AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I pull my legs up against me and wrap my arms around them. Yes, he ended things with us, but it was completely understandable.
“How much do you know?”
“Enough,” he says.
I rub my forehead, trying to think back to what a security officer would have overheard.
“I was very careful.” I narrow my eyes, searching Fisher for answers. “Did you have listening devices in my apartment? Dad swore…” I can’t continue. Memories of my college apartments, all places picked out with precision by his precious security team short-circuit my thought processes.
“We had video at the entrance, not inside. Your father protected your privacy.”
“Then how?”
“Zane wasn’t as careful.”
“You watched Zane too?”
“Not much.” His lower lip protrudes. “Some.”
Unbelievable. “That’s overreaching.” I glare at Fisher, even though it’s not his fault. He was hired.
“The guy did coke all through his last two years of college.” Fisher shrugs like it’s no big deal. “He was one of your friends. He was interacting with high-risk profiles.”
He’s talking about Zane’s fraternity brothers. They weren’t the most upstanding citizens. I didn’t care for most of them, and I get what Fisher’s saying. My father always worried I’d come across someone else wanting to kidnap me for a ransom payment, so they checked out anyone I interacted with. That knowledge contributed to my desire to keep my circle of friends small.
“Well, Zane was patient with me.” I was probably the least ideal girl on campus for him to date. I hated parties, had security tailing me anywhere I went, and I lost count of how many times we started to have sex and I backed out. But he was patient. “He put up with a lot.” I peer up at Fisher, but he’s not looking at me. He’s tracking the storm rolling in across the range. “I’d go hot. Cold. Emotional.”
I shudder, possibly from the wintry scene outside, possibly from the memory of pushing myself over the last hurdle. All those years of therapy, and I should’ve been fine. I’d gotten to the point I was angry at myself for not being fine, and Zane helped. The sex wasn’t fantastic. I probably bored Zane. It’s probably why he didn’t want a relationship with me back then.
A weighted silence descends. I should get my laptop. Do some work. But I don’t. I rub the heel of my hand hard against my sternum and twist to ease the discomfort.
With the stealth of a well-trained soldier, Fisher’s beside me. He cups my chin and gently pulls me up off the chair. My palms fall to his chest. His heart thuds beneath my hands. My lungs tighten and my core pulses. My lips pucker, waiting. I want him to kiss me, to push me back against the bed, to take me.
“Zane didn’t do you a favor. You trusted him with something precious and sacred. And if he was too arrogant or selfish to see that, it’s his loss, not yours.”
I blink in confusion. What is he talking about? “He’s not… I don’t know what it looked like back then, but it doesn’t matter. It’s history. He’s a good guy. And he’s my friend. That’s it.”
Fisher’s lips brush across my brow, and I close my eyelids as my flesh prickles from the softest of touches. His fingers cup my elbows and lightly brush my arms, my shoulders and back.
“Look at me, Sophia.” I blink my eyes open obediently. “I get he’s your friend. But to me, he’ll always be the entitled prick who didn’t value what he had, and who somehow made you believe you were at fault. What you’ve given me? I don’t deserve it, but as long as you choose to give it to me, you’d better believe I’ll value it. Value you. Because, Sophia, you are precious.”
The heat passing between us melts barriers. Those probing, deep blue eyes are too intense. My gaze drops to our socked feet. His thumb strokes my chin as his other hand cups my ass. “Look at me.” I endure one last, penetrating view of deep blue, and then his lips cover mine.
I push back against the firm wall of muscle. “Shouldn’t we be doing work?” It’s a half-baked question spurred by duty.
The rough growth along his jaw scratches the tender skin of my throat, and his fingers find their way beneath my sweater, his touch hot, the pads of his fingers rough.
“This is work. We’re doing what married couples do.”
I laugh, but ever so briefly. His tongue, his hot mouth, and his hands explore, spiking my arousal and obliterating thought.
CHAPTER20
SOPHIA
For years, I worked at sex, not out of enjoyment but because I needed to recover. Or, more accurately, I needed to feel like I had recovered. I strove for normalcy. Recovery. But physical intimacy isn’t work with Fisher.
My skin tingles from his touch, and I swear, when I gaze into his eyes, there’s a connection. Simultaneously familiar and new, the sensation both exhilarates and terrifies.
