When he returns, he has a cup of tea in each hand. He hands one to me and places the other on the end table closest to him. After that, he makes quick work of his clothes until he’s down to his boxer briefs and he climbs under the covers.
“What?” he asks, frowning in my direction as he adjusts the pillows behind his head.
“Nothing,” I lie as I put down my tea and remove the robe. I crawl into the bed in my underwear and settle in next to him: both of us under the covers, propped up on pillows, and drinking chamomile tea.
We sip in silence for at least a minute, maybe more. The entire time, I’m acutely aware of the presence of his body. His heat. How he takes up so much of the bed and the way he holds his tiny teacup with obvious satisfaction. He swallows and then breathes out slowly, and I can imagine the hot tea working through his body and relaxing him.
It’s…nice, actually. It’s the kind of casual intimacy that I’ve never experienced before—for any number of reasons. Starting in high school, the guys I slept with had no interest in dating me. Olivia Nolan came with baggage; everyone knew that. Her bio dad was MIA. Her stepdad was a drunk. Her mother was anything but a mother. Her brother was more of a son—and he always came first. Of course nobody wanted to date Olivia Nolan. She was good for one thing and one thing only: a quick, vigorous tumble in the backseat of a car or the last row of a movie theater or a few yards into the tree line at a bonfire. Lying in a king-sized bed in London and drinking hot tea with a guy like Davis was a dangerous fantasy: the kind that I refused to indulge when I was younger.
I knew better. Right now, I should know better.
“Olivia,” he murmurs, breaking the silence.
“Yeah?”
“It’s only weird if you let it be.”
In my periphery I can feel Davis watching me out of the corner of his eye. “What is?” I ask the question even though I know exactly what he’s referring to.
It’s the banality. The comfort of it all. The fact that for once, we’re laying here like two regular, young people who happen to sleep together every now and then.
“This. Just sitting here and getting ready for bed. It doesn’t have to be weird.”
“Why would it be weird?”
Davis fully turns to face me and I see the skeptical expression on his face. “I can practically hear your brain moving a mile a minute.”
“Well, sometimes I have to remind myself that this is all part of the arrangement. That I’m paid for this.”
“No, you’re not.”
Surprised, I let out a scoff.
“You think I need someone to drink tea with me? That I couldn’t do this alone and have a perfectly fine night? Come on. I pay you to fuck me. This is just downtime.” He turns away briefly. “Or is this you telling me that you would never sit and relax with me if there wasn’t something in it for you?”
I don’t know what compels me to do it, but I put down my tea and slide closer to him. Carefully, I weave my arm over him so that I can rest my hand on his bare stomach and my cheek on his chest. “I’ll drink tea with you for free anytime,” I assure him. “And I’ll do this for free too, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah,” he confirms, oblivious that my ear is pressed against his heart and I can hear how fast it beats when I’m touching him like this. “This is okay.”
“Wake up,” I hear Davis whisper into my ear. “We have work.”
My head feels like someone turned on a fog machine inside of it and then plugged up my ears to keep everything trapped in my skull. I groan and try to slide away from him, burying my head underneath the closest pillow in the process.
“I tried to warn you, but you kept trying to snuggle and talk to me,” he continues as he tugs the pillow away. “Now, this is the consequences of your actions telling you to get up.”
Annoyed, I tangle my hands into my hair and cradle my head, trying in vain to block out the light. “You’re insufferable. I’m resigning—let me sleep.”
“Hell no,” he protests before dipping down and pressing his lips against the back of my neck.
I let out a gasp as his tongue touches my skin, leaving a pattern of tingling heat as he slides behind me and presses his body against me. His hands roam over me, drawing me close to him and cradling me so that my back goes flush with his front. He’s still in his underwear, so his skin feels like it covers every inch of me—and this immediately becomes the only way I ever want to be awoken in the morning.
“Get up.” The words are whispered into my ear before Davis sucks my earlobe between his lips like he knows how sensitive I am there. I gasp as his teeth make contact in a brief nip, and chills begin to radiate over my arms and legs.
“Unfair,” I whisper.
“You’re insatiable,” he declares as he removes his lips from my earlobe. “An insatiable slut who can’t get out of bed in the morning.”
“I hate you,” I reply as I rotate in his grasp, now pressing my front against his. “I am not a morning person.”
“That sounds like a you problem.” His face is smug as his hand slips between us, traveling lower.
I watch as his pupils dilate the tiniest amount. His blond hair is askew and pressed up from the pillow, but he still looks every bit a sex god.
Contact. He skims over my mound and lets out a soft, approving groan as he grazes my skin. His fingers toy with the lace band of my underwear. Tugging it. Twisting it. These were so expensive, I know. He dropped a few hundred on these for me. When I put them on yesterday, they felt like quality and luxury and sex. Now they feel thin and flimsy and so wet—just an impediment to his glorious length entering me.
“Dripping,” he muses, his voice low and husky. He moves closer to me so that our noses touch. “What were you dreaming about?”
I coo instead of responding, pushing forward desperately to try to coax him to touch me beneath the fabric.
“Get up,” he instructs again before he suddenly pulls his fingers away. Within seconds, he has rolled off of the bed, leaving me panting and needy—but to his credit, wide awake.
“Asshole!” I blurt out, trying so hard to stay angry with him, but it’s impossible when he’s standing shirtless in front of the closet and picking out a suit for the day.
“As your benefactor and your manager’s, manager’s, manager, I have to advise you not to talk to me like that.”
Bastard. “I believe we’re contractually allowed to say whatever we want to each other.”
Davis raises an eyebrow as he shrugs on a button-down shirt. White. Plain. Still, so sexy. “Correct. Here I was, trying to be nice to you for once. I guess it’s better if I go ahead and tell you that there’s no way in hell I’m making you come before we go to FundRight’s offices. You get all dazed and relaxed for hours after you come, and I need you sharp.”
“Dazed and relaxed?” I demand as I sit up.
“Yeah, like a little cartoon cat,” he continues, and then laughs when he dodges the pillow that I throw in his direction.
He snatches up the pillow and tosses it back to me. “For the hundredth time, get up. I can’t do this without you. Later tonight, I promise you I’ll show you how grateful I am that you’re here.”