Chapter 16
My eyes open to the indulgent sight of Gregory’s naked torso hovering above me. Messy hair and day-old stubble. The weight of his thighs resting against my pelvis and two big, brown, teddy-bear eyes staring into mine. ‘Good morning,’ he says, with that devastating half-smile.
I’ve woken in paradise. Then I remember I’m still pissed.
‘Is it?’
‘Cryptic Scarlett. How I’ve missed her.’ His thumb strokes my cheek then he drops his mouth gently against mine, his soft lips lingering, rousing me from my sleepy fog. ‘You look adorable when you’re sleepy.’
‘Stop with the sex sword, Gregory. You just took off.’
‘No, I went away on business and I don’t want to come home to a fight.’
‘You dropped the fingerprint result on me, by phone, right before hanging up.’
‘I didn’t hang up, I lost signal.’
‘Same thing.’
‘It really isn’t.’
‘And what about Thursday? One minute, you’re arguing with your mum about some phantom woman, then you’re running out to calm your mum down. Who is she?’
‘My mother? Rarely who she says she is.’
‘You’re not funny.’
‘Then why are you smirking?’
‘Because you’re making me. Stop being evasive and tell me who she is.’
His face contorts for a second and I think he might tell me. ‘You’re adorable when you’re taking a tantrum.’
I scowl. ‘This isn’t over, Ryans.’
He leans his head to one side and raises a brow. ‘No?’
I squirm beneath him and grab his pert arse cheeks with a squeeze, digging my nails into his flesh. ‘No.’
‘I beg to differ, Miss Heath.’
He attacks the sensitive skin at my sides and under my arms, making me scream with laughter. ‘Is it over?’
‘No!’ I squeal.
He jumps backwards, grabbing my ankle between his legs and tickling the middle of my foot.
I put a brave face on for as long as possible but it’s no good.
It’s so bloody ticklish, my squeal bursts from me again.
I wriggle and yank at my foot, trying to kick, squirming in the bed sheets, but he’s too strong.
He grips my ankle and then his quick-moving fingers are on the uber-sensitive skin beneath my toes.
‘Stop! Stop!’ I scream.
‘Say it’s over.’
I shake my head vigorously.
‘Scarlett Heath, I have a sex weapon and you know I’m not afraid to use it.’
My ribs are aching and I think I might actually pee. ‘It doesn’t look like much of a weapon to me.’
He stops. My giggles subside and he dives forward again, his weight shared between my legs and the forearms propped at either side of my head. ‘I’m going to show you exactly how much of a weapon it is. I want my morning fuck.’
‘I want your morning fuck too.’ I take a deep breath and surge forward with all my might, throwing him to his side and diving from the bed. ‘But you’re not getting it after that!’
I run from my side and round the bottom of the bed, making it to the door before he grabs me.
He wraps a muscled arm around my annoyingly light waist, halting me with ease.
I thrash around, legs and arms air-running, and eventually, I get enough leverage to burst from his arms. I’m giggling so much that my arms and legs can’t crawl more than a few feet along the wooden floor of the landing.
He’s laughing too, the most wonderful, playful sound, as he flips me onto my back, the rosewood cold against my skin. He hovers over me, his weight fully resting on his arms, making the muscles flex. I raise my head and bite his bicep.
‘You’re so gorgeous when you giggle,’ he tells me.
I look down to find his cock ready, naked and swollen. Digging my fingers into his arse, I yank him down towards me until his shaft is pressing against my navel.
He raises two playful brows. ‘Hungry this morning, aren’t we?’
I bite my lip… I really am.
Rather than taking up my usual position between Gregory’s legs, I slide down into the opposite end of the bathtub and tie my hair in a messy knot.
He might have escaped me whilst we frolicked on the landing but I have some questions to ask and I’m not going to let him grope his way out of answering them.
‘How was Germany?’ I break him in gently.
He lifts his arms from the water, steam rising from his skin, and rests them on the sides of the bath. ‘Dry. I had to meet with a business contact from the States who happened to have a meeting in Frankfurt so I agreed to meet him there.’
‘Anything I can help with?’
‘No. Nothing legal, just business, or future business, rather. I like to have my irons in a lot of pies.’
A giggle escapes me, despite my want and need to be serious. ‘You surely know that’s incorrect.’
‘What’s incorrect?’ I can’t be certain but I think I detect the faintest air of a knowing smile around his lips.
‘You either have irons in the fire or fingers in pies, baby. You don’t have irons in pies.’
He turns his head from one side to the other, contemplating. ‘I guess that wouldn’t make sense, would it? I mean, the irons would just ruin the pies.’
‘Right.’ I smile on a shake of my head.
‘Would you get over here?’ He moves a hand to his toned pec, indicating for me to take up my usual spot. I fight the urge to move in and lie back against his chest, instead leaning back a little, letting him know that this woman is putting her foot down. Now there’s a saying he might understand.
‘Are we going to talk about Thursday?’
He moves his hand back to the rim of the bath, his upper body purposefully wide and strong. ‘What about Thursday?’
‘Don’t play games, Gregory. You were angry on the phone to Lara, then you left almost without a word. Next thing I know, you’re on a flight to Germany and you wouldn’t have even called me if the fingerprint trace hadn’t come back.’
‘I would’ve called you.’
This man is infuriating. I sigh and bend my legs, burying my impending scream of exasperation beneath the bubbly water. When I slide back up, he hasn’t moved.
‘Who was the woman you were talking about on the phone? Lara was upset, that was obvious. So who was it and why did the police mention her?’
I lose him. He’s still looking at me but he isn’t present. He drifts to somewhere else, somewhere I’m not invited to go.
‘Why won’t you talk to me?’
‘Why do you keep pushing me, Scarlett? Can’t you accept that I have a past and that I want to forget it? I want you to be my future. Untarnished.’
‘So the woman is part of your past? From South Africa?’
‘Enough!’
I jump, surprised by his growl, water lapping at the sides of the bath as I move.
‘Don’t hate me for trying to break down your walls, Gregory.
I want you to let me in. Can’t you see that for us to have a future, you need to be open and honest with me?
Let me understand you. Let me understand everything that’s going on. I need to make sense of it all too.’
Pulling his knees up and leaning forward, he cups his hands and splashes water in his face and over his hair, then pauses, holding his hands in his dark, wet locks.
I wait. Hoping.
Eventually, he lies back again and leans his head against the wall tiles, his eyes closed. ‘Let me take you to dinner tonight.’
Would you open up to me then, my beautiful, conflicted man?
‘Somewhere nice, just us.’
‘And when you say just us, what you mean is no talking about the present or the future, which you can’t seem to grasp is based entirely on the past.’
‘Jesus, Scarlett, I don’t even know what that babble means. I’m just asking you to come to dinner with me. As my gorgeous, sexy, infuriating girlfriend.’ He slips a foot between my thighs and starts moving it up to my centre.
I slap it away, causing a splash. ‘Oh no, you don’t! You’re not using sex to ignore me again.’ I climb out of the bath and wrap myself in a warm, white towel from the heated rail. ‘And no. I won’t come to dinner with you. I have plans.’
He leaps out of the bath as quickly as he can without slipping on the bubble-greased base. He yanks my towel off me and picks me up, my back against his chest, plonking us both back into the hot water, in our usual position. He pins me against him until my wriggly limbs relent.
‘We’re going to dinner,’ he says, reaching for a flannel, soaking it and squeezing the water across my chest.
‘I genuinely have plans. I’m going out with Amanda and Luke. I promised.’
‘Luke, your ex?’
‘Luke, my gay ex, yes.’
He nods his approval of Luke’s sexual preferences against my neck. ‘Cancel.’
‘No. I can’t ditch my friends, Gregory. I’ve hardly seen them since we met.’
‘So?’
‘So I’m not cancelling. We’ll do dinner another night.’
He bites the bottom of my earlobe sharply. ‘Where are you going?’
‘For drinks.’
‘Just drinks? No food?’
‘Just drinks.’
‘Is that wise? I’d prefer if you have dinner.’
I turn to face him and realise he actually is serious. ‘I’ll eat before I go.’
‘Fine, but something substantial. I don’t want you drunk.’
‘Erm, I’ll be drunk if I want to be, thanks all the same.’
‘Fine, then I’ll come too.’
I try to push away from him in protest but he holds me to his chest and resumes casually soaking and draining the flannel.
‘You aren’t invited.’
‘Then don’t get drunk.’
‘Fine. I’ll get tipsy. Better?’
He shrugs against me and I can feel my temper stirring.
‘Where are you going for drinks?’
‘Why?’ My tone is petulant but I can’t help it. ‘So you can follow me?’
‘I won’t be following you, Scarlett.’
‘Ha, so you’ll have Jackson follow me.’
He squeezes the flannel against my chest and drops a kiss to my temple, my temper instantly dampened.
‘Actually, no. Jackson is taking Sandy out tonight for a special dinner.’
‘A special dinner?’ My head fights against his palm, trying to catch him smirking. ‘Let me see you. What special dinner? Oh my gosh, he’s not going to… You don’t think…?’
He shrugs against my back, still keeping my head faced towards the bottom of the bath.
‘Damn you, Gregory Ryans, tell me!’ I wiggle my feet in tantrum, splashing water over the edge of the tub.
His chest jerks against my back as he laughs. ‘I can’t; it’s a secret.’
‘Oh bugger off, Gregory!’
I stomp out of the bath as he throws his head back, laughing.
‘And I won’t tell you where I’m going tonight and I will get drunk!’
‘You won’t need to tell me where you’re going, angel; I’ll find out when I drop you off.’
Snatching my towel from the floor, I stalk out of the bathroom, internally screaming at my oh-so-bloody-humorous billionaire.