Counting the Days (Counting the Billions 1)

He laid me down on his bed as though I were as fragile as a piece of spun glass. He kissed his way along the length of my body, looking up at me as though trying to make sure that I was still okay with all of this. He slid his fingers into my core, lightly stroking at the spots where I was most vulnerable.

I had never felt quite like this before. I had never felt quite this needy and turned on. But then again, I had never been with a guy like Daniel before. He really seemed to want me to cum. He really seemed to care about my pleasure.

And that in itself was heady. That was something I wanted more than I could explain.

He tongued his way down the length of my body, and then, staring deep into my eyes, he lined himself up against my entrance.

In that moment, it hit me. This was my boss. The head of the company that I currently worked for. The guy I had studied in college. The guy that Leanne and Matt had warned me against. The guy that the tabloids had only bad things to say about. But none of that mattered in that instant.

I trusted him. And not only that, but I had the feeling that he trusted me as well.

I leaned back against the pillows, letting him spread me wide for his own use, and nearly sobbed as he thrust inside of me.

It was so much more than I’d expected, bigger than I had ever had before, but it was so perfect at the same time. He gave me a moment to adjust, letting me just breathe and focus on the incredible feeling of him filling me. Then, he slowly began to rock into me, pressing toward the very end of my hole, letting me feel the whole length of him, letting me feel like I could barely breathe for the feeling of him inside of me. He wasn’t rough but rather tender, something I hadn’t expected.

I had to wonder if he was like this with all of the people he slept with, all those women who showed up in the tabloids, but of course, I couldn’t ask that. I gave a full-body shiver as he pulled almost all the way out of me and then pushed back in again.

He continued to rock into me, picking up the pace more and more until I was gasping with the feel of it, until I could barely believe how well he fit into me, until I knew that it was only a matter of time until I flew apart into a thousand pieces.

“Please,” I whimpered, squirming against the sheets, my fingers twisting into the soft, silken material.

Daniel gave an incredulous laugh, as though he could barely believe that I was begging him to cum. “Please yourself,” he said. He groaned as I twisted and my hole tightened against his length. “Abby.”

It was my name that really did it for him. He slammed into me one last time and then spilled into me, his eyes widening as though he had barely expected that. And as for myself, I hadn’t expected it either, or expected what his cumming would do to me.

Something twisted in my gut, as I realized that he found this just as good as I did. That he wanted me, not just any one of those other women he had ever gone home with. Something made me clutch for him, holding his body close against mine. We were both breathless with the feeling of it all, our two bodies coming together like that, and I couldn’t have let him go if I had wanted to.

My walls clenched around him again and again and again, as I cried his name hoarsely into his empty, lonely house. But it didn’t feel so lonely just then.

He collapsed down next to me on the bed, and it was like we were the only people there in the world, let alone in the house. His hands moving in gentle caresses against my skin as I calmed down, my own fingers clutching for him as I drifted endlessly away.

I couldn’t be his. I knew it right there and right then, in that instance. He was something more than I could ever hope for. He was Daniel McGregor, beloved of all the paparazzi in Chicago—and the women, moreover.

I couldn’t have him, and there was no point in trying. And that, in itself, felt like a stake stabbed into my heart. I knew that I should get up and walk out of there, that I should go home, that I shouldn’t make this into something more than it was.

But as I started to roll away from him, Daniel reached out one warm hand and settled it on my hip, just like he had done when we had kissed before. “Stay?” he asked, and I could hear something hopeful and almost needy in the way he said it.

I glanced back over my shoulder at his face and knew that I had no choice in it. Sure, he would have let me leave if I really wanted to. But seeing that hope in his face, I suddenly had no heart to upset him. I smiled and settled back against him, and he wrapped his arms around me.

Chapter 21

Daniel

I HAD TO ADMIT THAT I was surprised when Abby had been so willing to go home with me the night before. Obviously, I could tell she was interested in me, and the date had gone well. But I still had expected her to draw a very firm line. That she would go home alone for the night and that I would have to take her on another date, or another string of dates, if I wanted her to come home with me.

Instead, she’d made it known that she wanted this just as badly as I did.

There was just that one moment of indecision, right there at the end. She had almost left, like she thought that was what I wanted from her. I hadn’t been able to kiss away the tension in her shoulders after that, and even though we had fallen asleep and eventually woken up tangled together, it made my heart ache that she might think this was just about sex.

Right now, though, she was still sleeping peacefully. I watched her for a moment, not wanting to disturb her. There was the faintest hint of a smile on her face, and the tension had bled from her shoulders. I lightly kissed one of them, but she didn’t stir. I headed downstairs to make breakfast.

The patter of bare feet on hardwood announced Abby’s arrival in the kitchen a little while later, but they did nothing to prepare me for what I saw when I turned my attention from the omelets I was frying on the stove. I stared for a moment. She was dressed in one of my shirts, and those legs of hers went on for days. Of course, I had noticed her shapely legs the previous night when she’d been wearing that sexy black dress of hers, but it was something different to see them now, bare beneath the hemline of my favorite shirt.

Abby plucked self-consciously at the collar of the shirt. “Is this okay?” she asked nervously.

I growled wordlessly and stalked over to her, grabbing the collar of the shirt and pulling her tight against me, covering her mouth with mine. We made out sloppily for a long moment, until I finally released her. Her fingers crept up toward her lips, and a slow smile broke across her face. “Good morning,” she said, sounding almost dazed.

“Good morning,” I told her. “You want some coffee?”