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“If I remember correctly, you’re the one who kept coming to me last time. You even chased away those two perfectly nice guys. I’ve been thinking about that, by the way. Why did you run them off? Were you jealous?”
I groan. “No. I already told you why I did it, but I really don’t think I want you to come with me tonight anymore. You’re too… chatty.”
She mimes zipping her lips, then leaves her door open for me as she disappears back inside, calling back to me as she goes. “I’m going out whether you wait for me or not. If you do decide I can’t come with you anymore, I’ll go by myself.”
Fuck. She really knows which buttons to push, and even though I know what she’s doing, I walk into her room instead of going to the elevator anyway. Because if I don’t and she really does go out by herself, no one—including myself—will ever forgive me for it if something happens to her. And there are security cams in their halls. Mike and everybody else will be able to see that she was dressed for bed, saw me, spoke to me, and then went out. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out where she got the idea.
As I slam her door behind me, I find myself standing in a room exactly the same as my own, just a mirror image of it. The light on her nightstand is on, and there’s an e-reader lying next to it, but other than that, the only light is coming from the ensuite bathroom.
She must’ve drawn her curtains earlier because they’re shut tight, which is weird to me. I always sleep with mine open so I can look at the view as I doze off, but she must prefer being sealed off from the world.Which actually kind of makes sense considering who she is.
It suddenly occurs to me that my earlier thought of the only other light in the room coming from the bathroom means she’s left the door ajar… while she’s changing in there. Despite myself, I glance in that direction, and my heart starts pounding at what I see.
She’s changing all right, her one leg on the tub as she rolls stockings over it so slowly it’s like she knows I’m watching and she’s putting on a show for me. I can only see a sliver of her, but somehow, it’s so much fucking sexier that way.
All I can see is that leg on the tub and the black material slowly covering her bare skin. When she’s done with the one leg, she raises the other, and as she does, just the barest bit of her ass comes into view. I have to bite my fist to keep from making a sound.
Because I now have yet another memory of her I shouldn’t, but I already know the sight of her perfectly round ass cheek covered by a scrap of lace material is going to stay with me for a long, long time.
Seriously, when the fuck did Olivia get so goddamn hot? And why oh why do I now know that she prefers lacy boy-cut panties?
That’s my favorite cut on a woman, and I really could’ve gone without wondering every time I see her from now on if that’s what she’s wearing under her clothes. It feels like I’ve suddenly gone from the frying pan to the fire because I’ve never been distracted by her in that way before.
But now? Now my nighttime fantasies that I didn’t want to be having about her in the first place are going to spill over into the daytime. Into meetings. Work. Full Moon concerts.
And that’s the last fucking thing I need considering everything else that’s going on.
7
OLIVIA
When I wake up, I’m panting and aching in places I don’t usually ache. Groaning when I realize it was just a dream, I roll over in my bed, and I’m about to shove my pillow over my head to breathe through it when I catch a glimpse of the time on the grandfather clock in the corner.
Crap. My eyes fly wide open, and my heart starts racing for a whole different reason.I’m late. I’m never late.
And that’s when it all comes back to me—everything that happened last night. I went out with Vincent again, just the two of us this time, and though I managed to get him back to the hotel at a decent hour, I wasn’t able to fall asleep.
I just lay right here, thinking about the fact that we’d actually had fun together. Well, I sure had fun with him. It’s weird, but it’s like there’s been a shift in our relationship recently. We still don’t get along great and he’s still not one of my favorite people, but I’m starting to realize that if I let myself, I may be able to enjoy this assignment.
Not only am I feeling more positive about the assignment itself, but I think I may enjoy being pushed out of my comfort zone a bit. Never in a million years would I ever have imagined myself getting ready to go out between ten and eleven at night, but that’s exactly what I did last night, and once we left the hotel, I saw a whole different side of the city.
It was a new experience and, strangely, one I’m already looking forward to repeating.I wonder if Mom and Dad knew this might be a side effect of my assignment.
They’ve been trying to push me to live a little for a long time, but I’ve never been interested before. I think I’m finally starting to realize why they’ve been so worried about me. I’ve been missing out on a lot.
That night in London and last night in Glasgow had me seeing more of the cities than I’d ever seen that way before. Usually, I do a sightseeing tour or something similar with my parents during the day, but I was always tucked in early otherwise, and the places are so totally different at night.
Having to babysit Vincent may not be so bad if I can keep experiencing things I otherwise wouldn’t. It makes me a little uncomfortable, but I suppose that’s why it’s called a “comfort zone.” The discomfort must be a natural part of being pushed out of it, and that’s a bit thrilling.
He also hasn’t been so bad when it’s just us. Of course, he still teases me and gives me shit, and I know he’d rather have gone out without me last night, but he looked after me again and was surprisingly nice about me saying I wanted to come in the first place.
We even ended up dancing together again, and that was a big part of why I wasn’t able to fall asleep immediately. Unlike that night in London, he didn’t step away from me last night. I went to the dance floor by myself while he was talking to some girls, and when I became aware of someone dancing behind me and looked over my shoulder to find him there, he held my gaze as if silently asking for permission before he stepped into me, his front to my back as he wrapped his arms around my waist and kept them there song after song after song.
I don’t know what it is about dancing with him or if maybe it happens to everyone when they’re dancing with anyone, but it turned me on so badly. My entire body felt like a livewire, and the most inappropriate thoughts kept invading my mind no matter how much I tried to push them away.
At one point, I pressed my legs together and rubbed my thighs against each other to relieve the ache, and as if he knew what I was doing, he groaned softly, his body so close to mine that I heard the sound despite the music. For one brief second, I also thought I felt him getting hard in the small of my back, but before I could be sure, he grabbed my hand and pulled me off the dance floor again, insisting it was time for us to come back to the hotel.
On the one hand, I’m so relieved I got him back here sober and before sunrise again, but on the other, I’d happily have stayed on that dance floor. It took me at least two hours to finally fall asleep, so worked up that I almost touched myself to thoughts of him, but eventually, I drifted off without doing anything stupid.
