He’s laughing too, the most wonderful, playful sound, as he flips me onto my back, the rosewood cold against my skin. He hovers over me, his weight fully resting on his arms, making the muscles flex. I raise my head and bite his bicep.
‘You’re so gorgeous when you giggle,’ he tells me.
I look down to find his cock ready, naked and swollen. Digging my fingers into his arse, I yank him down towards me until his shaft is pressing against my navel.
He raises two playful brows. ‘Hungry this morning, aren’t we?’
I bite my lip…I really am.
Rather than taking up my usual position between Gregory’s legs, I slide down into the opposite end of the bathtub and tie my hair in a messy knot. He might have escaped me whilst wefrolicked on the landing but I have some questions to ask and I’m not going to let him grope his way out of answering them.
‘How was Germany?’ I break him in gently.
He lifts his arms from the water, steam rising from his skin, and rests them on the sides of the bath. ‘Dry. I had to meet with a business contact from the States who happened to have a meeting in Frankfurt so I agreed to meet him there.’
‘Anything I can help with?’
‘No. Nothing legal, just business, or future business, rather. I like to have my irons in a lot of pies.’
A giggle escapes me, despite my want and need to be serious. ‘You surely know that’s incorrect.’
‘What’s incorrect?’ I can’t be certain but I think I detect the faintest air of a knowing smile around his lips.
‘You either have irons in the fire or fingers in pies, baby. You don’t have irons in pies.’
He turns his head from one side to the other, contemplating. ‘I guess that wouldn’t make sense, would it? I mean, the irons would just ruin the pies.’
‘Right.’ I smile on a shake of my head.
‘Would you get over here?’ He moves a hand to his toned pec, indicating for me to take up my usual spot. I fight the urge to move in and lie back against his chest, instead leaning back a little, letting him know that this woman is putting her foot down.Now there’s a saying he might understand.
‘Are we going to talk about Thursday?’
He moves his hand back to the rim of the bath, his upper body purposefully wide and strong. ‘What about Thursday?’
‘Don’t play games, Gregory. You were angry on the phone to Lara, then you left almost without a word. Next thing I know, you’re on a flight to Germany and you wouldn’t have even called me if the fingerprint trace hadn’t come back.’
‘I would’ve called you.’
This man is infuriating.I sigh and bend my legs, burying my impending scream of exasperation beneath the bubbly water. When I slide back up, he hasn’t moved.
‘Who was the woman you were talking about on the phone? Lara was upset, that was obvious. So who was it and why did the police mention her?’
I lose him. He’s still looking at me but he isn’t present. He drifts to somewhere else, somewhere I’m not invited to go.
‘Why won’t you talk to me?’
‘Why do you keep pushing me, Scarlett? Can’t you accept that I have a past and that I want to forget it? I want you to be my future. Untarnished.’
‘So the woman is part of your past? From South Africa?’
‘Enough!’
I jump, surprised by his growl, water lapping at the sides of the bath as I move. ‘Don’t hate me for trying to break down your walls, Gregory. I want you to let me in. Can’t you see that for us to have a future, you need to be open and honest with me? Let me understand you. Let me understand everything that’s going on.Ineed to make sense of it all too.’
Pulling his knees up and leaning forward, he cups his hands and splashes water in his face and over his hair, then pauses, holding his hands in his dark, wet locks.
I wait. Hoping.
