She smiled. “Your parents are lovely. I really like them.”
“Yeah…they’re great.” I knew they hated the fact that I lived five hours away, along with Vanessa. If they weren’t rooted in place because of their wine business, they’d probably move here to be closer to us. To my parents, family was everything. My father lived less than five miles away from his brother. The Barsettis were magnetically attached to each other.
“I hope we see them again soon.”
“I’m sure we will.”
Muse drank more of her coffee then cut into her omelet. She took a few more bites, her eyes downcast.
I watched her face, noting how beautiful her skin was in the morning light. When the other models removed their makeup, they looked like completely different people. Their features weren’t nearly as attractive. Muse was the first woman I’d met who actually looked better without makeup.
She caught my stare and met my look. “What?”
I didn’t answer her and took a bite of my breakfast.
Muse continued to stare at me, her gaze confident. She drank her coffee then cleared her throat. “I have a demand.”
“A demand?” I set down my fork and tilted my head slightly. “What does that mean?”
“You lied to me and hurt me. I want something in compensation.”
Judging by her change of tone, she’d been thinking about this for a while. Perhaps she’d been considering it since the moment she woke up. “Alright.”
“I don’t want my own room anymore. I want to live in here—with you.” She held my gaze with the same confidence as before, prepared for me to challenge her. She knew she had me cornered because I had misled her for so long.
That meant she wanted to sleep with me every night. She wanted to share my space with me constantly. She wanted to be integrated into my life. Our stuff would be shared, and I would see her things on my bathroom counter every single morning. My drawers would be cleaned out to accommodate her things.
My initial reaction was to say no, but that was out of spite. I wanted to stand my ground out of principle. But I knew I needed to stop doing that. I wanted her beside me every night. I wanted sex every morning before work and every night before bed. I wanted to stare at her as much as I could, to treasure her beautiful features constantly.
I wanted all of her.
She held my gaze without blinking, still waiting for a response.
I drank my coffee and dragged out my response on purpose, making her wait for my judgment. “Okay.”
Her expression immediately slackened into one of surprise. “Really?”
I nodded.
“That was a lot easier than I thought it would be…”
“May I ask why you want to live in here with me?”
She shrugged in response. “I just do.”
My eyes narrowed. “I want a better answer than that, Muse.”
She resisted me at first, giving me her silence. But she eventually folded under my gaze. “I sleep better next to you. I feel safe. I like your smell…your body heat. It makes me feel like less of a prisoner and more of a partner. It gives me the affection that I need, the normalcy that I crave.”
I liked that answer, down to the last detail. “Anything else?”
She looked into my eyes as she spoke. “I like sleeping next to you…when your come is sitting inside me.”
Good answer.
* * *
I drove to the studio in Milan with Muse in the passenger seat. I’d fucked her on my bed before we left, filled her with as much come as she could take, and then hit the road. Now she was full of me, my seed dripping into her panties.
Listening to her request to share my room with me got me so damn hard.
We arrived at the studio then stepped inside the entryway. I had to check a few things with Nicole, and when Muse asked to come along, I didn’t refuse her. We reached the second landing, and I ran into a few models that were preparing for a photo shoot. They were wearing the new lingerie I had just designed and handed off to Nicole.
“Conway.” Naomi moved into me, her lips ready to kiss my cheek.
Muse hooked her arm through mine and pressed her body against me, claiming her territory as publicly as possible. “We should get going, Conway.” Her lips were just inches from my face, taking away any chance Naomi had to kiss me.
I could barely contain the grin that wanted to stretch across my face. “I’m sorry, ladies. I’m running late.”
Muse pulled me to the stairs, and we walked up together, her arm still hooked in mine for everyone to see.
“You really are jealous,” I said under my breath.
“How would you feel if a man kissed me on the cheek?” she countered.
I wouldn’t like it at all. I didn’t even want anyone to shake her hand. “Point taken.” We walked to the third floor where my studio was and stepped inside. To my surprise, Carter was already standing there. He was in a gray suit with a black tie. Anytime he was dressed that way, he usually had a business meeting of some sort. Any other time, he was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket.