I nod.
"Say it," he demands.
"I’m never going back."
He presses a kiss to the hollow behind my ear. "Good girl."
When the room service cart arrives, I am still naked, wrapped only in his arms, and I don't bother to hide.
The man who delivers it never looks at us, eyes trained on the wall. I want to laugh at the absurdity, the power of it.
Julian drags the cart out and stops it in front of the patio set. White linen, silver cutlery, three-tiered towers of pastries and fruit. The eggs benedict covered in steam, yolks glistening, the hollandaise thick as gold. There are bowls of strawberries and blackberries and piles of smoked salmon, every slice fanned out perfect. Two bottles of champagne sweat in a bucket, and there’s a carafe of coffee with two perfect mugs.
He gestures for me to sit, then pours the champagne, the bubbles fizzing up and over the rim. I reach for the glass, and he watches my hand. I can feel the burn of his gaze, but this time it isn’t a threat. It’s a kind of worship.
We eat in silence for a while. He tears a croissant in half and passes it to me, the flaky crust disintegrating against my palm. I press it to my lips, taste the butter, and let it melt on my tongue.I go for the fruit next, stabbing the fattest strawberry with the tip of my knife and sinking my teeth into it. The juice runs down my chin and onto my wrist, and before I can wipe it away, Julian leans in and licks the drip from my skin.
I freeze. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes do.
I finish the fruit, slower this time, and reach for my coffee.
"Do you even like this stuff?" he asks, nodding at the breakfast.
I shrug. "We could afford whatever we wanted back home, but my dad was always a stickler for watching my waist line.”
I stare at the table, at the perfect pyramid of fruit, the way the seeds freckle the inside of each cut berry. My hands shake, so I hide them under the table.
He doesn’t say anything. I can feel his stare. “Fuck him. You’re a fucking goddess and you deserve to eat what you want.”
My blush spreads across my face and he grabs a fork and knife, cutting into the benny before tilting my chin up, making me take a bite.
My moan is enough to set his eyes ablaze. “Do that again and you’ll be stuffed with more than just eggs.”
I test it…
“Mmmm, fuck, these eggs are so good.” I lick my lips and lower my eyes so I’m peeking at him through my lashes.
“Get your ass to the bed. Now.”
After breakfast, the day melts.
I lose all sense of time. The hours stretch and fold, each moment so full it spills over into the next. We don’t leave the penthouse, except to move from room to room, one luxury to another. I am drunk on the emptiness of obligation.
We start in the jacuzzi, the water scalding and perfect, steam roiling around us as we slip into the heat. I sit between Julian’s knees, my back to his chest, and let the world go fuzzy. He kneads my shoulders, fingers digging in with a pressure that hurts and heals at the same time. Every so often, he drops a kiss onto the curve of my neck, the same place he marked me last night.
It’s not the same as before. There is no performance here. No one to impress, no one to threaten, no one to prove anything to. When I sigh and lean into him, it’s because I want to, not because I’m expected to.
We talk about nothing. Movies, bands, the way the pool lights change color at random. At one point, he tries to teach me how to do a “proper cannonball” and almost pulls the muscle in his thigh. I laugh so hard I choke on my own spit and he pretends to be annoyed, but I see the way it makes him smile.
It’s the kind of smile that isn’t meant for anyone else.
We order more food. He insists I try the duck, the tiramisu, the smoked trout. I let him feed me, mouth to mouth, and the intimacy of it is almost more than sex. He licks whipped cream from the corner of my mouth, and I almost come from the sensuality of it all.
At some point, we nap. The blackout curtains are drawn, the room cast in a soft twilight. I curl against his chest, my ear pressed to the steady drum of his heart. His arm wraps around me, pinning me down, but the weight of it is comfort, not prison.
When I wake, the sun is just starting to set, the sky is purple and orange. I find him on the couch, stretched out in a pair of black joggers and nothing else, scrolling through the news on his phone. He looks up when I walk in, and his eyes soften.
I burrow next to him, tucking my feet under his thigh. He puts the phone down and grabs my thigh, squeezing gently in small pulses, massaging out the tension.
