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While I didn’t want to wait that long to see her again, I nodded because I didn’t want to push her. She seemed way too riled up this morning, waking up in a different bed than her own. Or maybe I was just fucking making that up because I … I didn’t know how I felt.
Not after last night.
I hadn’t realized it at the time, but I thought I had cried in the tub. And then Sierra had kissed me when I hadn’t expected it, and I … fuck—I ran my hand through my hair again—I’d kissed her back harder than I had kissed anyone before.
My heart swelled, and I gulped. “Yeah, Monday.”
Before I could say something to her that I didn’t want to say aloud, I turned around and headed toward the bedroom door. “You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you want and eat whatever my cook will make you.”
“Are you leaving now?” she asked, sliding out of bed.
Pausing, I stared at the door in front of me and hoped that I could clear my head by the time I made it to my downtown office today. I had meetings with Jeff about investments, networking with Michelle for Plaything Co. sex toys, and had to review plans for a new construction to provide housing for Pittsburgh families in poverty.
I couldn’t be thinking about … someone who wasn’t even supposed to be my submissive.
Especially like this.
“Yes,” I finally said. “I have a meeting at six.”
Lie.
I needed to breathe. I didn’t know what this feeling was inside me. I had never felt it.
“Is it okay if I ride down the elevator with you?” she said, pulling on her clothes from last night. I tilted my head slightly to peer back as her thumb caught in that hole in her sweater. She quickly fixed herself and smiled at me. “I have a long day too.”
“Sure.”
Fuck, why was I so awkward right now?
She must have sensed the sudden tenseness in my voice and paused. “Or if you don’t want me to, I can take the next elevator down.”
“Sorry,” I whispered, opening the door. “Come on.”
“N-no, I’m sorry.” She turned her back to me and hurried to her backpack in the corner of the room, rummaging through it for her phone. “I shouldn’t have stayed over last night. I hate when my roommate’s friends overstay their welcome back at my place.”
“Sierra …” I sighed softly. “I’m not angry with you.”
When she turned back around, her hair fell into her face, shielding her eyes from me. She slipped past me and into the main living area of my high-rise, glancing out the window. “You don’t want to be late. I’ll catch the next elevator.”
“Come with me,” I ordered.
“N-no, it’s fine. I will—”
I seized her chin in my hand and forced her to look at me, but when she did, her eyes were heavy with … tears? Everything I was about to say suddenly bundled in my throat, and I gulped it back down.
She didn’t have to tell me. I knew exactly what that expression meant. I recognized it as one of my own that I’d had every day and nearly every night when I was just a boy, watching my parents drug themselves out.
Alone. Vulnerable. Unwanted.
Taking her hand, I tugged her through the foyer and to the elevator without another word. I didn’t know what to say to her because I didn’t want her to feel like that, but my damn emotions were all over the place this morning.
So, we rode down to the main floor in silence.
“Thank you,” she whispered when we stepped out of the elevator.
“For what?”
“Letting me wash you last night.”
