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I just stare at him with an “are you serious” look. “Okay, maybe I’ve been a little wasteful in my life,” he confesses. “But I don’t order a new couch after touching it. And I don’t have any house elves, though if you’ve found some, I might contact their agency…”
I gawk again, and this time Phillip picks me up and tosses me over his shoulder. I scramble to get a hold of something to keep me from falling and end up wrapping my hands around his face.
“What are you doing?” he asks. “I was trying to be sexy and carry you to my bedroom to show you the most important room. Now I feel like I’m rescuing a drowning victim who might just kill me in the process.”
“Well, don’t scare the shit out of me, and maybe I won’t use you to save myself.”
He laughs as he slowly lowers me to the ground, and I look up at him. His hair’s insane, and there’s a red mark across his cheek where my nail might have dug into him especially hard. “Sorry about acting like a spider monkey,” I say, a little frustrated with myself. It would have been sexy to be carried over his shoulder and taken to the bedroom like Tarzan carrying Jane through the jungle.
“Well, I’ve learned my lesson. Move more slowly when being aggressively sexy.” There’s a sparkle in his eyes that reminds me he’s still the Phillip that enjoyed sitting at my dining room table all night long. Even if he’s rich now, he’s still that man.
“Might be a smart decision, but now that I know what you were going for, I might not fight for my life if you did it again.” I give him what I think is a sexy and seductive wink, but it might just look like I got something in my eye.
He grins and wraps his hands around my waist. It still all seems too fast as he tosses me onto his shoulder, but once I’m there with his hand on my ass, I definitely understand the appeal.
There’s no professionalism about this, and he pushes my skirt up so he can run his hand over my ass while he walks. It sends a shiver through me. Like being bent over his desk today, I don’t feel like I could get away, and it turns me on.
Maybe there’s something to the whole cave man alpha male thing. It sounded like something stupid when I was younger, but maybe I’d just never met a man who could embody it.
“This is hot and all, but I can’t see anything except your floor and ass,” I say as he walks up the stairs. “And I thought I was getting the tour.”
“It’s a blindfolded tour. We’re skipping the uninteresting parts.”
Blindfolded tour? “You’re a terrible tour guide.”
“It’s a good thing my second career option worked out better. You know, I think the first way I’m going to celebrate having my money again is by buying a ton of lingerie for you.”
“Are you telling me there’s something wrong with my underwear?” I say this while I’m laying across his back and staring at the floor. I’m getting a little lightheaded.
“Well, no. Just like there’s nothing wrong with my saffron shirt. But there might bebetteroptions out there, too. Plus, I’d love to see you model it for me. I could drink Scotch and you could try on clothes. It’d be like we were in a movie. Then you could crawl across the floor…”
I slap his ass. “I am not crawling across your floor, buddy. Okay, maybe I might with the right incentives, but maybe you should let me stand up before I pass out. Your house is too big for this kind of guided tour.”
He chuckles and sets me down. “Well, we’re to the good part,” he says as he turns me around. The room is luxurious, but once again, it feels more like a hotel room or maybe even a movie set. Dark gray walls are accented with black trim. Glossy white marble floors shine so strongly that I can almost see my reflection in them. The minimalist furniture is made of dark wood that doesn’t stand out against the masculine feel of the room.
And nothing is out of place. Nothing like my bedroom in my apartment where random mail has found its way onto my dressers. Clothes that belong in the “kind of clean” pile sat on every surface. There might even be a cup or two out.
I turn around to look at Phillip. “Okay, I need to understand something.”
He cocks his head. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d like this room.”
“Am I supposed to keep everything looking like this, or can I actually live here?”
He runs his hand through his hair and grins. I think he understands what I mean. “I’d like it if we didn’t turn my house into a dumpster, but having a few things out of place won’t drive me insane, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That might be a struggle, Phillip. You need to know that.” I turn around and look at the room again. It’s so big. And empty. My instinct is to fill it with things. “Okay, so the first thing I’m sure of is that I need two laundry hampers. One for dirty clothes and one for wearable but not clean clothes. Otherwise, that dresser right there will become a pile of clothes.”
“I already knew that. I called the maid this morning for you.” He walks across the room to a door off to the side and opens it. Inside is a walk-in closet the size of my old bedroom. Suits hang from half the racks while my handful of outfits hang from the other side. And in the center are two laundry baskets. Of course, they’re not the classic plastic ones that normal people use. No, these are made of black wood that’s been carved with decorative shapes. Inside them are mesh bags that can be pulled out and carried to the laundry room.
Phillip walks into the closet, and I follow him. “I bought you something, Addison,” he says.
“I think you bought us both something,” I say, thinking he means the laundry baskets. It’s not. He walks to a wooden dresser that’s so dark that it’s almost black and picks up a gift-wrapped box before solemnly bringing it to me. At first, I think he bought me jewelry since that’s what all the rich guys in movies do. I can’t figure out what kind of jewelry would fit in a box like that. It’s a square about the size of his fist and obviously professionally wrapped in gray and black like his room.
“What is it?” I ask, more than a little nervous. I did tell him I hated surprises.
“A shrunken head. Or maybe the world’s smallest typewriter. It might even be a box of cookies that I ate half of. Or maybe it’s none of those.”
I glare at him, but I take the box when he offers it to me. “If it’s a shrunken head, you get to put it on your side of the room. Just letting you know.”
