Chapter Fourteen Gavin
Chapter Fourteen
Gavin
Once I slid into the back seat of my SUV, pulling Emily against me, my arm went around her shoulders, and I said to Denis, “We’re going to my place.” My face dove into her neck, kissing the soft spot below her ear and the one above her collarbone and another right in the middle of her throat.
I could still taste her on my lips.
I could still feel her on my tongue.
But I wanted more.
What had gone down in the elevator wasn’t nearly enough.
As I pulled my mouth away, she looked at me for several seconds. “Denis, I’ll be going to my apartment, not Gavin’s place. Thank you.”
Denis had already driven away from the curb, and because of Emily’s instruction, he turned at the light instead of going straight.
“Your apartment, huh?” I nuzzled my nose against her cheek.
She smiled, the headlights of the passing cars showing off her gorgeous grin, but I wished there was better light so I could see every detail of it.
She wanted to switch things up by taking me to her home. I just knew, based on what she’d previously said, that her roommates limited things, like a joint bathroom could hinder my ability to fuck her in the shower and we’d have to watch our noise.
But that was all right. As long as I got to have her, I didn’t care.
My arm drew back and I held the side of her face. “I was a little shocked to hear you haven’t said anything to Maya about us . . .”
“‘Us’?”
“You know what I mean.”
Her chest rose a few times. “I haven’t. I don’t plan to either. Unless you say something to Jordan and I have no choice, since I know he’ll tell her—that would be too juicy for him to keep in.”
“I’m not going to tell him.”
Her eyes stayed on mine. “Is it easy for you to keep it from him?”
“I don’t tell him everything.”
“But this is different. He knows me, I’m . . . in his life.”
“Which is even more of a reason not to say anything.”
She slowly nodded. “Right.”
My fingers dragged across her skin until they reached the back of her head, buried in her nest of blond. “It’s funny, I thought tonight was just going to be a regular evening. Jordan, me, in a bar somewhere. You were the perfect surprise.”
“Seems like that happens every time I see you. The perfect surprise, over and over.”
“Over and over—I like that.” My lips went to her ear, and I breathed her in. “That’s going to be the pattern I take once I get you inside your bedroom.”
Her head leaned back, and she laughed. A sound so beautiful, I ached. When her neck straightened, her finger crossed my lips like she was silencing me. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as confident as you, Mr. Worthington.”
I held her wrist. “I know what I want, Emily, and I always get what I want.”
“You were devising an agenda with each sip of scotch that went down your throat tonight, waiting to pounce.”
“Like I said, the elevator was my first opportunity.”
Her hand lowered to my chest. “And while you sit here in this back seat, you’re thinking of all the things you’re going to do to me once you get me in my room.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“There’s only one problem with your plan.” She glanced out her window, her stare gradually returning to mine.
“And that is?”
As the SUV came to a stop in front of a building that I assumed was hers, she smiled, her top lip lifting enough to show her teeth. Her tongue then gradually came out, and she ran it over the inside of her bottom lip before she bit it. “You’re not coming home with me.”
I blinked, hard, trying to understand what she was saying. “I’m . . . what?”
She opened the door, slipping out, and as she held the side of it, she looked at me while she stood on the sidewalk. “Have yourself a good evening, Gavin.” She winked.
“You’re kidding.”
She shook her head. “I need my beauty sleep.”
“You’re really not going to invite me in?”
This time, she grinned without giving me any teeth. “Nope.”
“Then how about you give me your number.”
Something I’d never asked any other woman. Something I hadn’t planned on asking her.
But Jesus fuck, the words came right out of me.
And now that they were off my tongue, they felt right.
The next time I saw her, I didn’t want it to be a surprise.
I wanted it to be chosen.
Controlled.
I wanted the anticipation to be like foreplay.
She leaned into the doorway. “You want my number?”
My jaws ground together, my patience completely gone at this point as my hard-on fucking raged. “Yes.” I took out my phone, pulled up my contacts, my thumbs hovering, waiting for her response.
“You know . . . I don’t think I’m going to give that to you.”
I looked up from the screen. “What? Why?”
“If you want to talk to me, you’re just going to have to make that happen on your own.” Her smile grew. “Catch you later, Gavin.” The door shut, and she hurried toward the entrance of her building.
Was this a goddamn joke?
I tossed the phone onto the spot where she’d been sitting, my hands balled into fists.
I could feel Denis’s eyes on me from the rearview mirror.
“What the fuck just happened?” I spit out.
He released a long chuckle. “Do you really want to know?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. That girl knows exactly how to handle you, and she just proved that to the both of us.”
I ran my hand over the top of my head. “What does that even mean?”
“She’s given you what you want. Now she wants what she wants.”
“Denis”—I banged my head on the cushion behind it—“I’ve given her more than I’ve given anyone.”
“Have you considered her side of things?”
“I did tonight. In the fucking elevator.” I realized he had no idea what that meant, but the man wasn’t stupid—he knew me better than anyone. He could put the pieces together.
He turned at the light, heading toward my high-rise. “Perhaps you should look at things from a view that isn’t physical. I’m talking about the kind of ‘more’ that you haven’t given to anyone since Ben’s mother.”
He triggered a brief silence from me. “Asking for her number, that was more.”
“And in order to achieve that, it sounds like she’s going to make you work for it.”
The pounding on my office door caused me to glance up from my phone and shout, “Come in.” There was only one motherfucker who dared to hit my door that hard, and within a second, his face appeared in the now-open entryway.
A face much too excited for my liking.
“What’s got you smiling so hard?” I asked Jordan.
“I was just passing our assistant’s desk, and she was about to bring you this.” He pointed at the mug he was carrying and set it directly next to the one I’d just finished drinking. “I thought I’d bring it instead so I could check in with my older brother and see what’s making you cranky.”
“What would make you think I was cranky?”
“Because I know you.” He laughed.
The annoyance made me shake my head. “Why are you so chipper?”
He took a seat in one of the chairs and crossed his legs, adjusting his suit jacket and then his tie. “I had an excellent weekend with Maya.” He nodded toward me. “What’s crawled up your ass this fine morning?”
“It’s fucking Monday. It’s not even nine and I have over four hundred emails in my inbox and a full day of meetings I have no desire to attend.”
“Doesn’t look like you’re working that hard on clearing your inbox.” He pointed at the phone in my hands.
He was right.
I’d been making my way through Emily’s goddamn Instagram account.
Again.
But instead of admitting that, I replied, “I’m reading the emails from my phone.”
“When you have a desktop in front of you? That, with a quick highlight of your mouse, could delete the four hundred emails much faster?”
I set the phone down and leaned back in my chair, holding the armrests with fingertips that were turning white. “Did you come in to pick? Because if that’s the case”—I nodded toward the exit—“there’s the door.”
“You’re not getting rid of me that easy.” He smiled. “How was your weekend?”
I rocked in the chair, my cup of patience still not refilled from when Emily had left me in the back seat of the SUV. “Ben came home from Mom and Dad’s late Saturday morning. From there on, it was nonstop. Park. Skating. Food. Movies. More food. We slept and did it all again on Sunday.”
“What about Friday night?”
I made sure to keep my expression steady as I asked, “What about Friday night?”
“When you took Emily home.”
My hands left the armrests and folded in my lap. “What are you asking?”
“I’m assuming it went all right?”
“You would have heard if it didn’t.” Jordan was goading me, I was sure of it.
But in any normal circumstance, when it came to a woman other than Maya, I would make a comment.
If I didn’t now, my brother would find it suspicious.
“By the way, you never fucking told me Maya’s best friend is such a smokeshow. ” I set my arms on top of my desk.
He smiled. “That was on purpose.”
“Why?”
“Because Maya would come at you with knives if you ever hurt Emily, and you have the kind of reputation that would make her believe you’d try to sleep with Emily.” He licked his lips. “You and women don’t exactly have the best track record, brother.”
He was preaching the truth, but I still responded, “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, before I found my girl, you and I were the same.
Different chicks every weekend—or even sometimes during the week.
Forever bachelors, not giving a fuck about anyone’s feelings.
” He pulled at the sleeves of his jacket.
“Maya changed me. You, well . . . you’re still rocking the single life. ”
“So you didn’t tell me Emily was hot in fear that I would try to fuck her? That’s deep.”
His smile got even larger. “Did you?”
I blew out a mouthful of air. “Go to hell.”
He laughed and got up from his chair. As he was heading for the door, he looked at me over his shoulder. “Remember, Maya’s a nurse and trained on the human body. If anyone knows how to physically torture you in the worst possible way, it’s her.”
“She can keep her knives in the kitchen.”
He laughed once more before he walked out.