Does he know how to handle a woman in bed?
Is he a playboy, or is he looking for a wife?
Does he have freckles, moles, birthmarks?
Does he prefer coffee or tea?
Night owl or early riser?
I want to know everything.
My mind goes crazy, already trying to fill in the answers. I’m sure I have guessed right on most. I’ve studied enough people in the past to know. But I don’t like guessing.
I like obsessing. I like the chase. The hunt. I like knowing everything and making a man mine. I like control. I like being wrapped up in a man who I would rather die for than give up. Something I’ve almost done three times now while chasing a man.
I know I can’t go down that road. I promised my father on his deathbed that I would give it up. Get help. And I’ve kept my promise for eighty-nine days now. It was getting easier to give men up. I threw myself into grad school. Got into a one-month study abroad program in Italy.
But one attempt at saving my life, and I’ve forgotten all about my sobriety.
Maybe my grief made it easier for me. Maybe I wasn’t doing so well after all.
I’m here for only one month. Not even that. Four weeks. Twenty-eight days. Maybe it’d be okay to sleep with him. Get the thrill of fucking a guy again out of my system so that life will be easier when I go home. I can’t obsess when I’m four thousand miles away, back in Vermont.
I run back outside to join the group, after doing my best at drying off.
“My cousin, Paola, will be continuing your tour of the grounds. It was a pleasure meeting you all,” Arlo says, his eyes falling on me one last time before he turns and walks toward the house. Most likely, to get out of his wet clothes.
I turn my head to his beautiful cousin who has long brown curls for days as she leads the class outside. But I can’t listen to her. I can’t be so far away from Arlo so soon after meeting him.
“You okay? That was quite a fall,” Eden asks.
I nod. “I’m going to see if they have any dry clothes for me to wear.” I dart inside and turn in the direction I saw Arlo walk. I have to walk only two doors down when I find him standing inside the office he showed us earlier.
My stomach twists in knots as my anxiety builds when I enter his office, uninvited. We can fuck right here on his desk, or maybe he’ll sneak me off to his bedroom upstairs. Or maybe he’ll whisk me off to some special room in the mansion that he didn’t show us yet.
“You can’t be in here,” Arlo says, staring at me with dark eyes that overwhelm me. I have no idea what he is feeling or thinking when he looks at me, but I hope it’s the same need I feel when I look at him. Surely, he felt a connection to me after he saved me, even if it is just lust. But his voice is so different than it was in the pool house. Before he was sweet. Now he’s angry and cold.
I grin and take a step forward, making sure to push my breasts out as I walk toward him. The V-neck shirt I’m wearing isn’t that revealing, even wet, but it’s enough to get him to glance down at my breasts.
“I think this is exactly where I need to be,” I say as I twist a dark brown strand of hair, which fell out of my ponytail, around my finger.
His eyes dart to where my finger is twisting my hair.
I grin wider. He can tell me I shouldn’t be in here all he wants, but his interest in my body says differently.
He grabs my wrist, and I stop moving. His touch sends a shock wave through my body, unnerving me. His grip is firm, giving me a hint of just how rough he could be in bed.
“You. Aren’t. Allowed. In. Here,” he says slowly and sternly without raising his voice.
I reach my other hand out to touch the stubble on his cheek. His hand grabs my other wrist. This time, more roughly.
I’m not worried about both my wrists being trapped in his hands. Although I should be. His eyes have darkened. He looks like he’s about to kill someone. And I’m the only one in the room for him to take his anger out on.
“You don’t know who I am,” Arlo says, still holding on to my wrists.
“I know you’re Arlo Carini, basically royalty in this town.” I take a deep breath. “And I know that you want to fuck me.”
He grips my wrists tighter and pulls me toward him until our bodies are pressed together. I can’t breathe. All I can think about is the pain he is inflicting on my wrists. It’s making my head spin. But I kind of like it.