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My eyes flutter shut and I’m lost. I imagine his big body covering mine, lifting me up and bracing me against the wall, my legs wrapped around him. The fantasy is rich. Bright. A tremor rips through me and my muscles clench. I shiver. Everything is wound tight. I’m so close...so close.
I’m there.
“Rowan.” I groan his name and apply the perfect amount of pressure so my orgasm breaks. Release is sweet and swift, and I’m left trembling against the wall. My gasp echoes through the tiny bathroom, bouncing off the tiles and mirror.
For a moment, I’m still, panting. My hand is trapped between my clamped thighs, my underwear shoved down just a little. A sense of warmth rushes through me, like a wave it soothes over all the dents and cuts and bruises inside me. I didn’t realise how much I needed that.
But that perfect, languid sense of post-pleasure bliss is ripped apart when I hear a pounding on my front door.
Shit.
I freeze, stilling like a wild animal ensnared in the harsh glare of headlights. I try to swallow, but my heart is hammering so hard I can’t get past the tight feeling in my throat. For a second, there’s utter silence and stillness in my apartment. But I know he’s still standing there.
Rowan.
I feel his presence like a hum. It’s him.
Walking as quietly as I can, I creep out of the ensuite bathroom, through my bedroom and into the main area. I see a flickering shadow in the thin beam of light under my front door. I get closer, not even daring to let my heels touch the ground as I sneak, stealthy as a thief.
He hasn’t knocked again. Maybe he’ll go away. My blood pulses, and my fingers twitch, and the thought of him leaving fills me with a deep yawning ache that I don’t like at all. I don’t want to feel this way about him. I get to the door and press my palm to the wood, holding my breath so I don’t make a sound.
“I know you’re in there.” His voice is soft, so as not to wake the neighbours, but only a fool would think the lower volume made it any less impactful.
I bite down on my lip. I should head back to bed and leave him standing there, leave him wanting the way he’s leftmewanting so many times when I had to listen to those grunts and groans. When I caught him kissing someone goodbye, and my brain wondered what it would be like if I were the one in his arms.
“Emery, open the door.” There’s a roughness to his voice, a crackling electricity-filled sound that makes me tingle right down to my toes. “It’s the least you can do after putting me through that torture.”
Oh, my God.
He heard me. He heard me sticking my hand into my underwear and touching myself while I thought about him. I amnevergoing to live this down. I should just go to bed and then I can call him in the morning to break off our deal. Sure, it would ruin the one thing that might save my dream and my career, but so what? Who needs a career when they’re about to die of humiliation?
Don’t be a chicken. Like he said, there’s no need to turn this into a big deal.
I wrap my hand around the doorknob and suck in a breath. When I pull it open, my heart almost stops in my chest.
Rowan stands there, shirtless. A pair of checked pyjama bottoms ride low on his hips. Like...one-wrong-move-and-we’re-in-porno-territory low. His body is as fine and as cut as I expected—defined abs, a broad chest and those vee muscles that make my insides flip. His dark hair is rumpled, his eyes glowering like burning coals.
The soft lighting from the hallway illuminates him, making him look like an otherworldly creature sent here to drive women crazy.
“What the fuck was that?” He plants a hand against the door frame and leans in. God, he smells good. Like earth and man and wood and orange.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I take the defensive route, because it’s most comfortable to me. But I’m not stupid—I know in the next three seconds he’s going to take every possible denial I have and crush them until my words are nothing but dust.
“Oh, youknow, Emery. After you gave me that whole big spiel about not wanting me and not wanting to talk about what we did, and then...” His nostrils flare. “You force me to listen to those soft little groans and those needy pants. Fucking hell.”
“Rowan, stop,” I hiss. What if one of our neighbours overhears us talking like this? “Get in here.”
I know it’s a mistake the second he sets foot into my apartment and I close the door behind him. I didn’t turn on the lights after I made my escape from the bathroom. My apartment has a beautiful view of Clarendon Street and the lights filter in like stars dancing across the glass. It’s enough that I can see, while leaving a blanket of intimacy over us that only makes the heat rise in my body. We’re in the shadows, and Rowan’s eyes are even darker and more captivating.
“How do you know I don’t have a guest?” I try, knowing it won’t work.
“One, I doubt you would have invited me in if that were the case.” He takes a step closer and I hold my ground, not willing to let him best me. Not willing to show him that inside I’m trembling, and wanting, and aching. “Two, I can’t imagine he’d be too happy to hear you crying my name as he fucks you.”
My jaw twitches. He’s so damn confident. So damn irritating...and gorgeous and sexy and everything.
“You’re not the only person with that name,” I reply.
“Fine, I’ll play. Why don’t you introduce me to this mystery man?” He folds his arms across his chest and it only makes his biceps look even bigger. I have no come back now. Nothing with which to defend myself. “Can we stop with the bullshit, then?”
