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He pretended to pinch me, but I grabbed his hand and kissed his fingers. After a few more minutes of quiet, I couldn’t help myself.
“A douche valet. Now there’s something. Just think of how helpful that guy would be.”
Worth smothered me with the pillow and then proceeded to kiss me so thoroughly, I forgot all about douche valets.
The following two days passed in a kind of fever dream including several more rounds of mind-blowing sex interspersed with long and interesting conversations, swimming, sunning, and generally indulging in my Caribbean vacation fantasies on Cooper and Salt Islands. I was walking around like a zombie. I’d barely gotten any sleep the night before after Worth had, once again, mapped my skin with his tongue and spent hours edging me before finally fucking me into a stupor. A stupor I seemed to still be in this morning.
I mentally frolicked in the clouds all through breakfast, remembering what it was like to feel the laser focus of Worth’s attention on my body. Hot memories washed over me enough to make me downright stupid.
“I would say he’s hungover, but he didn’t drink much last night,” Nat muttered into her coffee.
“He’s fucked out,” Jade teased. “Look at him.”
Mia laughed. “Worth, what did you do to that poor guy?”
I felt Worth’s fingers in my hair. “He’s just not fully awake yet, that’s all.”
I glanced over at him and noticed endearing imperfections. There was a stubborn lock of hair on one side of his head that refused to stand down. He’d missed a spot under his jawline while shaving. And most adorably, the barest hint of a hickey peeked out from the soft neckband of his T-shirt.
I was in a heap load of trouble. Like, big-deal terrifying trouble. I blinked at Worth’s handsome face and wondered if he’d ever settle down with someone and what it would be like for that person to wake up next to him for the rest of their life.
“Oh my god, he’s fucking adorable,” Jade muttered, pulling out her phone and snapping a picture. The sound of the camera noise jerked me to attention. She was talking about me.
I swallowed and took a sip of my coffee before acting casual. “Am not.”
Worth chuckled. “Good morning, sunshine. So good of you to join us.”
I looked down at my empty plate and realized I’d scarfed down breakfast at some point. “Do you think there’s more? I think I’m still hungry.”
Mia stage-whispered, “I think he means thirsty.”
My cheeks heated. “For orange juice maybe.”
“For man juice,” Jade corrected.
Worth sputtered, and Nat made an ew sound.
I got up to find Julo in the galley. “What were those cinnamon things, and do you have any more of them?”
Julo lifted an eyebrow at me. “The cinnamon roll bites are on a very large platter in the middle of the breakfast table directly in front of your seat. Is that what you’re looking for?”
I mumbled a thanks and made my way back to my chair. Worth stood and grabbed the back of my head, pulling me in for a kiss on the mouth before pulling out my chair for me. He tasted like cinnamon and coffee. “You are irresistibly adorable this morning,” he murmured against my mouth. “Don’t ever change.”
After he let me go, I was even more dazed than before. I served myself a few more cinnamon bites and tried to clear my head by focusing on the conversation.
“You could help fund it, Worth. It might make a good addition to your portfolio,” Lucas said.
“Fund what?” I asked. When I’d zoned out, they’d been talking about a family charity foundation and one of its projects supporting Special Olympics athletes. Hearing Worth speak with passion about helping disabled kids was one of the reasons I’d started daydreaming in the first place. The man was a surprise on all fronts.
Lucas’s excitement was palpable. “There’s a medical research group trying to partner with SpaceX to do some trials in space. They already have great results from experiments in zero-gravity test chambers, but there are some parameters that can only be replicated by testing them in space.”
“It’s a big risk,” Worth said calmly.
“So only offer half,” Lucas countered.
“That’s still five hundred million dollars, Luc,” Worth said before taking a sip of coffee. As if he hadn’t just mentioned the GDP of a small country.
Maybe I was still dazed from the kiss. “I’m sorry, what?”
Worth turned to me. “They originally asked for a billion, but it’s a nonstarter at this early stage in the process. Maybe if they already had preliminary FDA approval or some other indicator of…”
Blood began to roar in my ears. Was he… was he saying that his company had enough money to consider loaning someone a billion dollars? After already deciding to loan someone else a hundred and eighteen million?
They continued discussing it over coffee as if they were talking about loaning a friend a few bucks for a new video game. What kind of wealth did the Worthington family actually have? No. Not the Worthington family. Just Worth himself. This was his venture capital company they were talking about, not the family business.
