Chapter 12
Bonnie
Morning found me wrapped around Elijah. Weird, because I never cuddled, but something about him pulled me in.
His warmth, the way he smelled so good, how well we fit together.
He murmured a quiet good morning and kissed my shoulder, sunlight filling the room.
I nestled in deeper, still sleepy and able to pretend this was normal.
Something sounded out in the apartment, and Elijah grumbled.
“That’s the door. I’ll be right back.”
He climbed out of bed, and I sat up to watch him tug on clothes. He caught my ogling and smirked then left me alone. I exhaled something that felt like happiness. It was so strange. The basement game. The sex. How comfortable I felt in this bed.
At the last thought, I frowned at myself. No good could come from me getting used to this kind of lifestyle. I jumped out of bed. The bag I’d packed and left with a skeleton crew had magically appeared on the dresser, so I grabbed my toiletries bag and stepped into the bathroom.
After Elijah’s night-time activities, I was sticky, so took a shower and brushed my teeth, then moisturised every inch of me. From my bag, I found my workout clothes, tight Lycra cut-off leggings and a bra top zippered at the front, then searched for one last thing.
I couldn’t find my pills anywhere, which was odd because I was certain I’d packed them. Never mind. I’d look again later then message Genie to bring more if I couldn’t track them down.
At the bedroom door, I peered out.
Elijah was on the phone, the faint overtones of his conversation making it to me down the hall. I passed an open doorway and blinked at the huge balcony that had to take up half of the hotel’s rooftop.
Stepping up to the rail gave me fresh air and a view over the busy city.
High buildings soared around us. Car horns honked and traffic roared.
We’d slept in, but the centre of Deadwater was always busy regardless of the hour.
The rooftop had a covered section with a hot tub, but also a pair of yoga mats.
I grabbed one and rolled it out on the stone floor.
Most days, I worked out. Vital to keep the body I used to model my clothes. Today would be no different, just because I was someplace fancy with office workers watching me from nearby high-rises.
I was midway through my routine when a click alerted me I wasn’t alone. I peeked up to find Elijah in the doorway, leaning on the frame and with his arms folded.
“I’m sorry I left you for so long.”
I arched an eyebrow but went back to my pose.
Damn, I had a problem. Just the sight of him alone activated some part of my body that was made of lust. It was like he’d been designed to torment me. His tall and stocky form. How well-proportioned he was. His perfectly messy black hair and cut jaw.
Images filled my head of how he’d worshipped my body, and my cheeks flamed. I couldn’t look at him.
Extending my legs, I pushed up into downward facing dog, my ass high in the air.
Elijah’s groan went straight to my core.
I sensed him closing in on me, and my arms shook where I held the pose. He walked around me, and I breathed through my nose and slid into upward facing dog, held up on my arms with my chest forward. My sweaty skin prickled with awareness.
Elijah sat cross-legged in front of me. There was a challenge in how he held my gaze, then the bastard reached forward and took hold of the zip on my bra top. Slowly, he lowered it.
I gasped when my tits spilled free. “People can see.”
The nearest building had several floors looking down on us. I couldn’t spot anyone watching, but sure as hell they would if one of them saw what he’d done to me.
Elijah smirked, red flushing his cheeks. “Let them. Make them jealous over what they can’t have.”
He leaned in to kiss me.
I expected a claiming. Another clash. But his mouth brushed mine, and every thought disintegrated. The city clatter faded to a dull hum.
The first pass of his lips was the barest of contact.
A sweep that sent a tremor through me. He didn’t rush or make any demand.
It was more of a question. Then he deepened the contact in patient swoops, testing the edges of my restraint, coaxing me to meet him halfway.
My pulse beat harder. I shook in my pose, my arms seconds from giving out.
Yet, I leaned in for more.
Elijah’s hands moved to my biceps, and he guided me to his lap. Or I crawled there.
The kiss built in slow, deliberate strokes.
His tongue teased the seam of my lips, not demanding entrance, only waiting for the moment I gave in.
I opened to him on a warm inhale, and everything inside me tightened.
He tasted of morning heat and intent. Something grounded threaded through it, something that made my heart stumble.
His fingers drifted to my back and over my ribs, urging me closer until our bodies aligned. The rooftop breeze cooled my exposed skin, but his touch replaced it with something far more dangerous. Heat I’d never felt with anyone other than him.
My fingers curled into the fabric of his t-shirt.
Muscles shifted under my palms when he broke the kiss to pull the shirt over his head and away.
Then he angled my face with a gentle grip at the back of my neck.
He kissed me again, slower this time, a drag of lips that felt too deliberate to be anything but a claim.
Not the feral kind he’d shown in the basement. More… permanent.
I’d never been kissed with this level of focus. It unsettled every defence I had.
Heat pooled low in my belly. The world spun.
My knees slid either side of his hips, and he held my waist, seating me more firmly on his lap though not grinding into me despite his dick being very interested in our kiss.
Tension ran through him, barely contained, held in check as if he wanted this to mean something.
I’d expected sex. His hands all over me.
But this? Elijah’s kiss was entirely unexpected.
His thumbs stroked my hips, slow arcs syncing with the rhythm of our lips. My bare breasts brushed his chest each time I inhaled. The rise and fall trapped us in a push-pull that spiralled through me until I wasn’t sure where my restraint ended and his control began.
When he finally eased back, I chased his lips without thinking.
He kissed my cheek, steady and warm. My heartbeat drowned out the city noise.
My skin tingled where his hands held me anchored.
I hovered there, suspended in the quiet space he’d carved between us, stunned by the weight of a kiss that hadn’t needed a single word to upend me.
Elijah nudged my cheek to see my eyes. “Hi.”
I ducked and pressed my forehead to his neck, suddenly bashful. “Hi yourself.”
“Sorry I got caught on a call. I made coffee, if you want to come have breakfast with me?”
I nodded faint agreement.
He eased us apart then groaned. “Your tits are going to be the death of me. But also of Bob from Accounts across the way.”
I followed his head tilt to the nearest office block where a grey-suited man stared at us from the all-glass block, his mouth open. A laugh flew from my lips, and I zipped up my top. The man hurried away, his folder of paperwork held in front of his crotch, the dirty bastard.
Inside the apartment, Elijah shrugged his shirt back on and led me to the living room, my hand in his. At the breakfast bar, a French press waited, and he poured me a cup.
I accepted it, refusing milk or sugar. “I didn’t know billionaires could make their own coffee.”
His lips twitched. Lips that had so sweetly devoured mine. “Is there no start to my talents?”
I couldn’t stop a laugh. He was funny. A dangerous combination with the raw sex appeal. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask about his work, but I remembered the deal we’d made last night. For the first week, we weren’t delving too deep.
“What do you do on a day off?” I asked instead.
He sipped from his mug, keeping to his position on the other side of the kitchen counter, barista-style. “I can’t remember the last time I took any number of days off in a row. If I was at home, I’d go for a run, make plans with family, then probably end up getting pulled into some work crisis.”
“Where’s home?”
“Mostly Boston, but I have a place in London, too. My mom and brother are in the States.”
I wasn’t touching the fact he had more than one house with a barge pole. “Your brother is Ethan, right?”
His smile flickered wider in what seemed like genuine happiness. “Well remembered. He’s a lot younger than me, but we’re close. He worked for me for a while, but now he runs his own company. Starting small. I’m proud of him.”
His phone buzzed on the counter between us, the name ‘Mitch’ on the screen. The same person who’d left a note last night. Elijah scowled at it.
“You can answer it.”
He sighed and stabbed the screen to kill the call. “Mitch is my right-hand man. He knows how important this time is, and how I mean to dedicate it all to you. And yet he won’t leave me alone. We already spoke once this morning.”
I took another drink of my hot and delicious coffee. Rich, like its maker. The man who wanted to spend his time with me. “Maybe it’s important?”
The phone started buzzing again.
Elijah palmed his face then gave me an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I’ll get rid of him.” He swiped to answer the call, listening for a moment.
The door chimed, and Elijah covered the receiver to speak to me. “I ordered breakfast. Can you let them in?”
I hopped up and crossed to the door. The kiss and the short chat on his life had given me warm and fuzzy vibes I didn’t know how to handle.
It was easier to think of him as being just another rich man I wanted to fight with.
That was a safe space where the battles could become sex and I would afterwards return to my corner.
Thinking about him helping his brother and spending time with his mum crossed a line into normal-land.
A button next to the lift was lit orange, and I pressed it. The door slid open, and the butler plus another uniformed staff member smiled.
“Hey, Alton.”
“Good morning, Miss Braveheart. May we enter?”
I stepped aside, and they wheeled two silver trolleys over to the dining table, vanished the empties from last night, then offloaded plate after plate, uncovering each with a flourish.
Racks of toast, cereals, three types of granola, multiple carafes of different kinds of milk, eggs cooked four ways, something fancy with salmon and avocado, a posh version of a fry-up. Juices, sliced meats, yoghurts, fruit.
I stared at the sheer amount of food. “Did Elijah say we were expecting company?”
“No, miss.”
“Then are you joining us?”
Alton laughed politely. “If there’s anything else, miss?”
I shook my head, and they retreated. Across the room, Elijah paced beside the glass wall, a hand to the back of his neck. I caught his eye and tipped my head at the table.
He covered the receiver. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I ordered one of everything.”
My mouth fell open. One of everything? Every single item on the menu?
It was enough to feed an orphanage. More food than I would buy for myself in a weekly shop. Compared with times when I’d been so hard up for cash, I’d lived on ramen for weeks, it was ridiculous.
Annnd I was right back to remembering every reason I hated the rich.