God, I am down bad for her.
“It didn’t feel real when we were in the club together?” she asked.
My eyes were glued to the way she drove the car. There was something so hot about how easily she handled it.
She’d done the same to me back in that room. With precision and control, she’d driven me over the edge multiple times. She was calm, cool, and collected the entire time, and I couldn't help but want to know if there was ever a time when she wasn’t.
When I didn’t answer, she continued.
“It didn’t feel real when the million dollars hit your bank account?”
“It was a little less,” I said, my voice wavering at the end. Her gaze shot to mine. “I mean, with what the club takes and all that. But it was… it was pretty good…”
I cringed at myself.
“Pretty good, huh?” She chuckled. “Well, this should bepretty goodas well. No club to take a cut. You’ll live with me, eat with me. The money will be yours to spend however you want.”
“The money doesn’t matter to me.”
Her jaw tightened.
“No,” she murmured. “I didn’t think it would.”
Silence spread between us, the tension heightened in the car. I was hit with a stronger huff of her cologne then. Earthy, a bit woodsy, with a sensual twist. It fit her. I wanted to bathe in it. It shot me back to the bonfire. I had taken a flannel from her back in high school—well, she offered, I just decided never to return it!—and the scent had long since worn off.
Maybe when I’m at her house I can spray some of it there again.
I squeezed my thighs together, trying to ignore my pulsating need for her.
“You don’t have to pay me so much,” I said after a moment. “A million dollars a year?—”
“Is nothing compared to what I’d be willing to spend… on you.” I noticed her hesitation, but her voice was hard when she spoke again. “But I knew you wouldn’t accept any more than that. I will make it up to you in other ways.”
My heart thundered in my chest. Suddenly, I felt lightheaded.
“You know me,” I whispered. “You don’t need to do that. I’ve never been one to enjoy pampering.”
More like I’ve never been pampered. At all. But she doesn’t need to know that.
She didn’t speak again until we were inside the underground parking lot of what I supposed was her building.
“You’ll have time to go to school, but you should be with me the rest of the time. You’ll be introduced as my new assistant?—”
“That’s one thing I wanted to amend,” I interrupted. “I can work some days as your assistant, but I want to keep my job at the steakhouse.”
She parked the car and turned her whole body to face me.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You want tostayin that awful job? You realize you don’t have to with what I’m paying you?”
I nodded. It wasn’t about the money, but maybe that wasn’t getting through to her.
“I just want… something to fall back on, you know?
She looked at me like she was trying to read me.
“You’re afraid you can’t do the job?”
My skin heated.
