It happened unbelievably fast—the window’s fixed and the crew is already gone. They were the most efficient team I could have imagined. I barely had time to go through two applications in that time they were here.
They weren’t like the repair places I visited earlier. In those places, the men behind the counter shook their heads even as I was telling them the problem. I could already tell they wouldn’t take the job.
This crew came in as a team, moved fast, and had the big pane of glass out of the frame and replaced in less than an hour.
For them it was a quick fix.
For me it was the longest day of my life. I made a compromise and it’s one I’m trying not to think about as I pace behind my sofa and stare at the blue door to my apartment. Waiting for the knock. Waiting for the payment to be made. I close my eyes, take a deep breath in, and breathe out slowly.
All I want is for Graham to get here.
I realize that a second deal with him is past the point where I can explain it away through sheer desperation, but he smelled too damn good. Afterall, damages are probably covered by renters’ insurance…maybe? I’m sure there could have been another way. I didn’t want it any other way, though. He looked at me with those gorgeous blue eyes, and I wanted to feel his hands on me again. I wanted to give him something, too.
I hadn’t actually meant to make another arrangement with him, though. What I’d meant to do was go to his office, confess what had happened, then ask him for the name of someone who could fix the window. I’d have called myself and asked about a payment plan, something to make it affordable. Or given the information to insurance. I’m sure there is some other way to handle an accident like that. I’m almost one hundred percent certain.
And then he’d been there, sitting behind his desk, so handsome and charming and a little bit, what felt like, protective and flirtatious. I couldn’t help myself.
The clock behind me in the kitchen ticks.
I can hear it in the quiet of the apartment. I’m standing in a spacious entryway, which happens to be the first—no, second—place I ever saw Graham. An open archway leads into the kitchen. The entryway leads into the wide living room with the big windows I’ve loved since I moved in. My bedroom and bathroom are off to the left. My ex’s office is to the right of the living room. I wanted to make it a guest bedroom, but now it’s just…empty. Empty and luxurious, with crown molding and a calming paint job and enough room for my cousin, if she’d agree to live with me.
Graham’s going to be here any minute. Standing right where he was before.
I take deep breaths and pretend to be calm about it. There’s nothing out of place in the entire apartment. I’ve already cleaned everything there is to clean. I’ve prepared myself as best as I can as well.
A text pops up on my phone and I’m more than grateful for the distraction. It’s from Kenzie.
Kenzie: Hey, Maddie, I’m sorry about the phone call the other day
Maddie: It’s okay! Are things any better?
Kenzie: Not really, but I don’t want to fight with you or take out my frustrations on you. I love you.
Maddie: I love you too and we’re not fighting. Call me later if you want?
Kenzie: I will.
I don’t think she will call. Her texts make me believe she might be in a worse financial situation than before, and she feels like she needs to be on good terms with me just in case.
If only she knew the bad luck I’ve been having. A broken window doesn’t help anybody who’s short on cash.
I’ll be all right. I’ll get back on my feet. Until then…I glance back at the door, willing there to be a knock on the other side.
The only thing that worries me is how much I’ve been thinking about Graham, what we did together, and the way I feel when he’s touching me.
After my last two exes, I don’t need to fall head over heels with a man, especially one with so much more than what I have. More power and an imbalance…it’s exactly what got me into this problem in the first place. I fell in love with a man who was far more wealthy and powerful than me. I did everything he wanted to feel safe and because I loved him. I’m not saying I’m in love with Graham, but I am saying it’s something I need to be aware of.
Nothing has felt as new and exciting as being near Graham, but how can I trust that feeling when it’s led me to disaster more than once?
I have to be careful. The romantic in me needs to die. This is just sex. It’s practically business…an arrangement sealed with a kiss.
Shaking off the hesitation, I go to the bedroom and plug my phone in on the side table, doing my best to keep thoughts of Kenzie and my job search and my past out of my head. Today is about the present. Today is about giving Graham what I owe for the broken window.
Another wave of desire runs through me, and I wonder if I should wait for him naked on the sofa or if he would want me to strip for him again. He seemed to really like that. The memory brings a heat through my chest.
That probably shouldn’t be so hot to think about, but I already have to press my thighs together to keep myself from stripping out of my clothes and having some private time in the bedroom. Graham seemed to like my dress when he saw it earlier, so I decide to keep it on.
I peek down at the phone to make sure it’s charging and that’s when I notice the time: five o’clock.
It’s officially the end of the workday.
I hover in the living room, waiting. I want to stand right next to the door and pull it open the second I hear footsteps, but that would make me look…
I don’t know how it would make me look. Too eager? Too into him? I’ve never been very good at playing. I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve, and no amount of forbidden sex with the man who owns my building is going to change something that’s right at the center of my personality.
Sometimes I wish I could be cool and collected and keep my cards close to my chest, but that’s never been me.
The knock at the door is loud and confident, and I know before I get to the peephole that it’s him. Graham stands on the other side of the glass. Even with this strange fisheye view, he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. His suit is sharp, his tie undone and laying over his collar. It’s sexy as fuck.
I square my shoulders, lift my chin, and open the door.
The man who stands in the hall is every bit as tall and beautiful as he was before, but not as reserved. He has a darker look in his eyes. Before, he didn’t let me see the hunger in them until he was sitting down with me. Now it’s apparent, as if he’s not even trying to hide it.
“Madelyn,” he says, his voice low, a certain strain in it like he’s been holding in how much he wants this all day. Maybe even all week.
“Graham,” I respond, opening the door wider and waving him in.
As soon as the door closes behind him, he takes my chin in his hand, tilts my face up to his, and looks into my eyes.
“Did any of the repairmen bother you?”
“Bother me?” I let out a giggle. “No, of course not. They were perfectly professional.”
“Good. Is the window fixed?”
“It’s in one piece again. They were very fast about it. You would’ve been impressed.”
“I doubt anything could impress me as much as you in this dress.” His eyes drop down over my body, and I’m so glad I didn’t change. “I think that’s what you owe me for the window.”
“My dress?” His hand on my face is gentle, but I can feel the strength behind it. “You want me to give you my dress?”
“I want you to give me your body in that dress,” he says, then leans in and kisses me.
It’s a hard kiss, harder than I thought it would be, and Graham lets out a relieved sound like the most frustrating part of his day is that he wasn’t already here to kiss me and fuck me and…whatever else he has planned.
When he pulls back, I’m short of breath from the intensity of the kiss. “I can give that to you. Just…just tell me where.”
With a sexy grin, Graham guides me into the kitchen. It’s bright and spacious and clean. I’d expected him to take me to the bedroom, but instead he lifts me up and puts me on the countertop I wiped down three times today. With his hands on my waist, he leans down to drag his teeth over the side of my neck. Shivers run down my body and my nipples harden. Graham inhales deeply, and his lips brush over the same spot before his hands slide down and he spreads my thighs.
It makes my dress hitch up and he pushes it higher, almost to my waist, exposing the matching fabric of my panties. I give myself to him without hesitation. I want this more than he could possibly know.
“Did you wear these for me?” He asks in a low tone, gliding a finger underneath the lace waistband and dragging it away from my skin. Graham lets the panties fall back into place, then pulls them away again, letting cool air come into contact with the dampness between my thighs.
“Yes,” I answer, dizzy from the way he touches me ever so slightly with his knuckle.
“How hard did you try to get the window fixed?” he muses, pulling the panties a little farther out from my skin and letting his fingers move toward my clit. I spread my thighs a little more. “Or did you plan to come to me the whole time?”
His fingers dip down, his knuckles making faint contact with my clit, and I moan out loud.
“No, I tried,” I tell him, my face hot, the space between my thighs even hotter.
His fingertips stroke fully against my clit. “I could’ve told you that you’d never find anyone to fix this window. And then you walked into my office and made an offer. You knew I’d take you up on it, didn’t you?” he questions, and there’s an edge to his tone.
“I hoped you would,” I answer honestly, my eyes caught in his gaze like a hunter to the prey.
“You should know I want you,” he says as if it’s a command. I almost tell him yes Sir. So close to being weak for him and putty in his hands.
“I want you, too.” I tell him, although it’s barely spoken under my chaotic breath.
“Are you in need Madelyn?” he questions, and my cheeks go hot.
I need his fingertips on me more than life.
“I want more from you this time,” he says in a gravelly voice before I can answer. “I don’t just want to make it good. I want to see how good it is by the expression on your face. Look at me.”
I look into his pale blue eyes, overwhelmed by his hand moving under the lace of my panties. He stops, and I freeze. “Did I do something wrong?”
His eyes glint. “No, kitten, you didn’t. I just need to get these out of the way.”
He strips my panties off slowly, bringing them gently over my thighs, and crushes them into a ball in his fist. The rip of the lace tearing is audible, and it makes my bottom lip drop.
“You wanted this, didn’t you? Your panties are already wet.”
I spread my legs a little more for him, feeling reckless at the way he called me needy.
Yes. I want to be your little whore, I think, but I don’t tell him that. I’m too afraid to.
“That’s it.” His fingers return to my core, and he pushes two of them inside me, letting out a hiss when they sink in easily.
“I want to watch you come for me,” he says as my pleasure climbs with every thrust of his fingers. He moves his thumb in relentless little circles over my clit, the pleasure building and building, his blue eyes locked on mine. There’s nothing to do but keep my thighs open for him and come, clenching on his fingers. My toes curl as my body heats and I get closer and closer.
“Fuck, Graham,” I call out his name as I reach my climax all too easily.
His face is flushed, his eyes dark, and he leans between my legs and unzips his pants.
This is the sight I didn’t get to see before. He was bent over me from behind, and I didn’t get to see how he looks when he wants from me this badly.
When he wants me this badly. It’s a heady feeling, to know a man like him wants me.
I feel like I might lose my mind from wanting him, so I wrap my legs around his waist as he lines himself up and pushes in. He’s much thicker than his fingers and I gasp at the stretch. My head falls back in pure bliss, but his hand cradles the back of my head and instantly his lips are on mine.
Graham isn’t rough, but he doesn’t hold back, either. He moves against me with smooth, powerful thrusts, his hands bracing me where he wants me.
“Fuck,” he says. His voice is low, and it does nothing but make me hotter for him.
Graham kisses me with passion, his hands roam my body, and the sensations are all too much at once, and yet at the same time, not enough. He takes control of my mouth completely, tasting me deeply, and I taste him back as his hips work faster and deeper, pushing in until he bottoms out. Desire screams through my veins with a scorching heat and I can’t get enough. He tenses, his body going still, and then he wraps his hands around my ass and grinds me against him while he comes. My orgasm hits right before his, turning my mind to sheer pleasure.
I’m not sure exactly what happens. He says something to me, but none of the words make much sense. He lifts me into his arms and takes me through the apartment to my bedroom.
He leaves me for the bathroom, and I catch my breath and slip on a nightie. The faucet runs in the bathroom, and I attempt to figure out what to say, but my mind is blank.
I have to say something about the window. I have to thank him…and maybe tell him I like our arrangement more than I thought I would. But I don’t want it to seem like I want money from him. The words stay scrambled in my mind as he comes back out, gorgeous muscles on full display. It’s then that a phone goes off from the living room.
“Wait here a moment,” he tells me before giving me a searing kiss. I lie down under the sheets sated and exhausted, just barely able to hear him answer the phone. I try to think about what to say and how to handle this in a way where he knows I could be interested in more.
He comes into the room, a hand over his phone and tells me he’ll be right back. But he’s gone before I can answer. The apartment door opens and closes, and I’m left in bed alone.
It doesn’t take long for me to rest my eyes and somehow, I drift into sleep.
When I wake up in the morning, it’s quiet in my apartment. Thoughts that the night before was only a dream come to mind, but the soreness between my thighs shuts that down immediately. The only sound is the heating and cooling system and its whisper of air. If I lie very still, I can just make out the hum of the fridge in the kitchen. Eight stories below, the city is already awake. Cars honk in the traffic. Breaks squeal. I’ll be out there soon, looking for a job.
For now, I roll over onto my back and stretch. I feel good. Well rested. Well fucked, if I’m being honest. I slept deeply all night and didn’t wake up worried about anything.
Sunlight streams through the window, and it’s like Graham was never there.
I swallow thickly, realizing he never came back. I force myself to shut down all emotion that creeps in and instead concern myself with the task of getting a job so I never have to approach Graham for another arrangement again.