***
We step out of the elevator into a corridor with more mirrors and glass. Our footfalls are muffled on the thick carpet. My reflection mocks me from every direction, so I keep my gaze resolutely forward.
I’ve never been up here. Never been to Tessa’s apartment, and I admit I’m curious. Curious to see how the rich live. How she’s been living while I’ve been scraping at the bottom of the feeding pond.
One more reason why we’d never last together. Why she’d leave at the first chance she got.
Tessa unlocks her door and enters her apartment, while I hover on the doorstep, my jaw hanging slack. Again.
Huge windows show twinkling lights down below and the big full moon in the night sky. Its pale glow faintly illuminates posters hanging on the walls, images of figurines and statues and pottery. More figurines line a set of bookshelves, along with reed weaves and masks and all sorts of exotic stuff.
As she limps over to a leather couch, the lights switch on, triggered by some hidden sensor. Once there, she sinks down, putting her face in her hands.
That snaps me out of my wonder, and I do step in, even uninvited. I shut the door behind me and stride into her living room, rounding the sofa and kneeling in front of her.
“Tess…” I wait for a response that doesn’t come. “I’m just gonna check your feet, okay?”
She makes a muffled sound behind her hands, and my chest tightens. I lift one small, pretty foot, mesmerized by its perfect shape, the high arch, the dainty toes. Okay, what the hell—I didn’t know I had a foot fetish.
Get your shit together, Dylan.
I check the sole, looking for injury. When I find none, I place it gently back down and lift the other one.
Tessa hisses when I pass my hand underneath, so I take a closer look. A dark spot catches my eye. A small wound, and something lodged inside, like a thorn or a bit of stone. Were there thorns in the grass?
“Stay still,” I say as I try to pry the foreign body out of her foot. She whimpers when I manage. I frown at the splinter—or is it a thorn after all? “You stepped on something sharp.” I hold it out for her to see, and she bites her lip. “You got a first aid kit?”
“In the bathroom,” she says, again in that faint voice, and all I wanna do is gather her back in my arms and hold her.
Instead, I make myself get up and go look for her bathroom. I find it after the third try—after having opened doors into a luxurious bedroom with a double bed, another bedroom with a single bed and a laundry room. Mirrors seem to be the theme in the entire building, and I almost walk into a glass partition that separates the shower from the rest of the room.
Jesus H. Christ.
I finally l
ocate the first aid kit in a cupboard by the door and retreat to the living room, feeling out of my depth and a slightly bit terrified.
This is serious money. As if I hadn’t guessed all these years. I mean, she was at the gala as a guest, whereas I work security for spare change.
The gala. Where I should be right now, in fact.
Fuck.
I return to the sofa to find Tessa has put her hands down. Her lashes hide her eyes as I take my place again at her feet and open the first aid kit. I know she’s watching me while I clean the small wound with a disinfectant spray and take out a Band-Aid.
My hands go through the motions without conscious thought on my part. I’m so used to treating injuries on my little brothers by now, I focus instead on the feel of her soft skin under my hands, her scent of cinnamon and chocolate.
Why didn’t I remember she smells so sweet? Funny how you can convince your mind to forget or not notice certain things… I realize I haven’t been so close to her, haven’t touched her bare skin since I broke up with her. I’m caught between protectiveness and arousal so intense I have to shift to accommodate my hardening dick.
Can’t remember the last time I had some release, the last time I was with a chick. Probably before Dad left, more than a year ago—although I had a few encounters with my right hand since then.
Doesn’t help that she’s so damn pretty, so sexy, sitting there in her short dress, and I’m sitting at her feet, looking up her shapely legs.
Dammit. I slide my hand up to her ankle. Why haven’t I been with anyone for so long? It’s not a lack of willing chicks. I just can’t seem to get interested in them. I tried over the years. Hard to be with someone when every time you look at them you see a set of wide blue eyes and a bow-shaped mouth. Tessa’s mouth, her eyes, her face.
Shit, no. I pull back my hand as if her skin burns. I need to get out of here before I lose control. I’ve kept the reins on myself tight for so long I think they might snap if I touch her again. Letting her foot down, I slam the lid of the first aid kit closed, lift it onto the coffee table and scramble to my feet.
Too fast. Too damn fast. Shit.