SIXTEEN
SHE HADN’T SEEN ANYTHING of Julius that week. That might worry her if she could think of anything other than her nights with Brogan. God, now she got why Roxie never wanted Zairn to leave her bed.
Brogan, unsurprisingly, was the stronger of their duo. Life went on because of him and only him. Still, even he might’ve been guilty of canceling a meeting or two to satisfy himself in her.
One surprise was their Tuesday dinner. She’d expected him to come home but got the call to confirm pick up time and they went to a restaurant to eat. Outside with people who’d object to her climbing over the table to mount him.
Stupid, inconvenient people.
And this Friday night would be even worse. At least on Tuesday they could decide when to leave and they could flirt, touch—shit, she had to calm down.
Dinner to celebrate Bram’s birthday was part of the initial deal. Kind of. She’d done her best to forget about it, but her mother’s dress delivery earlier got her reaching for the phone to call reinforcements. Reinforcement, actually, singular.
“I’m scared,” she said to Roxie who sat on her bedroom ottoman.
“It’s a garment bag.” Roxie gestured to it. “Unzip it, I want to see. You haven’t looked at it yet?”
“No! The call from downstairs when it arrived almost got me hyperventilating. They sent it up and I just got in the shower.”
“Your hair looks good, you did it yourself? It’s… tight.”
“Brogan likes my hair down,” she said, clutching the hairspray in both hands, squeezing and letting go over and over.
Though he had told her that when they were naked, which he preferred too. Going sans clothes would be inappropriate at dinner with her family. It would silence her father, but a heart attack? Talk about an extreme solution.
Roxie gave her a quick inspection. “But you’re wearing it up.”
“Mom prefers my hair up.”
“Right. And the makeup’s Mom’s preference too?”
She raised a shoulder. “Brogan’s never mentioned my makeup.”
“True, yeah, he is a guy.” Roxie got up. “Your mom sent the dress?” Her friend knew that, but she nodded anyway, slow and jerky. “This dress will reveal your mother’s opinion on your relationship.”
Oh, nice, like she wasn’t anxious enough already.
“What?” she asked in a kind of gasp. “How?”
“Yeah, think about it…” Roxie’s hands went to her hips, all focus on the hanging bag. “Does she want you to look sexy for your guy or does she want to frumpify you?” Her friend’s head bobbed that way. “Go on.”
“Go? Now?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to. “Do I have to?”
“No.” All confidence, Roxie took one step, grabbed the zipper and threw the bag open. “Hmm…” What was that? She didn’t like that noise. The dress was… it was… “Door number two.”
“It’s not so bad…” The rough fabric didn’t feel good under her fingertips, she didn’t want it against her skin all night. “It’s…”
“Ugly. Is it gray? Is it green? And the yellow, there’s a hint of—you might as well wear a snood.
You’ll look like a swamp creature. Your mom does not want you to be the powerful, confident woman you are.
Nope, this won’t do.” Roxie caught her hand, spinning to put both their backs to the garment.
“Should I question why your things are still in this bedroom when you’re warming the master’s cock every night?
He doesn’t make you sleep in here, does he?
I swear to God, I will break that thing right off—”
“He doesn’t. I sleep with him when we…”
No one should doubt Roxie’s resolve. “Just ‘when we’ or am I tracking down my sheering scissors?”
“I haven’t had time to switch everything.”
“Ask staff to do it, I would,” Roxie said, hands linked as they traipsed into the closet. “Not that my clothes would ever be anywhere except with Zairn’s things. Truth be told, he’s lucky I leave him any space in my closet.”
“Brogan doesn’t like people up here when we’re home.”
“He’s too busy nailing you to notice. I can let him off for that.” She stopped, hand mid-fabric to sigh. “I love it when Zairn’s in those moods.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Something spectacular.” Roxie went back to the hunt. “I’ll know it when I see it.”
“You’ve been together a while, you and Zairn.”
“Doesn’t do much to change his sexual appetite,” Roxie said and lunged toward a gown. “Ah! This one!”
“No, I can’t—that’s the one—”
“You were too scared to wear to the club? Yes, and you were right, this isn’t a club dress. This is a ‘Bam! Look at me, Momma, dress. ‘Screw you, Daddy!’ Wear it for Brogan.”
“In front of my parents?”
“Why not?”
“It’s backless and it plunges.”
“Not that far.” Roxie took the hanger to another rail to admire it. “And it’s full-length. You’re not putting it all out there.”
“I don’t want to embarrass Brogan.”
“If he has given you one second of pause over how hot you are—”
“He hasn’t. He tells me I’m beautiful all the time.”
“Good.”
“Sometimes he just… stares.”
“In a creepy way?” Roxie asked, kind of wincing.
“No,” she said on a laugh. “Like he’s thinking or something. You really think I should wear this?”
“Yes! What’s it for if not to choke him with his own tongue?”
“Okay.”
She took off her robe and Roxie helped her zip it up. The fabric was soft, tight in a gentle embrace, hugging her in all the right places.
“My mom will hate this,” she whispered, running her hands down her hips as she checked the fit in the mirror.
“Any mom would be proud to have such a great and gorgeous daughter.” Roxie clasped her shoulders to bounce up and kiss her cheek. “And your mom won’t care about the dress. She’ll hate this much more.”
“Hate what?”
Roxie pulled the clip from her hair and tossed it aside to shake her fingers through her locks. “Much better.”
Not what her mother would think—the volume in her hair was all hairspray and Roxie’s hands.
“Oh my God,” she said as Roxie caught her wrist to cart her through the apartment at pace, snatching her purse as they passed. “I can’t go out like this.”
“Honey…” Roxie leaped into the elevator and hit the foyer button. “You can be pissed at me if you want, but Brogan is more to blame than I am.”
“Brogan?”
She hadn’t seen him since before he left that morning.
“Yeah, baby, ‘cause I guarantee he’ll be ruffling more than your hair in the back of that car. You’ll be riding more than the limo.”
“Rox! No! Brogan does business in the car.”
“Not tonight he doesn’t.”
“Rox!”
The breeze outside signaled they were on the sidewalk. A car waited there, by a driver with the back door open.
Throwing her arms around her, Roxie gave her a squeeze. “Go knock him dead.”
“We can give you a ride—”
“No need. There’s an angry man standing over there waiting for me.”
Roxie gestured and sure enough, there was a tall, scowling guy propped against the side of the car behind hers.
“If he’s mad at you—”
“He’s not mad at me, that man loves me to pieces. He always looks like that. Ballard! Come say hey to Gia! Spurn’s new squeeze,” Roxie called out, but laughed as the guy just growled. “Ignore him. Go have fun, honey, and call me tomorrow. Mwah.”
One air kiss later, her friend scampered away.
“Miss Sear,” the closest driver said.
“Thank you.”
She slipped into the car and, on the phone, Brogan’s voice stopped mid-sentence.
Smoothing her dress, instead of reaching for her own seatbelt, she checked Brogan’s and wasn’t surprised to see it missing.
How many times did she have to tell him?
Leaning across him to snag his seatbelt, she was thwarted by his mouth capturing hers as he drove his hand into her hair.
What happened to the car and the call?
“Wow,” she managed to release the word on an exhale. “Roxie was right.”
“Let’s stop at a hotel.”
She laughed, laying a hand on his torso to put space between them. “We just left your apartment.”
“If I’d been up there, we wouldn’t have left.”
“You didn’t put your seatbelt on,” she said, trying to lean over him again.
He caught her jaw and angled it upward. Capturing her mouth with his, he tasted her like a man starved, in need, dangerously tempted to—
“Hey,” she said on another laugh, this time pushing herself away until she hit the door. “No kissing me like that. We can’t have sex in the car.”
“Why not?”
Such a calm query, like it was a real question.
“No one has sex in their car.” Not in real life. “There are people outside.”
“We’re moving and I don’t care about people.”
“Oh, before I forget,” she said, opening the clasp of her purse to retrieve her brother’s birthday card. “Please sign this.”
“Another contract? What’s on the table? Sex in the car? I’ll make the changes, you initial it.”
He was in an odd mood tonight. Turned on and funny. Every minute with Brogan was better than the last.
She slid a hand into his jacket to steal the pen he always carried in his inside pocket.
“It’s Bram’s birthday card.”
“Card?” he asked, taking it to sign his name at the bottom like it truly was a contract.
“It’s tradition. That’s what they make birthday cards for.”
First and last name. Okay, that was one approach. She slipped the card into the envelope and it went back to her purse. She held out his pen, but he didn’t take it.
“Put it back where you found it.”
That meant getting closer. She was on to him and wasn’t complaining.
Her lips twisted as she slid down the bench toward him to put it back.
When she was within reach, he cupped her face, stroked her, toyed with her hair.
If his intense stare didn’t cut her some slack, she’d be rethinking the no sex assertion.
She cleared her throat, forcing her eyes to close and move.
“This isn’t the dress my mom picked,” she said, leaning back to run her hands over the fabric. “She sent another one to your apartment today.”
“Doesn’t look like her style.”
“I got it with Roxie. On one of our shopping trips. I was going to return it… Is it too low-cut? The plunge is…”
His finger hooked under her chin to lift it up. “Are you comfortable in it?”
“I’m comfortable with the way you look at me in it.”
“I look at you the same way whether you’re naked in my bed or wrapped in my robe.”
“You do,” she murmured, so grateful. “I’m proud to stand beside you, but I’ll be embarrassed if…”
“What?”
“I don’t want you to hear them talk to me like they do.”
“I dare anyone to disparage you in front of me.” And the oddest thing, he smiled. “Anyone who doesn’t show you respect will deal with me.”
“In your world, I have a place.” An equal place. “It’s not the same with them.”
“It’s exactly the same,” he said, fierce. “No one will talk down to you.”
“To keep the peace, I have to—”
“You don’t have to do anything, Irish. I will feel the same about you when we leave as I do right now.” Please let that be true. “To demonstrate my faith.”
He leaned forward to slip something from a slot in the door. A square, black box wrapped in matte silk. Real silk.
“What is this?” she asked as he presented it to her, pausing for a suspenseful moment before popping the clasp to open it.
She stopped breathing. This wasn’t the first shiny gift he’d given her. They came at least every Tuesday. But this one…
This… this was astounding. The glitter of the diamonds mesmerized. The riviera necklace was bold in its glamorous imposition. This kind of this, the beauty, it couldn’t be real. And this was… for her to wear?
“Turn around, I’ll put it on,” he said. “I’ll be insulted if you refuse.”
He battled her objections before she even voiced them. She did as he said and hooked her hair out of the way as he laid the weighty platinum against her skin.
“I can’t believe this is… How did you persuade them to loan this to you?” she asked, touching the jewels as she turned back to him. “Are we allowed to have it outside?”
“It’s not on loan, it’s yours.” The statement put the tip of her tongue between her teeth. That was all it could do; it lived there now. “When I give you something, it’s yours. I won’t ever take it away.”
Did that include himself?
He’d given himself to her temporarily, but a necklace like that screamed eternity. It would last long after their contract was over, long after their lives were over too. For the rest of hers, this may be all she had of him.
Somehow, she was lost in him again. It was his phone that snapped her from her daze. Worked for her, not so much for him.
“Your phone is ringing.” He didn’t respond. “We’re in the car. Conduct your business.”
His fingers skimmed into the slit of her dress, onto her flesh, high on her thigh. “Personal business comes first.”
“Brogan!” she shrieked but didn’t resist when he yanked her thighs apart. “There are people outside.”
He drove his fingers deep into her hair to snatch her mouth to his. “The only people are right here.”
His hands were on her. There was nothing else. They had time. The trip to her parents’ deserved a little distraction and she didn’t mind proving her friend right. She really would ride more than just the limo.