Chapter 9 Separate Rooms #3
"I do not know mine with you."
"Then we find them without a consultant."
His laugh touched my throat.
The sound undid me more effectively than practiced seduction could have.
We moved from the worktable to the long sofa beneath the windows, not because he directed me there, but because I pulled him by the front of his shirt. His signet ring remained on the table among the torn schedule. The wedding band was cool against my skin when his hand slid beneath my blouse.
Every place he touched became a question answered by the way I moved toward him.
He did not rush. He also did not pretend gentleness meant a lack of appetite. When I opened his shirt, his body tightened under my hands. When I told him what I wanted, he listened with the concentration he usually reserved for a board vote and none of its distance.
The first time he made me lose the ability to form a complete sentence, he looked almost shaken by it.
"That was not in the schedule," I managed.
"Nothing worth keeping is."
I kissed him before the line could become too beautiful.
Desire had always seemed like the least complicated part of Luca. He was good at being wanted. He knew how to create privacy, attention, and the temporary illusion that the rest of the world had been dismissed.
This did not feel like dismissal.
It felt like being seen in the middle of a decision I was still making.
When we finally undressed, there was no performance in it. No reveal designed for effect. Clothing landed across the rug beside contract fragments and voting reports. He asked before changing the pace. I answered. I asked what he wanted. He gave me a truth instead of a technique.
"You without an ending in my head."
The words frightened me.
I pulled him closer anyway.
His hand moved beneath the last layer between us only after I caught his wrist and placed it where I wanted him.
The first slow stroke of his fingers pulled a gasp from me.
He watched my face, learned the pressure that made my hips lift, then repeated it until the polished office and every torn square of the schedule disappeared.
When I reached for him, he opened the desk drawer, showed me the sealed condom inside, and waited.
I nodded. He covered himself, returned between my thighs, and entered me with a controlled slowness that broke only when I wrapped my legs around him and asked for more.
The sound he made against my mouth was raw enough to feel like another private truth.
The pleasure built slowly, then all at once, sharpened by every moment he could have assumed and chose not to.
When I came, his name escaped me without permission.
Luca pressed his forehead to mine and followed with a broken breath that sounded nothing like the man who could charm a ballroom without touching his drink.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
The city moved beyond the windows. Horns far below. A siren passing east. Winter light across the black silk pinned beneath glass.
Luca's hand rested open on the cushion beside mine.
Not holding. Available.
I put my fingers into his.
His eyes closed once.
The movement was small enough to be private truth.
Then reality returned with its excellent timing.
My phone vibrated in my discarded trousers.
Tessa: SHOULD I CALL A MOVING COMPANY OR A PRIEST?
I laughed into Luca's shoulder.
"What?" he asked.
"My staff has lost respect for the institution of marriage."
"Your staff met me before the institution."
I sat up and found my blouse.
Luca did not ask me to stay.
That should not have surprised me after everything he had just said. It still created an ache under my ribs that had nothing to do with regret.
"I'm going back to my suite," I said.
"Yes."
"That was not a request for approval."
"That was clear."
I looked at him. His shirt was open, hair disordered, expression stripped of every public answer. He had never looked less like a product of Beaumont Luxury Group.
"Do you want me to stay?" I asked.
His honesty arrived without charm.
"Yes."
"Do you understand why I'm not?"
"Because choosing me once is not permission for me to shape the rest of the day. Because your separate room has to remain real after intimacy or it was never truly yours."
I buttoned my blouse.
"And because Tessa is in there with my rosemary plant."
"The strongest reason."
I stood.
Luca retrieved the signet ring from the table but did not put it on. He gathered the torn schedule into a neat pile instead.
At the door, I turned back.
"No breakfast plan," I said.
"No plan."
"But I usually eat at seven."
His mouth curved slowly.
"That is information, not an obligation."
"Good."
I returned to my separate room with my wedding band warm against my hand and Luca's taste still on my mouth.
Tessa looked from my face to my wrinkled blouse.
"Moving company or priest?" she asked.
I picked up the rosemary plant and placed it two inches closer to the window.
"Coffee," I said.
For the first time since agreeing to the marriage, temporary did not feel like the most dangerous word in the contract.