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“I’ll take you back to your hotel,” he says, with a gleam in his eye. “And then I’ll head home.”
I pout slightly, finishing off my bite of food before I answer. It’s good, just like he said. Maybe not as good as Marco’s food, but given that it was the best I’ve ever tasted, it’s kind of to be expected. “Alone?”
“Yes, alone,” he says, half-laughing. “Who else would I be going back with?”
“Well...” I start, about to offer myself up as a prime example.
“Don’t finish that sentence,” he says, his voice a low growl that catches me by surprise. “I’m trying to be good. You’re going to tempt me.”
“Why isn’t that good?” I ask. “Why not tonight?”
“I told you,” he says. “I want to make it special for you. That means tomorrow, we make it special.”
“I have a tour in the morning,” I protest.
“I know, I know,” he says. “But after your tour in the morning – which I’m going to come with you for, by the way – we can do something else.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Something something?”
“A surprise something,” he says, rolling his eyes but still grinning. “I mean it. It’s going to be the most memorable night of your life. And that starts earlier on in the day. We have to build up to it. I’m taking this very seriously. It’s my duty to make sure your first experience is everything it should be – and more.”
I can’t help but look at him and know, just know, that it will be. That it would have been if we’d done it in that closet, or in the waiting room before the tour guide burst in. Oz doesn’t need to do anything else to make it special. He just has to be Oz, the man of my dreams and fantasies. The one I’ve been crushing on ever since I knew what a man was. And he does that just fine.
“Alright,” I concede at last, with a sigh. “But I’ll miss you tonight.” I almost hold my breath after the words leave my mouth, wondering if I’ve gone too far. Am I coming on too strong? Am I going to end up putting him off after all? I sound like a lovesick teenager, not a sexy femme fatale.
“Me, too,” he says, putting my fears at rest. “But I have to do it this way. If I don’t – if we stay together somewhere tonight, even if we’re in different rooms – I won’t be able to hold myself back. I’ll have to find you and have my way with you, and that would ruin all my plans.”
I think about it for a second, and then open my mouth to reply.
“No,” he says, holding up a hand and shaking his head. “You’re incorrigible. Stop trying to tempt me, woman. I’m making it special for you, and that’s that.”
I can’t help but smile as I return my attention to my food.
When we finish our meal, it’s a bittersweet kind of feeling. On the one hand, I know that he’s determined, and the only way to make this all happen is for him to leave me for the night. He’s too stubborn to let me have my way tonight. He has to be. There’s no way he would have got to where he is today, and be so well-respected in business if he was a pushover who could be tempted into breaking his promises.
On the other hand, though, I really wish we could stay together a little longer. Every moment with him feels amazing, and I don’t ever want them to stop.
Which, inevitably, just brings me back to the realization that this all has an expiration date, just one week. And we’ve already used up two of those days. We only have five left.
So when he kisses me sweetly at my door and then walks away as fast as he can, like he can’t trust himself if he doesn’t, it’s bittersweet again. Because watching him walk away and knowing how much he wants me is pretty amazing.
But on the other hand, I don’t want to waste a single second – and I can feel them slipping through my fingers like gold dust already.
Chapter Sixteen
Oz
“So?” I ask, as we walk away from the campus – this time, without any embarrassing near-misses or encounters in cupboards. I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a disappointment. “What did you think of that one?”
“I don’t know,” Gabby sighs. “I mean, it seems nice there. The only thing is, I don’t know what to compare it to?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Well, I hardly paid any attention at all to the tour yesterday,” she says, laughing, her face lighting a temporary, attractive pink. “And we missed the end. So, I don’t even know.”
I chuckle. “Sorry, that’s my fault,” I say. “I should have let you enjoy the tour and kept my hands to myself.”
