I’ve had enough attention to last a lifetime. But for some reason, I want Theo to look at me.
After a long moment, I let down my hair.
When I exit the bathroom, Theo sits up, and I know letting my hair down was a mistake.
But his hot gaze on me feels like a win.
“No, we’re not just going to sleep,” I announce. “We’re going to talk.
“Just talk?” Another eyebrow raises.
“Just talk.” I turn to the dresser to take out my earrings.
A whisper of fabric, and heat hits my back. Theo’s awesome sexual presence surrounds me.
“Just talk? Are you sure about that?” he murmurs, wrapping his arm around my waist. A good thing he does, because my legs almost give out.
He pulls me back against him and my mind goes blank. Something long and very, very hard presses against my bottom.
“This is sexual harassment,” the Miss Mavery part of me parrots. The rest of me melts into Theo’s giant body.
“Is it? How so?” He tugs my shirt collar to the side and plants a small kiss on my shoulder.
It takes everything in me not to whirl around and wrap my arms around his neck. He’s very hard and warm. And... hard. “Um…”
“Why don’t you tell me all about it.” He steps away and tugs me around. “In bed.”
He draws me to the bed slowly. I walk very carefully, as if I might accidentally slip and fall and land on his dick.
Hey, it could happen. Baggy yoga pants non-withstanding.
But as soon as I get to the bed, I break away and slip under the covers. “No. Just no.” I stop him when he goes to do the same.
He smirks and lies atop the comforter, propped on his side facing me. “You don’t trust me at all, do you?”
“Not one bit, Mr. Fuck God. Your reputation precedes you. You made your bed. You can lie in it.”
“As long as I can lie in it with you.”
I roll my eyes. “Calm down, Casanova. You’re not going to seduce me tonight.”
He traces the design on the blanket, his finger straying dangerously close to my boob. “Can you blame me if I try? You’re hot.”
I give him a look.
“Oh, come on. Not even those glasses hide it. Though they do give me tons of sexy librarian fantasies.”
“Your books are overdue, Mr. Kensington,” I say sternly.
“Fuck me,” he groans, rolling to his back.
“No. Not gonna happen. I don’t fuck boys who are prettier than me.”
“I’m not boy. I’m a man.”
“Then act like one. Skateboarding? Really?”
“I like it. I won a competition—”
“When you were a teen. You’re twenty-eight.”
“How old are you?”
“None of your business.”
His eyes glitter. “I can make it my business. I’ll call down to Evans right now—”
“Twenty-six.”
“You’re young.”
“Age is just a number. I’ve got experience.”
He smirks.
“As a media specialist,” I clarify. “My last five clients—”
“I know about your clients. I read your file.”
“You read?” I snark back, and he makes a face.
I hit him with a pillow, and he grabs it from me, putting it behind his head.
This is nice. This is comfortable. At least, as comfortable as we can be with all this sexual tension buzzing between us. The air is charged, like just before a storm.
“I guess your glasses make you look older. More... experienced.”
I smile at this.
“So what made you want to be a fixer?” Theo asked.
“Everyone has secrets.”
He tilts his head closer. “You gonna tell me yours?”
“What do you think?” I pull the sheet up under my chin.
“If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.”
“Too late for that, Mr. Fuck God. Your dick is all over the internet. You don’t have any secrets.” I plump my own pillow, sink into it with a sigh. “Not that you’ve ever had much privacy. Billionaire, son of a princess. You’ve lived your whole life in the spotlight. Must get old.”
“It does,” he says softly, and there’s a sad note in his voice, a hint of the man I saw before. Much older and more serious than the usual playboy the world knows. Soft and open, able to be hurt.
I might be the only one who’s ever seen the real Theo.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, and my heart stops. There’s nothing flirtatious about his tone, none of the irresistible charm. He serious, stating a fact. But I am very aware of his hand resting on the bed between us, five inches from my hip. It would take nothing for him to slide it forward, to pull down the covers and find my bare skin under the baggy t-shirt. His touch wouldn’t even be shocking. It wouldn’t be wrong.
Us, lying together without touching, that is shocking. Being in bed with Theo feels inevitable.
It doesn’t make it right.
I press my lips together and stare at the ceiling.
“When I first saw you, I thought you were, I don’t know”, he shakes his head, “a model or something. A pretty face sent here to sell something. Then you opened your mouth and—”
“What? Beautiful women can’t be smart?”
“I don’t usually hang out with women because they’re smart.”
“Pepper Spice is smart. She turned one night with you into media attention and a book deal.”
He says nothing.
“And I am a pretty face sent here to sell something,” I continue. “I’m going to sell the world Theodore Kensington: fine, upstanding citizen. And you know what? It won’t even be a lie.”
“My whole life is a lie.”
“What are you talking about? You live in a mansion in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world. This place is practically a palace.”
“This? I hate this place. My father built it for my mother. Ten years after she died.” He scoffs. “He never stopped loving her. Never stopped…”
“Trying to prove himself?”
“Yeah,” his voice kicks with a mirthless laugh. “I guess so.”
“So you had a hard childhood. That’s not unusual.”
“What about you?” He turns that deep gaze on me and I flick my own down. I want to shrink into myself, a hermit crab in a shell. Don’t look at me.
But he does. There’s no hiding from the dark blue depths of his gaze.
“Tell me something about yourself, Vesper Smith. Something real.”
“Truth or dare?” I joke, and wish I could take it back. Theo lies on his side, his dark gaze soldered to my curves under the blanket. And I’m wet and ready, body just waiting for him to make the first move. At this point, a dare would be very, very dangerous.
I swallow. “I’m from a small town. Only child.”
“Parents?” he probes, more intent than I’ve ever seen him. His sexy aura is turned way, way up. This close, it’s overpowering.
“Just my mom. She worked a lot.”
“So did my dad.”
“Yeah, well, at least you weren’t on food stamps.” I grimace at the ceiling.