Chapter Fourteen
Orson
“Jesus,” she says. “It’s enormous.”
“Thank you,” I reply, amused.
She sends me a wry look. “The apartment, I mean.”
I grin, take my Converses off, and leave them by the door, and she does the same with her sandals, leaving Bearcub sitting on them. Then I watch her walk forward and stand in the center of the living area. I move next to her, trying to see it through her eyes. The apartment takes up a corner of the entire floor. One side faces the harbor. The glittering lights of the Harbour Bridge across to the North Shore are reflected in the water, making it seem as if the city is strung with Christmas lights. The other window looks across the gleaming lights of the city with the Sky Tower just visible to the right, only a few hundred yards away. The view is magnificent in the daytime.
In the lounge, a plush light-gray carpet covers the wooden floors, and a light-gray suite with scattered fawn and navy-blue cushions faces a widescreen TV. A round dining table with four chairs sits to one side, not far from the kitchen. My housekeeper was in this morning, so the gray marble work surfaces and all the mod cons gleam when I switch the lamps on. The art on the walls is abstract and tasteful. I didn’t pick it—the decorators did, but I like it. My PlayStation sits next to the TV.
“It’s… beautiful,” Scarlett says.
I toss my wallet and keys on the counter, noticing her cautious tone. “You can say if you don’t like it. I won’t be offended.”
“No, I mean it, it’s beautiful, it just doesn’t look… lived in. It’s like a show home.”
“I don’t spend a lot of time here, it’s true. When I am here, I tend to go in the study.”
“Can I see that? ”
Surprised, I say, “Of course. Would you like a drink first?”
“No, thank you.”
I walk across the room, and she follows me down the corridor, then into another room on the left.
“Wow,” she says. “Yes, okay, this is more you.”
Here, bookshelves line two walls, filled with books, magazines, and journals. There’s an old oak desk and a leather office chair at one end, and a very soft black leather sofa at the other, both facing the view of the city. The coffee table in front of the sofa is scattered with more books and journals, my Kindle, and my iPad. An open drinks cabinet holds a dozen different bottles of alcohol—mostly whiskey and bourbon, and a row of crystal tumblers.
“My den,” I say.
She smiles. “It smells of you. I love it. It’s much nicer than the lounge.” She glances at the books. “Can I look around?”
“Of course. I don’t have anything to hide.”
She walks around the room slowly.
“Are you looking for something?” I ask, perching on the edge of the desk.
“You’ve told me a little about your business. That you go to the gym and play video games sometimes. But that’s all. I want to find out what makes you tick.”
“Apart from you?”
She just laughs, stops by the first bookcase, and starts looking at the titles. She reads some of them out. “Profitable Properties, Property Management Excellence, The Psychology of Money, The Intelligent Investor.” She pulls a face. “They’re all business books. Very dry.”
“They are, rather. I don’t read them all cover to cover. I tend to dip into them for reference or to check facts.”
She continues walking, past another bookcase of finance, property, investment, and management books. “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Making of a Manager, How to Deal with Difficult People. Like me?”
I just smile.
She carries on to the next bookcase. “Oh… these ones are different. Teach Students How to Learn, McKeachie’s Teaching Tips, Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. Do you teach?”
I nod. “At the university. One afternoon a week. ”
Beneath it is a shelf containing books on coaching rugby. “Rugby Drills, Rugby Skills, Tactics and Rules, Confessions of a Rugby Mercenary. You coach rugby?”
I nod again. “At the local high school with a friend who’s a teacher.”
“Hmm.” She moves on to the next shelf. “Lots on space,” she says. “Astronomy, the solar system, the International Space Station. Sports. And… oh my God…” She stops by the numerous shelves of biographies. “Steve Jobs, Carrie Fisher, Oscar Wilde, Sylvia Plath, Buster Keaton, Pontius Pilate, Thelonious Monk…”
“I’m interested in people,” I say with a shrug.
“I saw a Kindle on the table. Do you use it?”
“I do. I read a lot. Fiction on the Kindle. I tend to buy non-fiction as hardbacks.”
She stares at the next shelves and gives me an interested look. “Poetry?”
I don’t say anything.
She looks back and runs a finger along them. “Amanda Lovelace, Shel Silverstein, Rupi Kaur, John Milton, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Homer, Coleridge, Robert Frost… Wow, lots of collections… Every poet I can think of is here. And books on writing poetry! A Poetry Handbook. Poemcrazy. A Little Book on Form. Writing Haiku. The Sounds of Poetry.” She looks at me. “Do you write poetry?”
I’ve never told a soul about the poems I write. I slide my hands into the pockets of my trousers and study my bare feet.
She comes up to me. “Do you think I’m going to mock you for it?”
I shrug. “I’m not showing you any.”
“Okay.”
“I only do it for fun and it’s terrible.”
She tips her head to the side to look at my face. “I’m not a literary snob, Orson. Poetry should be for everyone to both read and write, just like art. It’s not about creating a masterpiece. It’s about expressing yourself.” She lifts a hand to my face. “Your father has really done a number on you, hasn’t he?”
“Actually, it wasn’t him.”
“Oh?”
I frown. “It doesn’t feel right to speak ill of the dead.”
She strokes my face. “It’s not speaking ill if it’s stating a fact. ”
I suppose that’s true. I huff a sigh. “My mother found a folder of poems I’d written once. She threw them away and told me to stop being childish.”
Her jaw drops. “Seriously?”
“She didn’t agree with pastimes that were ‘unproductive’. Her word.”
She looks genuinely puzzled. Then she says, “Do you write anything else?”
Man, this girl is astute. “Ah… some bits and pieces.”
“Like…”
I purse my lips. Then I walk around the desk and open the large drawer at the bottom. She joins me and bends down to look into it. Lightly, she runs her fingers over my twenty or so poetry journals, and then examines the folders beside them. Three of them—printed copies of the manuscripts I’ve written.
“Orson,” she says softly, “you’ve written three books?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of stories?”
She sounds so fascinated and impressed that it unlocks the heart I keep tightly padlocked. “Sad books,” I say, my lips quirking up.
She stands and closes the drawer, not asking to see them, which I appreciate, then rests her butt on the table. “Sad in what way?”
“I don’t know. They always seem to end up melancholy. Stories about loss. I don’t know why, I don’t think I’m a melancholy person.”
She thinks about that while she studies me. Her brown eyes are very dark and passionate. “Have you read Harry Potter?” she asks.
“Yeah, many years ago.”
“You know how Voldemort stored parts of his soul in objects called Horcruxes?”
“Yeah.”
“I feel that’s what happens when we’re creative. The more soul we have, the more we need to store it in creative projects—writing and making art and music. I’m relieved you feel you have a soul to store. I was beginning to think you were a robot.”
I give her a wry look, but the sentiment warms me through.
She giggles, walks over to the leather sofa, and lowers onto it. “Do you sit here in the evenings and look out over the city?”
“Yeah. And think about you.”
She rolls her eyes. “You do not. ”
“I do. I imagine doing this.” I sit next to her, then, before she can say anything, I pull her onto my lap, turn, and lie back with her on top of me.
She squeals, and I laugh and release her, but she doesn’t get up. Instead, she looks down at me with eyes filled with wonder.
“I can’t believe I’m here,” she says, looking puzzled again. “You’re one of the richest men in the city, if not the whole country, and you’re young and gorgeous and fit and extremely sexy. And you write poetry, which I adore, even if it’s bad. And… you want me. I don’t get it.”
I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “Get what?”
“Why you want me?”
The city lights behind her make her look as if she has a halo. “Because I feel as if I’ve been living in a city filled with smog, and now I’m standing on top of a hillside in the middle of the country. You’re a breath of fresh air, Scarlett. Completely natural.”
“I don’t know what to say to your compliments,” she says, frowning.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“Are you trying to get around me?”
I run my fingers down her back, following her curves beneath the soft dress. “In what way?”
“To get a better price for the Waiora?”
“I’ve already told you, I’m willing to pay full price. Let’s not talk business. Business is dull.”
“I thought you loved business.”
“Not right now. I have other things on my mind.”
She moves her hips against mine, obviously feeling my erection. “So I see.”
I roll my eyes. “I have a beautiful, soft woman lying on top of me, who’s almost certainly going commando. What did you expect?”
She rocks her hips this time, stroking up my length. My lips slowly curve up.
“You’re a big man,” she comments.
“Six foot two.”
“I wasn’t talking about your height.”
“Really?”
“I was talking about your feet.”
I chuckle and lift a hand to run a strand of her hair between my fingers .
“And your hands,” she says, turning her head to kiss my palm. She takes my hand in hers and studies my fingers, my wide palm, the broad back, looking thoughtful.
“Penny for them?” I ask.
“I was thinking that your skin has warm, reddish-brown tones. Mine has cool brown tones. They’ll look good together. When we’re naked, I mean.”
My eyebrows lift as heat shoots through me.
“Sorry,” she says, “was that too presumptuous?”
I just laugh, hold her tightly, and twist on the sofa so she’s beneath me. The skirt of her dress is now wrapped around us both, binding us together.
I kiss her, and she opens her mouth to accept my tongue, wrapping her arms around me. She strokes down my back, her fingers feeling my muscles through the cotton. I let my lips move across hers, content to kiss her while she explores.
“Can I undo your buttons?” she whispers when I eventually lift my head.
Amused that she felt she had to ask, I say, “Of course.” I kiss her nose, her cheeks, her eyebrows, and back to her mouth, while she pushes the buttons through the holes until they’re all undone. She moves the two sides of my shirt apart and rests her hands on my skin. “Mmm,” she murmurs, exhaling against my lips. “You’re hot.”
“Sorry, I forgot to put the aircon on.” I know my skin must be slightly damp.
“It wasn’t a complaint.” She strokes down over my pecs to my abs, then traces her fingers around to my ribs. I shiver, and her eyes light up.
Turned on now, I delve my tongue into her mouth, and she moans, stroking up my back, then down my spine. My trousers are still done up, but she sneaks her fingers beneath the waistband, reaching down to feel the top of my butt.
“Maybe we should take our clothes off,” she says breathlessly as I kiss down her neck.
I lift my head and give her an amused look. “Do you have somewhere you need to be?”
“No…”
“Then why rush? ”
In between a series of light butterfly kisses, she says, “You’re very bossy.”
“You think?” I kiss up her jawline to her ear.
“Are you a Dom?”
That makes me laugh. I push up and give her an amused look. “Where did you hear that term?”
She gives me a sarcastic look. “I’m not completely naive. I’ve read romance novels.”
“Okay, well, maybe it’s a bit early to be talking about BDSM and stuff like that.”
“Are you, though? Have you had subs?”
“No.”
“But you are bossy.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m a Dom.”
“I’ve read Fifty Shades. You seem quite like Christian.”
“I’m really not. That’s not my thing. If I were to be a Dom, I’d be a soft one.”
“What does that mean?”
“Someone who’s into praise and reassurance and communication. And pleasure.”
“Isn’t all sex about pleasure?”
Her brown eyes are nearly black in the semi-darkness of the room. “For some people it’s more about the other person’s pleasure than their own.”
She doesn’t say anything, although her breasts rise and fall quickly with her fast breaths.
“I’m not a pillow princess,” she informs me.
I laugh again. “Okay.”
“I’m just saying, I don’t expect to lie there and be pleasured. I want to take part.”
“Noted.”
“Are you teasing me?”
“A little.” I kiss her. “You’re adorable.” Then I kiss her again, longer this time.
She murmurs something that ends up muffled against my lips, then wraps her arms around me and kisses me back.
We kiss for a long, long time. Gradually, she relaxes, sinking back into the cushions, while I move my lips across hers, gentle and sensual, pressing lightly from one corner of her mouth to the other. I trace the tip of my tongue across her bottom lip until her lips part, then slowly slide my tongue into her mouth, a sexy invasion, mirroring what I hope is going to happen elsewhere soon. A soft moan escapes her, and in response I growl deep in my throat, causing her to tighten her fingers on my back and dig her nails in.
I lift my head. “I think maybe we should move this to the bedroom.”
“I don’t mind staying here.”
“I want us both to be comfortable.” I push up, and I’m unable to stop myself wincing as a sharp pain tears through my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she says, sitting up, “I forgot about your injury. Is it sore?”
I get up off the sofa. “I’m fine.”
“Is your head okay?”
I don’t answer and extend a hand to help her up.
She ignores it, though. “You should take some painkillers.”
“Later.”
“No, now.”
“I’m okay.”
“I don’t want you to be in pain. Orson, do you feel guilty about what we’re doing?”
I stare at her. “Why do you say that?”
She goes over to the coffee table, picks up the pack of Panadol that was half hidden beneath a journal, pops two, and picks up the water bottle standing next to them. Then she turns and holds them out to me.
“Take these,” she says.
My head does hurt, so I take them from her and knock them back with the water. Then, as I screw the top back on the bottle, I say, “Why did you ask if I feel guilty?”
“Because how we feel has a direct effect on pain.”
“I don’t feel guilty.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I frown at her.
“You’re not corrupting me or leading me astray,” she tells me. “And you’re not seducing me. I went to dinner knowing where it was likely to lead.”
I’m momentarily speechless. The truth is that she’s right. Although I asked her back, it’s impossible not to wonder whether she’s only here because the two guys at the commune have told her to do her best to get the full price for the Waiora. I told her I’d pay it anyway because I’d hoped it would banish that feeling, but it hasn’t.
“You don’t believe me,” she says, and her eyes flare. “I do have a mind of my own.”
“I know.”
“Doesn’t sound like it. You really think I’d go to bed with you because George asked me to? That I’d prostitute myself for the pool?”
“No…”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Scarlett…”
She’s gradually growing more irate. “I accept that I initially agreed to go to dinner with you to discuss business. But that wasn’t the only reason. I didn’t kiss you in the gazebo because of the pool. And I’m not here because of it.”
“I know.”
Her eyes blaze. “I don’t know how you could think that of me.”
My God, she’s sexy when she’s irate. I’m turned on even though I’m annoyed. “I don’t.”
“I was a virgin when we met at the gazebo!”
“I know, I was there, remember?”
“Are you being sarcastic with me now? God, you’re arrogant, and condescending, and patronizing. You’re everything I’ve been brought up to believe.”
“Probably.” I glare at her. “And you drive me crazy with your hippy-dippy, muesli-eating, let’s-all-hold-hands-and-sing-Hosanna bullshit.” I move closer to her. “I don’t know why I want you as much as I do.”
Her eyes widen. She backs away and holds up a hand. “Don’t you dare turn on the charm.”
“I’m not.” I continue to walk forward.
She backs up and meets the wall with a bump, and raises both hands to rest them on my chest. I move closer, until I’m pressed up against her. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” I say, my voice husky with desire. “Even though you drive me nuts.”
“You said if I wanted you to stop, you’d stop,” she says tartly.
I lower my head to brush my lips against hers. “I will.” I kiss her, very lightly. “Do you want me to stop, Scarlett?”
She doesn’t reply .
I kiss her again. “Just tell me to stop.”
She doesn’t.
I kiss her a third time. “Push me away.”
Her fingers clutch at the two sides of my shirt. “I can’t,” she says hoarsely.
Heat surges through me. “Do you want me, baby girl?”
Her answer is just a whisper across my lips. “Yes…”
“Because I want you, so bad…” I give her a few more seconds to complain, and when she doesn’t, I take her hands in mine, pin them to the wall, and pour all my desire into a kiss that sends my heart banging and makes me as hard as iron.