not as big as James’s penthouse, but more modern. I’d renovated it when I bought the place, tearing out all the tacky gold fixtures and taking down the heavy draperies, replacing it all with a bright, clean palette of white and cream and gray and charcoal. Or rather, my designer had. I had been in the middle of an expansion at the business, and I’d practically been sleeping at the office. I’d been younger then; I could handle nights spent on the office couch.
“Do I want to know what you imagined?” I pulled a bottle of white from the wine fridge below the kitchen island and two glasses from a cabinet. Maybe she expected more tech. She wouldn't have noticed the retractable flat screen television built into the media console; the speakers, nearly invisible in the ceiling; the staggering amount of data that went into maintaining my penthouse. The perfectly calibrated espresso machine I’d use to make her an Americano tomorrow morning, after she’d spent the night in my bed. In my arms.
“Do you have a mirror above your bed?” she asked in return, and despite myself, I could feel the blood rush downwards. Samantha was in my home, her fingers light on the stem of one of my neglected wine glasses, looking at me with a smile and a raised eyebrow and asking if I had a mirror above my bed.
“Not yet,” I said. I poured a swallow of wine into the bottom of her glass for her to taste. She did so and nodded, looking every bit the polished, sophisticated woman she was. Samantha Scott wasn’t a blushing girl. Not for justanyone, at least. I poured her a glass, and one for myself.Not for anyone else,I thought, the knowledge doing nothing to quell my growing arousal.Just for me.“But if that’s what’s been lacking from our evenings at the Sterling…”
“You think something is lacking?” she cut in. “I should be offended.”
“No, sweetheart,” I said, the endearment rolling off my tongue easily. “Iknowthere’s nothing lacking between us when we’re together, just the same as you do. That’s what keeps you coming back for more, isn’t it?”
She nodded slowly, almost hesitantly, and my heart thumped. I put my wine glass down on the counter after only a sip, and she followed suit, her tongue swiping across her lower lip to collect a glistening droplet.
“That’s right,” I said, my voice low and rough. I stalked around the counter to her; she watched me, twisting her head to follow me as I came up behind her. I settled my hands on her shoulders; she softened under my touch, like ice cream, then went stiff as I collected her hair in one fist, pulling her head to one side to expose her neck to me. I kissed her, right over the pulse, and felt it flutter, her skin sweet and warm under my lips. “I don’t need a mirror above my bed,” I murmured. “You don’t need to see who’s fucking you, sweetheart: even with your eyes closed, it could only be me. No one else can please you like I can.”
