"Alright," he said, coming back out, fully naked still, hair still mussed. "I have to go take a shower. As much as I'd like if you joined me, I'd have to fuck you again. And showers and condoms just aren't a great combination. I'll see you downstairs." With that, he snagged his pants off the floor and exited my room, still nude, to go shower in his own.
I stood up, stretching the tension out of my muscles, ignoring the slight tenderness brought on by the rough sex, and forced myself to shower as well, trying my best to ignore the heady cocktail of emotions inside. He'd respected my right to keep my feelings to myself. Then, without reservation, he had moved in behind me and made love to me. There was really no other turn of phrase that worked. It wasn't sex and it wasn't fucking. It was slow, sweet, giving. It was lovemaking plain and simple. Then, having given that to me, he took my first time having anal sex. And he seemed to be pleased with that fact.
But then, apparently, it was back to business as usual.
No matter how much I tried to pep-talk myself the night before, it stung. I had a feeling it would sting every single time he barked an order at me without looking at me or ignored me or showed up late. But that had nothing to do with him. Technically, he wasn't doing anything wrong. What was wrong was my belief that sex changed things. More often than not, sex changed things for women. And maybe that sounded very regressive of me, but I had never found an instance when it wasn't true in my life. However, just the opposite seemed to be true of men. I didn't know if I ever met one who couldn't compartmentalize sex. Sex was sex. That was it. It didn't mean anything else. So Byron acting like it meant nothing, that it changed nothing, was not in the wrong.
I was wrong for having feelings.
I knew the kind of man he was.
See the problem was, he opened me up.
Every woman is a hallway full of locked doors under different names: past, future, hopes, fears, lust, love. Some men come with keys. Some men come with lock picks. Byron St. James came with a chainsaw.
I didn't get a chance to decide to let him in or not.
He was just in.
And there was no getting him out. Certainly not while I was still living under his roof.
So, for the time being, I just had to keep in mind that while I was his whether he knew it or not, he was not mine. Not when he came looking for me with that sexy smirk and dirty plans. Not when he was soft and sweet with me. Not when he peeled back another layer. Not even when my perfume was all over him.
He wasn't mine.
He was simply my boss.
And sometimes, we had amazing sex.
Case closed.FIFTEENPrueSo, yeah, maybe the case was closed on the whole 'he didn't have feelings for me' thing, but that didn't stop me from thinking and wondering and hoping over the next three weeks.
On the third day after I convinced myself to wear my big-girl panties about the whole situation, I was sent with Matt on errands again. A part of me was wondering if it was some sort of test, but discarded the idea when I found out he was buying the supplies for some party he was having. That meant he needed enough food to feed a small army and I felt a little sorry for Ella until Matt heard that and gave me a lopsided smile and informed me that I would be handling desserts. It was a feat that didn't sound all that awful at first. In fact, I was excited. Until we got to the bakery aisle. It was then that Matt told me that I needed to offer a selection of at least five different desserts for twenty people.
Given that my biggest baking extravaganza had been to bake for the employees of the bank for an annual Christmas party, and the bank only employed ten people, and I just made cookies and fruit cake, not some fancy stuff meant for Byron's socialite friends, I was understandably completely freaked the hell out.
I was freaked out enough to actually tell Byron how freaked out I was and suggest that maybe he should run things like that past me because I really didn't have that much baking experience and his associates and friends were likely used to really fancy baked goods.
"Babe..." he cut me off mid-rant, sitting at his desk with his feet up on the corner, his cell perched between his hands because he had been firing off a text or email when I barged in straight from the grocery store. "Fuck off with that insecure bullshit."