Chapter 21
40 Days Until the Deadline
Constantly living a life on the move, too many mornings involved waking up, not remembering where exactly I was. Unfamiliar smells, sheets—it was disorienting. There was no restful rousing, just a jarring shock to the system. Where am I?
Until I woke up enough to remember. I’m supposed to be here, for now.
As I drift to consciousness, there’s no panic, no wondering. My body surrounded by Oliver, his scent, the new pillows he bought. For me.
But also holy shit. I had sex with Oliver; all right, I had sex with Oliver again. The whole face-sitting thing definitely counted too. But now Oliver and I were naked. We had woken up in the middle of the night and he’d gone down on me. My brain was working entirely in headlines: WILD. THINGS. ARE. HAPPENING. News at 11. My body ached in a new, delicious way.
Oliver’s lips pressed to the back of my head, his arm wrapped around my torso, palming my breast, hips snug against mine, half hard.
This was perfect, too perfect. My brain was still half asleep, the other half preparing to panic.
“Morning.” His thumb brushed my nipple, his voice deep from sleep.
And we have a winner. “Morning.” I snuggled further into him.
He shifted, kissing the back of my neck, a small sigh dipping. Contentment, but the fire was smoldering in my stomach, waiting to see if he wanted to go back to sleep or stoke it further.
Worrying about what was happening between us could be reserved for another time. We had this one day. No plans, no to-do lists, no deadlines. Just us.
“I enjoy sleeping next to you.” He brushed my messy bed head out of my face.
“Yeah?” The warmth spread up my chest.
“Though you are pretty violent.”
“I am not!” I started to struggle against him.
“Feet kicking me, a few elbow jabs. I’m a delicate man.”
“A delicate ego, you mean?” My hips shifted, brushing against his erection.
“Mmm.” His tongue dipped out, tracing the shell of my ear, my eyes closing automatically.
We were in the perfect pocket of pleasure. I never wanted to move again, wanted to exist here forever, happy and sated.
“Petal?”
I hummed back, letting his teeth, tongue, and lips explore my exposed patches of skin. My palm moved to hold his hand to me as my heart rate continued to climb.
“Are you still sore?” His thighs nudged my legs, delving into the available space. “Good dreams, hmm? You’re so wet, you’re soaking my thigh. Was last night not enough?”
I squirmed against him, aching all over again. “Wouldn’t want you to tire yourself out, old man.”
Oliver scoffed. “Old man? I’ll show you who’s getting tired.”
While I expected him to increase his pressure, instead his fingers were painting me delicately. Still in that half-asleep trance, a slow-burning fire.
“I’ve never done this before.” It wasn’t until he froze that I realized I had spoken aloud.
“Last night was that forgettable?” he grumbled.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I rushed out.
His palm shifted away from my pussy, all of him, except for one specific part, growing stiff. “What do you mean? Don’t get quiet on me now. Not about anything,” he growled.
I was glad to be facing away from him. The flush on my skin had to be obvious. “This, the uh … relationship sex.” The moment the words were out, I buried my face in my pillow, groaning. I should not be allowed to speak until caffeinated.
“Relationship sex?”
“You know, the soft, slow, comfortable exploration. The waking up in the middle of the night because you need it, know how good it can be, will be. First thing in the morning because you’re pressed together, and your bodies fit perfectly. Everything is so soft, warm, familiar in that perfect way that surprises you because it keeps getting better. That’s what I, uh, hear.”
Maybe lighting would strike and put me out of my misery.
“I have zero belief that you haven’t been in a relationship.” He chuckled but hadn’t fully relaxed yet.
And I kept digging my hole deeper. “I mean I’ve dated. But my career doesn’t lend itself to relationships or commitment.” I had taken over the frozen board position.
“How so?” His thumb stroked my lower stomach.
“No one wants to date a person who’s going to leave a few months later, never to return. Not even sure where they’re moving to.”
“Says who?”
“People.” One specific person was flashing across my eyelids.
“They sound like assholes. Tell me their names. I want to have a conversation with them,” he growled, as he pressed closer to me somehow.
I laughed, unable to help myself, giving him a real elbow check right to his gut.
His fingers traced along my thigh, the roundness of my ass. “Trust me, you are a forever girl. A “build the dream house, and your entire life around it, to make her dreams come true” type of girl. All I’m hearing are the broken hearts you left behind every time you moved.”
I tried to swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”
“Well, I am the ‘sir.’”
“There is nothing you can ever do to get me to call you that.”
“Ah, a challenge. Accepted.”
I was still sore from riding the Oliver train to pound town. The man should come with a warning label: “Guaranteed to make you walk funny the next day.” But I moaned as he sunk two fingers inside of me.
He was fully hard now, erection pressed to my thigh, having returned to his infuriatingly slow pace, designed to get me there, but only when he was good and ready for me, while I squirmed.
When I tried to press my fingers to my clit, he pulled my hand away, bringing it to his mouth, licking each finger individually, as if I was his dessert to savor. “Be good—no cheating.”
“Please,” I begged.
“Let me grab a condom.”
“Don’t move.” My arm wrapped around his, longing for him to come closer. It was intoxicating, his chest hair scratching against my back, being surrounded by him.
“Anything you want, Petal. Anything.”
Then he shocked me. Dragging his fingers through my pussy, he gathered my wetness, smearing it on my thighs before dipping in again. “You going to be good? Nice and wet for me?”
“Oliver, yes, please, yes.”
“Good girl.” This time, he used it to jack himself. My heart thumped with the movements of his hand.
It wasn’t until he shifted my legs closed, surrounding his dick, that I recognized what he had done. Used me as his own personal lubricant. My rock-hard nipples were throbbing, body trembling as he slid at that same achingly slow pace, his dick tunneling through my quivering thighs.
“Is this what you needed? Me to fuck you anywhere, anyway I chose?”
“Please.” Another breath. “Baby.”
He bit down on my shoulder. “I guess we figured out how to make you agreeable.”
“Such an—” I hissed as his hand returned to my clit. “Still not going to say it.”
“I’ll tell you a secret.” His lips pressed against my ear, my gasp coming out louder, pulse pounding, even though his rhythm hadn’t changed. “I like it when you call me ‘asshole.’”
“Not a secret.” I pursed my lips, reaching down, my thumb brushing his slit, swirling along the head of his cock.
“What did I say about cheating?”
“This is too good. I can’t remember.”
His heavy thigh held my body to his, using me as if he were inside me, and despite the aching emptiness, I liked it. I liked it a lot. All of him aligned against all of me. The infinite ways we could bring each other pleasure.
“You are temptation itself. I’m barely touching you, barely moving, and you love it. Say it.” He demanded, lips pressed to my ear. “Say it again.”
“Please. Baby.”
“Mine, tell me you’re mine.”
“Just like you’re mine, you asshole.”
This time it was his orgasm that triggered mine, spurting over my hand, soaking the sheets as I squirmed, biting down hard on the pillow.
It let me hide my face as he whispered in my ear how badly he wanted to keep me.
39 Days Until the Deadline
It was a heady thing, spending a whole day with Oliver. Being the center of his attention. Sharing stories, dozing on each other, we built our own little bubble.
The morning of our first day back to work, there was no pretending this time, no hiding. The condom wrappers alone that we needed to pick up before Ambrose came up here to make the bed (he insisted I never did it right) made it impossible.
I glanced down, double-checking that the beard burn on my thighs was covered by my shorts. Oliver stepped in front of me, insisting he help me with my suspenders, a smirk on his face the entire time, both of us remembering what he had done with the pair that was lying by the bed, ruined.
His hands were in my shorts’ pockets, squeezing my ass, and I had to say something. Because the fear had returned—what would happen when we stepped out that door? “We have to remain professional.” My nails were scratching up and down his naked chest, so it wasn’t exactly clear who that remark was aimed at, me or him.
He quirked an eyebrow at me, and I wanted to feel my lips against his beard again.
“No touching.” I pulled away, fingers hungry.
“I’m perfectly capable of—”
I twisted my neck, as one of us still had hands on the other’s ass, and it wasn’t me.
He changed tactics. “Is there room for this to be negotiated? This place has a lot of closets.”
“Nope. The crew should be here any minute. It’s time for me to get downstairs, make sure everyone has their to-do lists.”
“The world would fall apart without those lists.” He still hadn’t removed his hands, and I hadn’t stepped away. “And it would fall apart if they saw me touch you?” There was that vulnerability in his voice again. I didn’t have the answers, didn’t have room to explore them—not with everything else waiting for us. How much we both needed this project to succeed.
“Yes,” I squeaked.
“Petal, if this is about what you said about not being a forever kind of person—”
“No.” I crossed my arms. “This is about them taking me seriously. This is my first contract without my father. I don’t want them thinking I got it or that any success will be because I was providing services to the Killington heir on the side.” Even with my clothes on, I felt naked before him. “You promised you understood.”
Oliver sobered, gently removing his hands, smoothing my hair back. “The only world that exists to me is the one that sees how brilliant you are.”
My foot kicked his, chin resting on my chest, trying to disguise my pleasure. “Careful with the compliments there.”
“I’ll banish you later.”
“Good.”
I pecked him quickly on the lips, my body desperate not to leave. Anything more and I was liable to get naked again and end up underneath my favorite weighted blanket of a human. Talk, sleep, memorize his skin, see if I could make him smile. Only I knew the shape of his mouth, the way his cheeks rose on the side when our lips were pressed together.
But reality came knocking in the form of Jeff and the crew. Even Cousin Carter stopped by, trying to get Oliver to spill Killington secrets, having heard the same rumors that Sebastian had about the company, that it was diversifying in an attempt to lift the stock price.
Oliver kept to his promise, keeping things professional during the daytime. Even though it was beyond tempting every time I laid eyes on him to yank him into a closet, touch his hand, or seek him out despite the millions of things I had to do. And at night, when we were alone in his room, in his bed, color swatches surrounded me on the sheets until he told me to give myself a break, let him take care of me.
Each moment was better than the last.
But every whispered secret, every kiss, brought us closer to the moment when we’d both have to leave.