Then he did. He raised his head enough to look down at her. She vaguely knew she was still clinging to him as if she’d always needed and would always need his support.

He bent for another kiss as if compelled to before he withdrew, ran a possessive finger down her cheek. “What about that first commonality?”

And she knew there was no way she could tell him she didn’t want more of him, with him, and mean it. She didn’t know where this could lead, had a feeling nowhere good, but it was no use. This was unstoppable, what she craved from him was overpowering. She had to capitulate to its demand. For now.

She pulled back from his arms, congratulated herself on turning around and tossing him a glance over her shoulder without falling over. “Fine. I will give you today, too. But anything else, you check with me first.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He riddled her vision with another smile then drawled, “And wear a skirt.”

Her knees knocked.

“I will when you do,” she bit off.

She strode off fuming, her heat raging higher as his guffaws followed her all the way to her bedroom.

Selene wore a skirt.

Technically. As part of a dress. And no, she hadn’t succumbed to Aris’s demand. It was the most flattering daytime outfit she had in a wardrobe made of lawyerlike formal wear or mom-with-drooling-baby casual clothes. She wasn’t going out with that paragon of male beauty and elegance looking less than her absolute best.

And she was sticking to that story.

Aris had smoldered his satisfaction at seeing her, poured leisurely lust along the curve of her hips in the flowing dress the color of her eyes, down the smoothness of her panty-hosed legs to her platform shoes. He hadn’t put his triumph into words, though. Wise man. She would have hurt him if he had.

But throughout the day, he kept saying, in so many creative ways, how edible and sublime she looked. She discovered she couldn’t get enough of his praise, hungered for it with the same constant ache she did for him.

Thinking he had an itinerary planned, she was stunned when he told her he was putting himself in her hands. He’d never seen the city, wanted her to take him to the places that had witnessed her favorite experiences and formed chunks of her memories.

From then on, she had a constant lump in her throat. At the willingness with which he agreed to anything she suggested, the wholeheartedness in which he followed her as she took him walking along the pier, cycling across the Brooklyn Bridge and riding in a horse-drawn carriage, feeding birds and having a picnic beneath a gigantic oak tree in Central Park.

Hours later, after lunch, they’d just finished the hot cocoa he’d run two miles round-trip for when he pulled her to him, encompassed her back with the warmth and comfort of his expansive chest and covered her with his jacket.

She melted against him, inhaling the intoxicating amalgam of his freshness, vigor and unique brand of distilled testosterone. He rubbed his jaw on the top of her head, murmuring enjoyment, too.

“Thank you for showing me your city, Selene,” he rumbled against her temple. “This, along with yesterday, was the best time I remember ever having.”

Her heart expanded so fast, so hard, she felt it would burst. She twisted to look up into his eyes. “I can’t believe you’ve been here so many times and never been anywhere.”

“I never had anyone I wanted to be anywhere with. Now I do.”

The tightness in her chest, behind her eyes, became unbearable. That sounded scarily wonderful. He sounded terribly lonely.

As if hearing her thoughts, he sighed. “I never felt I was missing anything, though.” That unfurled the tension inside her. She was glad he hadn’t been suffering in his voluntary segregation. “Now I know I was.”

She pressed deeper into his hold, as if to absorb any pain he was feeling in retrospect. “I thought I knew the city I’ve lived in all my life. But experiencing it with you, I feel I saw it through new eyes, with a combination of your fresh perspective and—”

A bird flapped inches away, making her swallow the rest of her words. Good thing it had. Saying the beauty of seeing it with you was too premature to feel, let alone admit.

They shared a long, tranquil silence, even though, for her, it was charged with heart-clogging confusion.

Suddenly he inhaled. “Until we settle things, I think we should keep this all between us.”

She raised her eyes to him. Her expression must have betrayed her hesitation about how to take his request. He rushed to add, “I don’t want to introduce the volatile element of your family with their personal misconceptions and business tensions. They’d have nothing but a negative role right now.”

Truth be told, she wanted nothing more than to keep her family out of this. Still, when he’d been the one to spell it out, a frisson of disappointment and suspicion had zapped through her. The reasons would fill a book with the contrariness only Aris incited in her, the stupid insecurities and paradoxes only he unearthed.

She suddenly felt the need to be away from him. At her first wriggle, he let her go. She started to rise, and he was on his feet in an impossibly fluid move, helping her up.

She walked ahead. He followed, caught up with her.

Suddenly he jumped in the air.

She blinked in surprise. He’d caught a Frisbee that had flown their way. Then she heard the giggles. She followed their trajectory to half a dozen coeds, all cute and in clinging tops and skimpy shorts.

He handed it to the buxom blonde who advanced on him, all suggestiveness. He looked down at her and her group with that mild amusement of the supremely confident male he was, said something that had them howling with laughter.

The incident took no more than two minutes. But it was enough to plunge her mood into frost.

They walked on in silence, she wondering how she’d thought a man like him could have been lonely. Or that she was in any way different to him from the hordes who panted after him.

“You do that on autopilot, don’t you?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Enthrall women,” she elaborated.

“I can say the same about you, with men,” he shot back.

“I don’t affect men anywhere near the way you affect women.”

His eyes narrowed, raising the heat of his contention. “You mean you didn’t notice the dropped jaws littering the city in your wake today? I’m almost sorry I asked you to wear a skirt. Boosting your femininity was definitely overkill.”

“Oh, come on. Men aren’t throwing themselves at me.”

Tags: Olivia Gates Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net