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Fuck, I hadn’t felt anxiety in so long. Probably not since I was a child with my absentee parents, who were more concerned with making money and attending social gatherings than spending time with me.
I’d learned from them. I kept my trademarked apathetic demeanor in place. Somebody in my power, in my position, had to. I couldn’t show weakness, not when I was running the company and keeping everybody in line. Not when they looked up to me to make sure shit didn’t hit the fan.
They had to see a mountain was running the show. Unmovable. Indestructible.
It in turn gave them confidence, and that showed in the way they took pride in their work and helped run a multimillion-dollar company.
So yeah, I was nervous as fuck. I poured another drink just as I heard a knock at the front door.
Even though my keycard would grant access into not only my penthouse, but also my front door, Pyper had never willingly let herself in. She kept things formal in that regard, even though I regularly fucked her until she gushed all over me.
Her hesitation to be closer was cute. Endearing even. Especially since she never hesitated to do anything physical I ordered her to do.
I had the door open and Pyper in my arms a second later. I swept my tongue across the seam of her lips as I kissed her like I hadn’t seen her in a decade.
When I pulled back, she let out a soft breath, her eyes slightly hooded, her lips parted as if she wanted more. She gave me this almost dreamy expression, but then, as if she caught herself showing me how she truly felt—because I knew she was in this just as deep as I was—she straightened and took a step back.
“What was that for?”
I thought of a hundred different ways to go about broaching the subject. I wasn’t a man of many words—well… unless I was telling her what a good little slut she was. I didn’t sugarcoat shit. I got right to the point, even if it cut deep.
But my time with Pyper made me realize I wanted to be gentle and sweet.
And I was with her. Only her.
“It was because every time I look at you, think about you, it makes me crazy. I can’t help myself, Pyper.” I cupped either side of her face and started peppering her with kisses. I’d never been so… soft. Just like I’d never been so degrading before discovering how much it pleased her. I’d always been somewhere in the middle, neutral… emotionless. Yet just thinking about her turned me inside out.
She didn’t say anything, but I didn’t need her to respond. I could see in her face she felt my words. Felt them deep. How could she not by the way I looked at her, touched her, and made her mine?
“I do know,” she finally said after the door was shut, and she looked up at me like she saw something I didn’t even try to hide.
“You know what, baby doll?”
She exhaled, but I took her hand and led her over to the couch, where I pulled her down to sit next to me. But Pyper wasn’t looking at me. She scanned everywhere but my face, and it was starting to worry the fuck out of me.
Nah, I didn’t like this feeling—this feeling of unease that my world was about to crash all around me. Fuck, I was antsy, so I got up, grabbed my scotch—which I set on the counter before answering the door—and finished it off.
“Baby girl, you’re killing me here.” I was back beside her a second later, and she looked at me then. The expression on her face had something in me lightening.
“I do know how deep, because…” She licked her lips and glanced back at me. “Because I’m just as deep as you are, and it scares the hell out of me, Anthony.”
The way she said my name had my entire body tensing in the best way.
“But I feel like this is so fast?—”
I shook my head, causing her to stop. “I feel like it’s taken an eternity to find you, Pyper. For as incredible as the sex is—the best sex I’ve ever had in my life—” That caused her cheeks to turn pink. “—I want more. I want everything with you.”
“I know we talked about…” She chuckled softly, as if she was about to say a little joke that only she was in on. “Well, you demanded what was going to happen, is more accurate.” That had me grinning. She inhaled slowly and exhaled hard. “But I was in it from the beginning.”
When Pyper looked at me, when she said those words, I felt the world tilt on its axis.
“You make me weak.” The words spilled from my lips before I realized I said them. At her confused—almost hurt—look, I shook my head and spoke again. “I always thought weakness was a curse, a chunk taken out of the armor you showed the world.” I cupped her cheek and smoothed a thumb over her soft skin. “How very wrong I was. Weakness makes you human. It makes you see things as a mortal, knowing life is short and you have to embrace every second, because it can be done and over with in the blink of an eye.”
I sat back, shocking the fuck out of myself, because who was I? Who had I become? Never in my life did I think I’d expose myself in such a way to another person. Hell, I’d never bared my emotions to anyone before.
I didn’t even bare those to… me. Yet here I was, laying it all out there for Pyper to examine. I ripped my heart out and offered it to her on a platinum platter, because it was the only vulnerable part of me.
And the very thought of losing her… losing how she made me feel, was a pain unlike anything I ever wanted to experience.
