Pretending I’m Yours (Forbidden Billionaires #3)

Chapter 6

chapter 6

MAYA

Tonight’s the night.

The night, the one I wasn’t sure would ever come, and I couldn’t be more excited if Santa had left a pile of presents and a bag of jewels under the rickety table in my shabby hotel room.

I throw a kiss to Pudge, whispering for my sleeping kitty to be good while I’m gone, and then practically dance out the door and down to the closest subway.

Forty minutes later, I emerge from the station near Prospect Park just as the sun is sinking behind the bare trees to find a handful of people lingering outside a nearby movie theater, getting tickets for an evening show. But all in all, this part of the city is peaceful at Christmas. I wander across the street, past the imposing facade of the Brooklyn Public Library without encountering another soul, feeling like the only patron in a museum after hours.

I love my hometown and hope to spend at least part of the summer there for as long as I’m lucky enough to be alive, but this city…

I could get used to pillars and art and public transportation and restaurants featuring food from every part of the world. For breakfast, I had a delicious Chai-spiced porridge at an Iranian café around the corner from my hotel. For lunch, I grabbed a bowl of noodles from a vendor in Bryant Park and found a chair near the ice rink, fantasizing about the evening to come, while I watched the skaters spin beneath the skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan.

But I wasn’t thinking about what I was going to have for dinner, the way I usually would on a trip to the city…

I’m a foodie for life, but tonight, other appetites are top of mind.

All day, I’ve done my best to talk myself down from the ridiculously giddy state Anthony left me in last night.

There has to be something wrong with the man.

No one can be that perfect, that sexy and clever and gracious and insanely gorgeous. He was probably putting on a show for a new client, or I’m simply projecting my dreamy fantasies of a thrilling first lover onto an ordinary man.

Brains do things like that. They’re unpredictable. Dangerous. When they really want something, they have a habit of seeing what they want to see, not what’s actually standing in front of them.

I learned that firsthand, watching my sister fall hard for loser after loser, no matter how many times we all told her that the guy she’d brought home to “meet the family” had fallen short of our dreams for her. But she wanted to be in love so badly, she refused to listen.

She had to learn all her love lessons the hard way.

The thought makes me pause on the wide, paved path leading toward the employee entrance to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

I’m sure there are lessons I’ll have to learn the hard way, too, but in order to do that, I have to stay alive long enough to learn them.

Is this really safe?

Meeting a man I barely know down a dark path beside the closed garden on a night when there’s no one around to hear me scream?

“He’s been thoroughly vetted,” I whisper, curling my fingers into fists inside my mittens. It’s a relatively warm winter evening, but I’m glad I brought my wool mittens and matching scarf. Wandering around a garden is bound to get chilly after a while. “Background check and routine physical and…everything else.”

Everything else, including an STD test Twyla emailed me this morning along with the other paperwork and my receipt for payment…

It was six months old, but the results were all negative and Twyla assured me that Anthony had taken some time off and hasn’t had a “client” since last summer.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been with a woman since then, during his “off the clock” time.

Or a man…

Maybe it’s the rural Maine girl in me, but it’s hard to imagine a man like Anthony being completely straight. He’s too polished, too fit and toned and perfectly pulled together. His suit was clearly a bespoke, custom fit creation and his shoes probably cost more than every item in my wardrobe, a fact I’m aware of only because my friend, Elaina, has a thing for clothes. Without her, I would be too backwoods to recognize Italian leather or the fact that normal suits don’t hug a set of broad shoulders like that.

The only men who dress like Anthony back home are Ken, the hairdresser my cousins trust with their highlights, who has a boyfriend in Portland, and Larry and Fritz, two insanely hot lobstermen who have been denying their love while drunkenly making out behind the pub every other Friday night for years. But the rest of the dock workers turn a blind eye to it, as long as Larry and Fritz are back to pretending to be “just good friends” come Monday morning.

Even in this modern age, being gay or bisexual isn’t something the people of my hometown are comfortable with. They aren’t actively judgmental, but it’s obvious most prefer a “don’t ask, don’t tell, and please don’t be too gay in public, okey dokey?” policy in Sea Breeze

It’s just another reason that I’m starting to feel like I belong somewhere else. I hate that my two gay friends from high school didn’t feel safe or welcome in our town. And I hate that so many people, especially in the older generation, see change as something to be fought, tooth and nail.

As far as I can tell, change is the only thing you can count on in the world. Change is inevitable. You can either accept that, and lean into the excitement of transformation, or resist it and be dragged, kicking and screaming, into whatever the future holds.

“No kicking and screaming,” I say, starting back down the dimly lit path, mentally adding, unless Anthony actually is a serial killer, and then I’ll kick and scream like a champ.

But he’s not a serial killer.

And he’s even more gorgeous than I remember…

As soon as I turn the corner to see my drop-dead sexy date standing in the warm glow of a gas lantern by the slightly ajar back gate, wearing a tailored gray wool coat and red scarf the same deep crimson as my own, my fears melt away in a rush of warmth and excitement.

It’s the way he smiles that does it—like he’s thrilled, and a little bit relieved, to see me. He seems every bit as excited about our date as I am.

Besides, there’s a folded blanket and a picnic basket sitting by his feet, and I’m pretty sure serial killers don’t feed you dinner first.

“You should have told me we were doing a picnic,” I say, my face heating as he rests a hand lightly at the small of my back and leans in to kiss my cheek. My eyes slide closed, my heart beating faster as his spicy smell floods through my head, and my nerve endings sizzle to life the way they did last night in our private room. “I could have brought wine or fancy Italian soda or s-something,” I stammer as he pulls back, gazing down at me with an intensity that makes me feel beautiful and desired and…nervous.

Very nervous.

Tonight, I’m finally going to learn what it’s like to be naked with a man. Heck, with another person, period. I wasn’t an athlete like my friend, Sully, and I’m not comfortable prancing around the beach in tiny bikinis like Elaina. I’ve never changed in a locker room, and all my swimsuits are one-pieces.

If Anthony gets me out of my fleece-lined jeans and white cashmere sweater, I will be the most naked I’ve ever been with anyone besides myself.

And Pudge, but he doesn’t count. Cats are notoriously unfazed by nudity and Pudge is unfazed by just about everything except the weird sound that was coming from the hotel’s ancient radiator this morning.

But that’s the reason I’m here, after all, and so far, Anthony doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that I’m probably twenty pounds over my fighting weight and can’t remember the last time I hit the gym. I’ve been too busy working to make time for more than a long walk after work, but the way his fingers curl lightly into my hip through my coat, lingering for a long beat before he steps back, makes me feel like I might have a sex vibe, after all.

At least with him.

“I’ve got it all covered,” he says, reaching for the basket and blanket. “Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic options, and a few things in case you’re a vegetarian. I was already at the store by the time I realized I forgot to ask.”

“No, I’m not a vegetarian,” I say, following him toward the cracked gate. “That’s not allowed in my part of Maine. Meat eating is expected, and seafood is on the table just about every night. My uncle and half my cousins work on fishing boats, so…”

“Same where I grew up,” he says. “Well, the meat part, not the fishing. Though we couldn’t always afford quality meat. Spam sandwiches for dinner were a fairly common occurrence.”

I fight to conceal my surprise. So, he wasn’t always this posh-looking person in designer clothes with an expensive-looking haircut that makes his shaggy brown hair fall in a perfect wave over his forehead.

It makes him even more interesting, someone I’m even more eager to get to know. As foolish as it probably is, I find myself desperate to know everything about this man, even if we will be parting ways in just a week.

He nods over my shoulder. “Just close the gate behind you and hit that red button on the panel on the left. That should rearm the security system on the outer gate. My contact turned off the video streams and alarms inside the garden, but in the past they’ve had kids climb the outer gate and cause trouble, so he wants to be sure the electric fence is fully functional while we’re here.”

“Got it, sure thing,” I say, following his directions, flinching slightly at the sharp buzz that sounds after I arm the system.

“Sorry,” Anthony says with a soft laugh. “He didn’t say it would be that loud.”

I turn back with a rush of breath. “No, it’s fine. It wasn’t that loud. I’m just…a little jumpy, I guess.” I shrug and wave an awkward mitten in the air between us. “First dates are kind of scary, even when they’re normal first dates.”

He arches a wry brow.

“I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” I hurry to assure him, cursing myself for making things even more awkward.

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiles, seemingly unfazed. But then, he has way more experience with “dating” strangers than I do. “And who wants to be normal anyway? Normal is boring.”

“It is,” I agree, anticipation fluttering in my stomach as I glance past him at the lights twinkling in the trees ahead. “Normal people don’t get to eat Christmas dinner in an enchanted garden.”

“No, they don’t,” he agrees as we start down the path, where thousands of tiny white lights wrap every tree trunk and branch, creating a canopy of stars beneath the darkening sky. “This is beautiful.”

“Magical,” I breathe, taking in the pristine snow covering the flower beds behind the trees, the crystalline silence. If it weren’t for the faint buzz of traffic from the street, I wouldn’t believe we were in the city. It feels like we’re the only people at the edge of the world, alone together in a fairy realm full of lights. “How did you make this happen?”

“I know people who know people,” he says. “One of the benefits of being born and raised in a giant family that’s been in the city forever. If I don’t know someone, I usually know someone who does.”

The opening to ask him more about his past is too perfect to resist. “Did you always live in Manhattan?”

He shakes his head. “No, I lived with my grandmother in Queens until I was seven. When she passed, I moved in with my uncle and his family in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I didn’t move to Manhattan until much later.”

I stop dead, my jaw dropping. “No way. Red Hook? The apartment building I’m buying is in Red Hook!”

He turns to me, his eyes widening. “Really? You’re buying an apartment building?”

I nod. “Yeah. I’ve been saving up for years for my first property and when this one came on the market, it ticked all my boxes.”

“Tell me about these boxes,” he says as we start to walk again.

“Oh, I don’t want to bore you,” I demure, knowing I can be obnoxious when it comes to talking real estate. Elaina finally had to tell me I was boring her to tears and was only allowed to talk property stuff for half an hour every other Sunday morning, after she’s had her coffee.

“You won’t,” he insists. “I love this kind of stuff, and I helped a friend find a condo down there a few years ago. I might know your place.”

“That would be cool,” I say, ridiculously excited that we have this in common, though I know loads of people follow their local property listings. I give him the cross streets before adding, “It’s a pre-war building that needs some work, but it has great bones. It’s three stories, six units, all with dependable, long-term renters, so there’s a decent profit margin to finance the repairs. I think it will be a great investment, assuming there aren’t any surprises during the walk-through with the inspector Wednesday morning.”

“Who’s your inspector?” he asks, a sharpness in his gaze that wasn’t there before. “You want to make sure you have someone good. A lot of those old apartment buildings are riddled with asbestos or other issues that could tank your return. I have a few contacts in that world. I could call in a favor, if you’d like, make sure you have someone you can trust.”

I smile, touched by the offer, and his concern. He really does seem like a good man, the kind who wants to make sure people are treated fairly, even if that person is a woman paying him to show her a good time in the bedroom.

“I’m using Greer and Mackey,” I say. “They have great reviews, but if you don’t think they’re?—”

“Oh no, they’re great. Mackey’s lived and worked in Red Hook for decades,” he says, relief softening his features. We turn right, leaving the canopy of lighted trees, following a snow-dusted sign pointing toward the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden. “They’ll take good care of you. But watch your back on your way there. Parts of Red Hook are still dangerous.”

“I will, thank you,” I say, nibbling at my bottom lip. “I haven’t actually been to the property yet. I couldn’t get away from work long enough to come down and see it in person before I made the offer. I did a virtual tour with my realtor, and she said it’s on an up-and-coming street, but I won’t see for myself until the final walk-through.”

“That’s a decent area,” he says, “but head five blocks east and you’re in a neighborhood with barbed wire over the windows and a heavy police presence that still can’t get a handle on the gang violence. I don’t like the thought of you anywhere near there. I’ll text you a list of subway stations to avoid.”

“Thank you,” I say. “That would be great.”

“Or I could…” he trails off as we round the corner. The view opens up, revealing a carefully manicured, Asian-inspired section of the garden. We pause at a wider place in the path, soaking in the wooden bridges arching gracefully over the frozen pond, their railings draped in lights that glow a warm orange. Stone lanterns peek through the snow like ancient sentinels and the dormant cherry and willow trees arch graceful limbs over the cold ground, protective of the sleeping plants beneath the snow.

“Or you could,” I prompt after a moment, glancing up at him from the corner of my eyes.

He turns, fixing me with another one of those breath-stealing looks of his. “I was going to say that I could come with you, but that could get complicated and I… Well, playing the protective big brother isn’t really why I’m here.”

My cheeks heat again, but I hold his gaze as I say, “No, it’s not. And I’d rather you not think of me as a little sister. If that’s okay with you.”

“I don’t,” he says, his voice deeper, with that husky edge that makes me shiver. “Though I probably should. I’m old enough to be your father, let alone your brother.”

I arch a brow. “Fifteen is awfully young to be making babies.”

“But possible,” he counters, even as he shifts closer. “I had a serious girlfriend at fifteen.”

“I hadn’t even kissed a boy at fifteen. Not even close,” I find myself confessing. But he already knows I’m a virgin. I doubt he’s surprised to hear that I wasn’t out exploring my sexuality in my sophomore year of high school. I lift my chin, breath coming faster as he angles his head to one side. “And I like that you’re older,” I say, pulse throbbing in my throat as his lips move closer to mine.

“Why?” he murmurs.

“You’ll know exactly what to do with me,” I whisper, my nipples tightening against the silk of my bra at the hungry sound that vibrates from the back of his throat.

“I’m not so sure about that,” he murmurs as his free arm goes around my waist, drawing me against him.

Before I can ask what he means, his lips are on mine, and he’s kissing me with that slow, easy confidence that turns my bones to wax.

Hot, molten wax, melting into a puddle at his feet…

His tongue glides against mine, stroking, exploring, and I press closer, craving more of his heat, his touch.

By the time he finally pulls back from the kiss, I’m buzzing all over, warm despite the chill in the air.

Still, I shiver, but it’s not the cold to blame.

It’s the certainty that, sooner or later, Anthony is going to touch all the tingling, aching places beneath my clothes that has me trembling as he takes my hand in his. “The pagoda has heat lamps on the ceiling,” he says, clearly mistaking the reason for my shiver. “Let’s get you warmed up and fed. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

I nod, enjoying the feel of his gloved hand in mine as we cross the bridge to the elegant structure poised on a small hill above the garden. “I’m always hungry in New York. Too many good smells around every corner.”

“Best place to eat in the world,” he agrees as we climb the steps to the pagoda and move inside the cozy haven. Inside, the ceiling is strung with lights interspersed between the heat lamps, making it feel like we’re spreading our blanket under the stars.

Paper lanterns sway gently in the winter breeze, casting soft shadows across the wooden floor, but the lamps keep the chill away. Soon, I’m out of my mittens and my coat, the cold-induced tension easing from my muscles as Anthony unpacks a veritable treasure trove of fancy deli food.

There are meats and cheeses and artisanal pickles and a loaf of bread that smells like heaven as I tear off a chunk to dip in the olive oil Anthony drizzles onto a small plate he brought for the purpose. There are also two salads—one a traditional Greek with feta and vinegar dressing, the other a grain salad with almonds and cranberries—apples, pears, and champagne that dances lightly on my tongue before fizzing down my throat without a hint of sourness.

I told him last night that wine makes me say embarrassing things, but champagne is even worse.

Champagne goes straight to my head, a fact I prove by sighing halfway through our meal, “Can we live here? Right here? In this pagoda, with this food. Forever?”

“Yes,” he says without a beat of hesitation. “Though we might have to have more food delivered. And add a bathroom onto the pagoda on one side. It would be a long walk to the visitors’ center in the middle of the night.”

“And I like a hot bath before bed,” I agree.

“I’m more of a shower man myself.” His gaze darkens as it sweeps up and down where I sit curled on the blanket across from him, the remains of our meal between us. “But I could learn to enjoy a bath. With the right company.”

I bite my bottom lip, that hot, hungry-for-things-besides-food feeling swirling between my thighs again at the thought of Anthony in the bath with me. “It would have to be a big bathtub.”

“Not so big. You’re tiny,” he says, moving the olive oil plate and the last of our charcuterie platter to one side.

I shake my head. “I’m not. I’m short, not tiny. There’s a difference.”

“You’re perfect,” he says, continuing to clear the blanket between us, intensifying the ache low in my body.

“I’m chubby,” I insist, some perverse part of me insisting on telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth with this man. As strange as it probably is, I want him to see me, the real me, even the parts that aren’t anywhere close to perfect. “But I love food too much to care.”

“And I love your curves,” he says, shifting closer and reaching for me, sending my nervous system into another minor meltdown as he pulls me into his lap like I weigh less than the picnic basket. His hands skim over my ass to my waist, before coming to rest on my ribs as he adds, “Since last night, your body is pretty much all I’ve been able to think about.”

“Really?” I ask, breath catching as he brings one hand to cup my breast through my sweater. Even with the thick fabric between his skin and mine, the touch makes me burn.

“Really,” he assures me, holding my gaze as his hand tightens around my breast, sending a jolt of arousal from my nipple to coil between my legs.

“Don’t lie,” I whisper, hating that I have to say it, but I want this to be authentic. Or as authentic as it can be considering the fact that he’s basically my employee. “You don’t have to say things you don’t mean. I’d rather you don’t, actually.”

“I never say things I don’t mean,” he says, his eyes blazing into mine. “I’ve been dreaming about your nipples in my mouth since the moment I saw you.”

I gulp, but before I can reply he adds, “Last night, I thought about it so much, I had to take care of myself after. I jerked off to thoughts of you rocking on top of me, telling me how good I felt inside you, Maya. That’s the truth.”

Blood rushes fast and hot, flooding into my core, making my head spin as I whisper, “I touched myself, too. Thinking of you.”

He curses softly as he pulls me closer, his hands shifting on my aching body until one cool palm is under my sweater, teasing my nipple through just the thin silk of my bra. “Fuck, Maya,” he rasps as he kisses me, hard and deep, making me moan as he continues to pluck at my nipple with his fingers.

“God,” I gasp, clinging to his shoulders as desire unlike anything I’ve ever felt floods through me. “God, Anthony…”

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he rumbles against my lips.

“No, don’t stop,” I beg, shifting on his lap, spreading my legs to straddle him on the blanket, sighing in relief as my aching core makes contact with where he’s hard beneath his jeans. “Don’t ever stop. Touch me everywhere.”

I’m past caring that we’re technically in public.

The garden is closed, we’re alone, and I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

“You’re so sexy, so sweet,” he says as he draws the fabric of my bra down below my breast, baring my skin to his touch. “I want to touch you, beautiful. Can I lay you down on this blanket and make you come for me?”

“Yes,” I say, a startled, but hungry sound bursting from my chest as he rolls me swiftly beneath him. Suddenly, my sweater is being whipped off over my head, making my hair crackle with static electricity that is nothing compared to the electrical storm that devastates my body as Anthony kisses my breasts.

As he licks and sucks and drags his teeth lightly over my nipples, making me squirm and then writhe and then beg him to touch me.

To take me.

“Please, I need you,” I say, so wet I’m sure I’ve soaked through my panties and am on course to ruin my jeans. “I need you inside me.”

“Not yet, beautiful, not here,” he says, his voice as rough as mine. “But I’m going to take the edge off, I promise.” He thumbs open the button at the top of my jeans and jerks the zipper down.

A beat later, his hand is slipping down the front of my jeans, into my panties, down until his fingers glide into where I’m embarrassingly turned on.

But he doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, the sound he makes as he kisses me breathless all over again makes me think he likes me like this…so wild and desperate for his touch that all I can do is whimper and cling to his sweater as his fingers work magic between my legs.

He strokes and teases, the pressure perfect, the friction delicious.

And then he glides two thick fingers inside of me as the heel of his hand grinds into the top of my sex and all my worry, all my fear, all my inhibitions are washed away by a tidal wave of need.

I gasp his name and he groans and works me harder, deeper with his talented hand. “Fuck, yes, Maya. Let go for me, sweetheart. I want to see you fall apart. I want to feel you come all over my fingers.”

I shatter with a ragged cry that echoes in the still winter air, clinging to his shoulders as pleasure rocks through me, turning my world upside down. I’ve never felt anything like this—this passion so fierce and all-consuming it would be scary if I were alone.

But I’m not. Anthony holds me through it, murmuring praise, telling me how beautiful and perfect I am when I come for him, his touch gentling but not stopping until the last tremor subsides.

“Good?” he asks as he slowly pulls his hand away, sending a pang of disappointment through me at the loss of his fingers. Of the intimacy of feeling him touch me in a way no one ever has.

“Perfect,” I confess. I tug my bra back into place and reach for my sweater, feeling the chill in the air for the first time since he kissed me. I pull my sweater on, smoothing my hair as I add in a softer voice, “Completely, one-hundred percent perfect.”

“Not quite. Next time, I need my mouth on you,” he says, bringing the fingers that were just inside me to his mouth and slipping them inside, groaning as the taste of me hits his tongue.

The sight makes something primal inside me wake up and roar. Before I know it, I’m demanding, “I’ll taste you, too. I want you in my mouth. I want to make you feel as crazy as you make me feel.”

“You do, beautiful,” he says, his jaw tight. “I’m so hard right now, I have no idea how I’m going to make it to the exit without doing damage to myself.”

“Then let me…take care of you,” I say, only the slightest hesitation in my voice. I reach for his jeans, hoping I can figure out what to do—or better yet, that he’ll tell me exactly how to please him.

But he captures my wrist lightly in his fingers, holding my hand at a distance. “No,” he says, with a wince. “It’s okay. I actually. I um…” His breath rushes out with a soft laugh. “I like to suffer a little.”

My brows slide up my forehead.

“It’s going to make the moment I finally get to be with you even more incredible,” he says, his thumb rubbing in gentle circles at my wrist.

Just that tender touch is enough to make me ache for him all over again.

Even a couple days ago, I wouldn’t have understood what he meant, but now…I do. Waiting the entire forty-minute subway ride back to my motel to touch him again is going to be hell, but in a good way.

The longer we wait, the more the anticipation builds, the hotter it’s going to be when there’s finally nothing between his skin and mine.

Wow…this is really happening.

I’m about to step through a door into a whole new world, and my anxiety is finally gone. I’m not nervous at all, just excited.

And ready to head toward the exit. The garden is magical, but being with Anthony is going to be more magical, even in my dingy hotel room.

“Should we eat dessert while we head for the subway?” I ask.

He nods. “We absolutely should. Dark chocolate cherry mousse is the only thing that might possibly keep my mind off getting you naked again for five minutes.”

“Yum,” I say, my mouth watering. “I love dark chocolate and cherries together.”

“Me, too. It’s my favorite,” he says, the enthusiasm in his voice making me think he might be a foodie, too. “I’ll have to take you for ice cream later this week at my favorite place in Williamsburg. They have a dark chocolate and cherry chunk custard that will blow your mind. And there’s a Greek place not far away that has the best kabobs I’ve had anywhere outside of Athens. We could make an evening of it.”

“Sounds amazing.” I say. “I’m glad you like food, too. It would be hard to spend a week going out with someone who only eats salad.”

He huffs. “No way, woman. I’m a food snob from way back. Besides, we’re going to need fuel to keep our energy up. I have a feeling we’re not going to be getting much sleep.”

“I hope not,” I whisper, grinning as he leans over to press a quick kiss to my lips.

But even when our teeth bump together, it isn’t awkward. It’s fun and easy and…sexy.

Everything about this man is sexy, from the way he smiles to the way he talks about food to the protective hand he cups under my arm as we descend the icy steps on the opposite side of the pagoda.

Once we’re back on the trail, I’m in charge of feeding us both spoonfuls of mousse as Anthony navigates toward the front gate. We take time to admire the light displays we haven’t seen yet, including a glowing tunnel through a dormant lilac arbor that makes me feel like I’m in a 90s rom-com, but we don’t dawdle, either. In just fifteen minutes, we’re outside the front gate, and Anthony’s punching in the code to lock it behind us.

“That was amazing,” I say, feeding him the last bite of mousse before dropping the recyclable cup in a blue bin on our way toward the main street. “I think we’re closer to the subway here. I’m a little turned around, but?—”

“We’re not taking the subway,” he says. I glance back to see him typing something into his cell. “I’ll get a car. We’ll be in the East Village at least fifteen minutes faster without waiting for the train.”

I blink. “But my hotel is in Midtown.”

He glances up from the glowing screen. “Oh, I… I thought we could go back to my place.” He studies my expression, pushing on before I can fully decide what I think about that idea. “But if you’re more comfortable at your hotel, that’s fine. I want you to feel safe.”

“I do feel safe with you,” I hurry to assure him. “I just…I think I’d rather go to my hotel tonight, if that’s okay. All my toiletries and things are there, and I should check on my cat. He’s still getting used to the big city noise. He might need another catnip chew to calm him down.”

His lips curve in a bemused grin. “You brought your cat with you?”

“I did. I couldn’t find anyone to watch him while I was gone and…” I shrug. “And we’re buddies. Pudge is my moral support. I’ve never been alone in New York before.”

“You’re not alone,” he says, nudging my shoulder gently with his. “I’ve got your back, kid.”

“Thanks,” I say, wrinkling my nose.

“What?” he asks, arching an amused brow. “Not a fan of ‘kid?’ Compared to the old geezer you’re with, you are a kid, you know.”

“You’re not a geezer. And if you’re worried about a possible power imbalance, don’t be,” I say, lifting my chin. “Our age difference is balanced out by the fact that I’m basically your boss.”

He laughs, looking delighted by my chutzpah. “You’re right. You are my boss.” He makes a sexy, growling noise low in his throat as he squeezes my hip. “And what a tyrant you are. So demanding and hard to please.”

I roll my eyes, blushing as I grin. “Right. So hard. I think it took…what? Five minutes?”

“Maybe six, but yeah, you’re pretty incredible.” He exhales with a shake of his head. “But let’s not talk about that now, or I’m going to get hard again.” He leans down, kissing my forehead, making my entire being glow—body and soul—before motioning toward the street with his cell. “Just tell me where we’re going. I’ll call the car. Looks like there are a few drivers in the area. I’ll tell them to pick us up in front of the museum.”

I give him the name of my hotel and he types it in. A beat later, the ride is accepted. We reach the front of the Brooklyn Museum, with its facade illuminated in red and green in honor of the holiday, just as our driver pulls up.

Casting one last glance over my shoulder at the scene, not wanting to forget a single thing about this night, I slide into the door Anthony’s opens for me, ready for whatever comes next.