“I’m sorry, baby,” he said. “It is cold tonight.”
I shook my head. “All the time. I’ve been cold since that night. I can’t get warm.”
“It’s probably all the goddamn weight you lost,” he said. “This is unhealthy. What happened to the girl I took for burgers a few months ago?”
“She was lost,” I said, my voice hitching as I looked at him.
He embraced me again. “If it were up to me, you’d never be cold.”
“I know,” I said, because I thought I did. I thought I believed that he really did want more from me, but it terrified me when he said it. Giving more meant I had more at stake. More to lose.
“I’ll take you home,” he said, pulling back. “But for the love of God, Olivia, please let me make you something to eat.”
“How?”
“We had an event up here last night, separate from the opening. There are some leftovers.”
“Will you be naked?” I asked, knocking my heels against the cupboard underneath me. My mouth formed into a circle. “You’re blushing.”
“No, I’m not. If those are your conditions, then fine. I accept.”
I blinked at him and hopped off the counter. “All right,” I said, shrugging my robe back on.
“But can I put on underwear?” he asked.
“Hmm . . .” I closed one eye as I thought, and he laughed.
I went to leave, but he pulled me backward and into his arms. With my back to his front, he leaned into my hair and murmured, “How’s that for a reflection?”
I looked up at the mirror. He made me beautiful. Together, we were beautiful—a puzzle with only two pieces. I shifted my eyes to his and nodded. He held my stare a moment and let me go with a kiss on the cheek.
I snuggled into the warmth of my robe as I wandered to the kitchen while he changed. “Are there plates?” I called.
He appeared, tutting at me. “I’ll prepare it.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Go on, and let me make you something to eat.” He furrowed his brow at the contents of the refrigerator. “There isn’t much, but I’ll come up with something.”
I propped my chin in my hand and watched him navigate the kitchen. “Do you like to cook?”
“No. I usually eat out or my housekeeper makes something a couple times a week.”
It was my turn totsk. “You do need a woman in your life.”
He answered with a grunt, but I was comforted that there was at least one thing he wasn’t proficient in. I smiled like a schoolgirl as I watched, enjoying the view of his spectacular, ridged torso and taut ass. His muscles were hard but not bulky, and they became more defined as he moved. I was tempted to show my appreciation by exploring them with my tongue. Once, after he stuck something in the microwave, he stole away for a chaste kiss on the lips.
He set down two plates of day-old hors d'oeuvres and pulled his chair to the corner of the table so we were close. “Next timeyou’llbe topless, right?” he teased.
I forced a laugh, but I had caught his slip.Next time. “However you’ll have me,” I responded, deliberately gulping down my nagging guilt.
His eyes darkened with the dilation of his pupils. He reached out and slipped his hand in my robe, tugging it open slightly to reveal my breast. “I’ll have you any way I can, until it’s too much, and you beg me to stop.”
At his touch, I sighed, deflating against the chair. If he were mine, I would have told him that I’d never ask him to stop. That he could take me any way he needed me. His fingers grazed over my nipple and under the curve of my breast. I arched toward him as his hand dropped behind me, caressing my lower back and sliding over my ribs. He pressed my waist, and his thumb ran over my scar. His eyes burned when he said, “Tell me more about this part of your life.”
16
David wanted me to open for him again, and he had a way of making me. But didn’t he understand how it only complicated things? I sighed heavily. “The best way I know how to deal with my past is to forget, David.”
