For 100 Days (100 1)

“Oh, God.” It’s only a brief tease of his fingertip inside me, but I gasp and feel myself go still, rocked with sensations I’ve never felt before.

As good as it feels, I’m also bewildered and more than a little afraid. Not because he scares me, but because of how badly I want him. I am alive with need, and terrified of how carnal he makes me feel.

“Have you ever?” His murmured question gusts against my bare ass, sending a shiver of anxious anticipation over my body.

“No. Never.”

“Good. Then it’ll be all mine. But not this time.” I hear him moving. I register that he’s standing up again, positioned directly behind me, his thighs warm between my own. He leans over me, putting his mouth beside my ear. “I want you too much to take things slowly right now. Do you understand?”

I nod, and before I can tell him that I don’t need him to go slowly, he enters me with a long, hard thrust I feel all the way to my throat.

And Nick doesn’t go slowly now.

He fucks me with unleashed abandon, as if he can’t get enough. As if he truly has been wanting this—wanting me—all this time we’ve been apart.

As I brace myself for each furious stroke, tilting my hips up to receive him as he pounds relentlessly toward climax, I realize that I’ve been wanting this too. I’ve been wanting him.

And if I’ve been worried that I’m letting myself get in too deep with Dominic Baine, today I realize the futility of that thinking.

Because I’m already there.

I’m in too deep, and what’s even worse is I can no longer pretend I’m not exactly where I want to be.

Chapter 20

A couple more orgasms later, I’m newly showered and wrapped in a towel, sitting on the edge of my bed in Claire’s guest room while I deliver what is probably the worst performance of a sick call I’ve ever given in my life. Fortunately, it’s early enough in the morning that Vendange isn’t open, so I mumble my excuses about being wiped out with a bad stomach bug into Joel’s voicemail at the restaurant.

He won’t be happy. He’ll most certainly punish me for leaving him short-staffed today, either with shitty schedule changes or docked pay. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past him to threaten to fire me the next time he sees me. At the moment, I really can’t give a damn. My body is deliciously spent, and I know there’s more pleasure waiting for me at Nick’s apartment, where he’s gone to clean up and make breakfast for us.

I hit END on the call to the restaurant, and I’m already grinning as I dial Tasha to fill her in. No sense making her worry about me, which she will, when she shows up at work and sees I’m not there.

“Hey, girl.” She picks up after several rings. “Hold on for a sec. I’ve got a baby vomit situation to deal with over here.”

She doesn’t wait for me to reply before dropping the phone to tend to her child. In the background, I hear the muffled racket of general family chaos—water running in the sink, Antonio asking Tasha where he left his keys, a television chattering somewhere in the other room, and Tasha soothing little Zoe, whose hiccupping cries quiet down almost immediately under her mother’s tender care.

“Sorry about that,” she says as she comes back on the line. “What’s up?”

“I’m not going in today. I called in sick, left a message for Joel saying I think I have food poisoning or something.”

“Oh, no! Honey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just—”

“It was Tony’s beer, wasn’t it?” She interrupts me before I can finish talking. “Didn’t I tell you not to drink that shit?”

I can’t bite back my giggle. “The beer was nasty, but I’m not sick. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not going in because I’m spending the day with Nick.”

“Get out. You, who hasn’t missed a single shift since you started working there, are actually playing hooky?” She lowers her voice. “Are you with him right now?”

“No. I’m at the apartment. He left a little while ago.”

She snickers. “No wonder you sound all chill and relaxed. Go ahead, tell me. The sex was amazing, right?”

“It always is with Nick,” I admit. I toy with a loose thread on my towel, my body aching in all the right places when I think about how we spent the past couple of hours. “He showed up at my door this morning. He’d just got in from London and said he couldn’t wait to see me . . . to be with me. Now he’s back at his place, making us breakfast.”

“Do you have any idea how much you suck right now?” She says it sardonically, but I can practically see the smile on her face. “I’m standing here with a puddle of baby puke on my shoulder and a cup of lukewarm coffee in my hand, and you’re basically telling me you just spent your morning having amazing monkey sex with a gorgeous billionaire and are on your way to his penthouse to enjoy a delicious breakfast with him. A delicious breakfast, which I can only imagine he’ll be preparing for you while looking sinfully hot doing it. I seriously hate you, woman.”

I laugh. “I would probably have to hate me too. Anyway, I just wanted you to know I’m okay. But Joel’s going to be pissed.”