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I SLUMPED INSIDE THE car, staring out of the window, still trying to process the enormity of everything that had happened.
Roger. How could I not have seen that something serious was going to happen with him? This was my fault – my fault for not being smarter, my fault for not being able to figure it out sooner. I had brushed him off, thought that he was nothing more than some annoyance, but he was always going to take it this far. Always going to do what he could to prove to me that he really cared about me.
Andreas reached over from the other side of the car and took my hand, giving it a squeeze.
“You okay?” he asked softly. I had never known before tonight that Andreas was capable of such sweetness, but here he was, taking care of me like he wanted to make sure I never had to worry about anything again.
“I will be,” I replied, and I tried to smile, but nothing seemed willing to appear on my face.
Tonight had been so much even before I had gotten back to my place and found Roger there waiting for me. Andreas and I had hooked up for the first time, and I had no idea what that meant – no idea how he felt about it now, if he regretted it or if he wanted more. I knew I was taking a risk by going back to his place with him after what had just happened, but honestly, I didn’t have it in me to push back too hard against anything right now. I just wanted peace for the night, and I knew I would be more likely to get it in his high-tech, secure place than in my own.
My father would be worried sick, but honestly, I couldn’t think about that right now. I needed to focus on myself, on the way I was feeling, on everything that seemed to be coursing through me. The adrenaline was still spiking from what had happened back at the apartment, from the feeling of that gun pressed against me. What would he have done if Andreas hadn’t turned up? What would I have done, to get out of it? I had no idea, and the mere thought of that was enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. There was only so much I could do to keep myself safe, and Roger was clearly not going to let me go until he had decided he was ready.
He thought he owned me. Thought that he had some kind of right to me, and for what? What had I done to give him that impression? I had just been doing my job, and I had thought that most of the men who walked into that place knew that, but he didn’t seem to get it. And that seriously spooked me. Were there other guys out there who thought they were owed something from me, who would come and get it whether or not I wanted them to?
I didn’t know how Andreas had found me. I hadn’t thought to ask yet. I was still worried that he was mad at me for running out of the club and telling him that I quit. I had no idea if I wanted to stick that out yet, and I had even less of a clue if he was going to let me after what had just happened, but right now, all I had to think about was getting back to his place and making sure I didn’t let anything else happen to me tonight. I was already wiped; the sooner I could just get some rest and wake up tomorrow, the better I would be able to take everything that had been thrown my way.
We arrived outside a gorgeous apartment building, and Andreas led me out of the car. The doorman waiting at the entrance nodded to him and opened the large doors for us to step through. I could hardly pay attention to the shimmering marble floor, the beautiful ornate staircase, as he guided me towards the elevator.
He pushed a key into a lock inside the elevator, and we started speeding upwards. I wobbled, and grabbed hold of the bar that ran around the side of the small square we were in right now. I felt like I might keel over any second, as the adrenaline started to wear off and my body began to sink back into something resembling normalcy.
The doors opened to an apartment; a penthouse. I didn’t know what else I had expected him to have. And, even though I had been too out of it to pay much attention to what had been going on downstairs, when I saw what was waiting for me here, my jaw dropped.
“This is your place?” I asked as I stepped out and looked around. He nodded. The entire floor seemed dedicated to his place, and it looked like it had come straight out of some interior design magazine and into real life.
Glossy dark wood floors, studded with thick, ornate carpets, led into the main area, where there were a couple of velvet couches next to a large fireplace. Giant windows looked down over the city below, and a bar – well stocked, of course – sat waiting for someone to take advantage of it. I glanced around, saw a few doors leading off into other parts of the house, and knew at once that each and every one of those rooms must have been bigger than my entire apartment.
“Yeah, it is,” he replied, and he followed me in, hardly seeming to look twice around him at the gorgeous empire he had all to himself. If this was what serious money could get you in this city, maybe I needed to start thinking about making a whole lot more.
I perched on the edge of one of the couches, feeling like this place might reject me at any moment – like it would work out that I didn’t belong here, and move me before I got too comfortable.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked, and I shook my head. I was starting to realize just how crazy it had been to come here with him – after all, it wasn’t as though I had clothes I could sleep in, or any way to get back to my place the next day.
“I should – I should probably get washed up and get some sleep,” I remarked, and I rose to my feet. He guided me back down again gently.
“You stay here,” he murmured to me, brushing a strand of hair back from my face. “I’ll get a bath running for you.”
“I have nothing to change into,” I pointed out, and he pulled his phone from his pocket, pressed a few buttons, and then handed it to me.
“Here, pick something from this place,” he told me. “It’ll be here in an hour.”
“Are you sure—”
“Nadia, I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t sure,” he pointed out to me gently, and I smiled at him.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
He headed off to another room, and left me to look through the clothing store he was allowing me to shop from. I tried not to peer too hard at the prices, not wanting to spend too much of his money – but looking around this place, it was hard to believe he had to worry about that.
I picked out a pair of silk pajamas, a cute little two-piece I could already imagine feeling perfect against my skin, as well as jeans and a tee for tomorrow. I figured he could afford it, and if he wanted to take care of me, then he would probably not mind me spending a little more of his money.
He emerged from one of the doors that led off the main room after a minute or two.
“Your bath is ready,” he told me. I rose to my feet.
“Thank you,” I replied, and I felt, deep inside me, a flicker of want. I wanted him to be close to me, even though I knew I should have been over that by now – we had fucked, yes, but that didn’t mean that anything ever had to happen between us again. That was over now. After everything that had happened tonight, I knew I needed a break from men for a while, a chance to gather myself.
I headed to the bathroom, trying to ignore the desire inside of me. I had to get some rest. I had to get myself together. After what had just happened, it was the least that I owed myself, and I didn’t want anything to get in the way of that, not even some misplaced want for a man I should have known better than to let myself anywhere near.
The bathroom was huge, bigger than my entire bedroom, and he had dripped a little oil into the warm water so that the scent of rose and sandalwood filled the room. I inhaled it deeply, trying to use it to calm myself, but honestly, if anything, it just drew something even more to life inside of me.
I should have known better than to let myself even think about him like that. I made sure the door was closed behind me, and began to strip off my clothes, distinctly aware of how close he was to me right now, aware of how easy it would have been for me to call him in and ask him to take this bath with me.
But I had to hold myself back. He was just doing something kind for me, and the last thing I wanted was to do something to screw that up. I needed to remember that he was still my boss, in a way, or at least someone I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of.
I could still remember the way he had fought Roger for me. The way he had grabbed that gun and held it to his temple as though he wanted nothing more than to blow that man’s brains out without a second thought. It had terrified me, the notion of seeing something as twisted as that, but now, knowing he had restrained himself, some part of me found it exciting.
There was so much more to this man than I had ever really known about before. So much more I wanted to uncover. The way he had come to my rescue, the way he had taken control of that situation, it thrilled me in a way that nothing else had before. And maybe it was just all the energy that had come from today, but honestly, I wanted him. I wanted him all over again. I wanted him to fuck me like he had done back in that office, and I wanted him to do it so I wouldn’t have to think about anything but how damn good he felt inside of me.
Was that why I had agreed to come back here, to his place? Maybe. I didn’t even want to think about it like that, but I knew it was at least somewhat true. I wanted him all to myself, and I knew I wasn’t going to get that if I had stayed at my place.
I climbed into the bathtub and let the water rush over my aching body. Roger hadn’t hurt me badly, but all the tension had caused some pain in my shoulders and my back. I needed to rest, I knew that, but I was still so on-edge. It was hard for me to think straight. Especially when I knew the man I had just shared the greatest fuck of my life with was right next door, a matter of a few feet away.
“Andreas?”
I had called his name before I could think better of what I was doing. My heart was beating fast, but not with fear – no, this time, it was something bigger than that. Something sweeter. I thought for a moment that he hadn’t heard me, but then the door opened a crack to reveal him peering through.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m... I’m okay,” I replied as I shifted underneath the water. “Can you come in?”
He held back for an instant, and I wondered if there was a part of him that was nervous about this. Worried about what taking another step forward might look like. But he knew as well as I did that there was no way I would be able to stay here without doing something, anything, to bring us a little closer. I desired him too much for that, some part of me crying out for him in a way I couldn’t deny.
He slipped around the door and came over to the bath. His eyes were locked on mine, as though he was making a point that he was looking at my face and not anything else. I almost wanted him to take in the rest of my body, but I knew he wasn’t going to take it there – he was being respectful, and he didn’t want me to freak out given that he was so near to me right now.
“Let me wash your hair,” he murmured, and he rolled up his sleeves and knelt down by the side of the bath. I didn’t care what he did right now, as long as it involved touching me; I needed to feel his hands on my body, that grounding force that told me I was safe and I was where I belonged.
He reached for the shampoo by the side of the bath and poured a generous amount into his hands as I dipped my head below the water to wet it. He pressed his fingers into my scalp, and began to massage in the product, taking his time – the sensation of his fingers against my skin was heavenly, the nerve-endings in my body responding to his touch like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He slowly worked up a lather, and smoothed it down to the very tips of my hair; his fingers skimmed my back, and I caught my breath. He must have known how I was reacting to him right now, but he wasn’t letting me see that one way or another. Did he want me? Was that why he had brought me here? Or was it just to give me a night away from the chaos that was following me right now?
He splashed water over my hair until it was clean, and then moved to my shoulders. The oil in the water made it easy for him to move his hands over me, and I closed my eyes and sank back against him, the combination of the warm water and the sweetness of his touch enough to make everything else just vanish from my mind. How could anything else matter, when he was here with me, when he was touching me, when he made everything feel like it was all right?
I wanted more, but I didn’t know how to ask for it – not yet, at least. I wished I had the words to turn to him and tell him I wanted him to make me come, that I needed to feel his hands moving over every part of me, that I wanted him inside of me the way we had been before, but I knew I had been firing some serious mixed signals his way and I didn’t want to confuse things further.
I turned to him, just glancing over my shoulder, our eyes meeting for the briefest moment as a shiver ran down my spine. Could he see it? See it in me? See that want for him, that desire, that passion that seemed to overtake everything else inside my brain? I parted my lips, intending to say something, but before I could, he leaned forward, and he kissed me.
It was a different kind of kiss to the one we had shared when we were in his office. That had been desperate, hungry, a chance for us to connect against the clock; a chance for us to do what we knew we wanted to, even if we would have stopped ourselves before it went too far if we had the chance. We had been racing to beat our good sense then, and everything had been frantic, passionate, so intense and fast that I hardly had time to think about it.
But this? This was different. His kiss was slow this time, lingering, as though he wanted to take his time with me. His hand slipped to the back of my neck, tracing out the same points he had caressed a moment earlier, and I leaned into him, even though the bath was between us right now. I just... I needed this. I needed to feel his body against mine, that grounding presence that would tell me I had nothing at all to worry about anymore. Did he understand that? Did it make sense to him the way it did me, or was I just in the process of losing my mind, throwing myself at the nearest man who was able to make me feel safe again?
I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I couldn’t bring myself to do either. His hands moved over my oil-slicked skin, as though he was taking me in, admiring the shape of me beneath his touch.
And I knew we needed to take it out of here and into the bedroom. Because I wanted him to make love to me. To show me he really wanted me the way I wanted him – and to prove I was good for more than just the intense fuck that we’d shared earlier.
