“Just a little more,” he whispers in my ear.
I’m so wet, and when he moves inside me, I shudder.
As I come again, he grabs my hip and jerks me back onto him. His eyes are fierce with desire and something fiercer I don’t dare name.
He drives into me all the way to the end. I grind against him, taking him deep enough it feels as if I couldn’t separate us if I wanted to.
We’re exhausted and we’re sweaty and he’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before.
My eyes drift closed.
I feel exposed, but I also feel battered. Every part of me is bruised.
I’m not sure I can put all my pieces back together.
I’m not sure I want to.
“Olivia.”
I blink to see him lean back in his chair, watching me like he’s trying to memorize every feature.
“Come home with me.”
15
Sawyer
She put rules on what this is.
Her body is mine.
Her heart, she keeps.
It’s a lie.
Like she wanted, I ride her until she’s exhausted. Then I let her sleep and wake her again in the early hours of the morning, make her come on my lips where I can still taste us both.
I wake to the sight of her already stirring next to me, her bare shoulder sticking above the white covers of my former bedroom.
It held a lot of bad memories, but I can’t remember even one of them in this moment.
“How amazing is my hair?” she murmurs sleepily.
“Indescribable.”
She starts to fix it and I pin her hands to the pillow, rolling over the top of her.
“You’re perfect.”
“A perfect mess.”
I kiss her, because I can’t do anything else.
Our relationship shifted last night.
I was already falling for her, but the way she looked at me…it wasn’t only about her proving something.
All those promises my life would be better one day felt hollow until now. I spent my life trying to design and build something that would satisfy me, but never could.
Now I know why.
Because what I needed was flesh and blood.
“Tell me about your watch?” she asks as I start to fasten it on.
My fingers still on the leather band.
Whenever anyone’s asked, I’ve said it was custom and let them wonder.
Now, my heart thuds in my ears.
“It’s a piece of stone from the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s where my mom…she died there.” My chest tightens as I take in the lettering on the face. “It says, ‘We choose.’”
Her cool hand on my cheek lifts my gaze and I stare at her earnest face.
“As a kid, I used to keep rocks from all over the place.”
Shifting toward the edge of the bed, I reach into the nightstand of my childhood room and pull out a box.
When I lift the lid, she peers inside. Her lips curve. “Nice collection.”
“They were something I could get when I was a foster kid. It didn’t have extrinsic value. So I took one from every place I stayed.”
From a garden or a shed or a corner. Unseen, undesired.
To me, they mattered.
She reaches into the box and takes a small pink stone, turning it in her fingers as if it’s precious.
“You wanted a home. Some place you were loved and accepted for who you are. Is that why you want to give me the same thing?”
My chest cracks.
I want her to spend the entire weekend between these sheets, I want her to tell me all about the fish, I want to see if I can get an encore performance of that dance from last night that might ensure my cock stays in the upright and locked position for the rest of my life.
“I need to study,” Olivia says against my lips when she pulls away to get dressed. “Also, a gallon of coffee first because someone didn’t let me sleep.”
Evidently she had jeans and spare underwear in the gym bag—a shame, because I want to see her put on the fuck-hot dress she wore last night before stripping it off. But instead, she steps into skinny jeans and I have to satisfy myself with watching her curves as she wriggles into them.
“What’re you doing?”
“The realtor’s coming tomorrow and sent me a bunch of papers. I should at least look at them.”
She pulls on a tank top, shooting me a glance over her shoulder that’s way too knowing for a twenty-year-old. “The realtor returns.”
I snort, grabbing clean briefs and tugging them on, followed by jeans. “It’s her job. She’s coming over to do…something with the house.”
Olivia crosses to me, grabbing my jeans in one hand before I can fasten them. “I know exactly what she wants to do with ‘the house,’” she breathes, making air quotes as her gaze runs up my body.
My grin comes easily. “You’re cute when you’re possessive, Miss Barclay.”
I want the possessive, and more than that.
“Tell me something you haven’t told anyone else,” I say, impulsive, as I pin her against the window. It’s a throwback to the night we met and the glint in her eyes says she knows.
Her attention skims over my shoulder, light dancing on her messily perfect hair. “Last night was the first time I’ve ever come in someone else’s bed.”
“In that case, it was also the second. And the third, if memory serves.” My chest is warm, vibrating from the racing of my heart beneath my ribs. “You’re serious.”
“Yeah. That was a dumb thing to say.” She tries to duck past me and hide her face, self-conscious, but I force her to look at me.
“It’s not.”
“Whatever. You’ve probably deflowered virgins in here.”
This time she ducks under my arm, tripping toward the door and grabbing for a sweater in her bag.
“Guess it’s my turn to tell you a secret,” I call after her.
She pauses in the doorframe to pop her head through the neckhole of her sweater.
“I never slept with my partner’s daughter. Never touched her. I’ve never been with anyone younger, before you.”
She stills, her full lips parted. Shock blends with hope on her face. “You mean that.”
I nod. It’s all I can do with how she’s looking at me. As if I’m holding the most precious gift out to her and asking if she wants it.
I didn’t get why it meant so much to her, but right now, there’s no question it does.
Remembering her task, she carefully pushes one arm through the sleeve, then the other.
“So she lied?”
“Her father pressured her. It was a ploy to push me out of my own company. I could’ve fought it harder, but she was an innocent caught in the crossfires and it would’ve gotten ugly.”
She tugs the sweater down her ribs, the smooth cashmere skimming over her figure. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted you to believe me first. Not to look at me with accusation, guilty until proven innocent.” I reach for a shirt, shrugging into it for an excuse to avoid her eyes. ”But perhaps at the same time, I didn’t feel like I deserved your belief.”
When I look back up, she’s crossed the room to me.