Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Overly Affectionate Pussy
IRINA
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
I glanced up at the doorway, my jaw going slack when I spotted the man standing there, shock written all over his face.
Not just any man … the man from the swimming pool … and all my recent, violent solo orgasms.
“It did dry curly,” I murmured, eyes slipping up to his hair. Oh! And his glasses, framing vibrantly green eyes, and lashes that women would pay good money for. He had some serious Clark Kent vibes going on, and I was down for it. All of it.
“It … what?” His hands went self-consciously to his hair, fingers raking through those curls. I watched them bounce back, mesmerised.
“Why are you in here?” he asked.
I giggled, rolling onto my back and sitting up. “I was just snuggling with these delightful kitties.” I eyed him. Gosh, how was it possible for him to look even more delicious clothed in a pair of caramel-coloured pants and a soft black T-shirt than he had in wet swim trunks? “Why are you in here?”
Had I intended for my voice to come out in that husky purr? Possibly. I wanted to rub all over this guy like I was the overly affectionate pussy.
His perplexed expression, the way his eyebrows met in confusion, somehow only made him even more adorable.
“This is my bedroom. Those ‘delightful kitties’ are my wayward felines. And that one—” He pointed at the orange fluffball who was rolling closer to get my hand on his belly, “—has a penchant for drawing blood if you get too close … well, he usually does.”
I grinned wider, scratching Abernathy’s ruffled undercarriage. A loud, rumbling purr was audible even over the thump, thump of the music upstairs. “Oh? He seems very placid to me!”
Clark Kent frowned harder at that. “No one was … this room was supposed to be off-limits. The security guard—”
“Was busy up the other end of the room, trying to liberate your guest bathroom from a very horny couple.” I chuckled at the look of horror that crossed his face.
“What do you get when you fill a boat with porn stars? Too many places you do not want to look at with a UV light. Don’t worry, I wasn’t doing anything naughty in here …
I just needed somewhere private to slip off my panties.
” I grabbed them off the bed, waving them in his direction.
His eyes followed the movement of the silky black scrap of fabric before he shook his head, staring somewhere over my left shoulder. “For ease of access in the guest bathroom?” he deadpanned.
I snorted. “Fuck no! They were rubbing on my clit, and it was driving me nuts! But you’re funny!”
Pink spread across his angular cheekbones. “I aim to please.” He moved into the room, passing around the bed, close enough that his knee brushed against my bare thigh. I suppressed a shiver.
“I bet you do.” I hadn’t been this attracted to anyone for a long time. I probably should have left, but Abernathy clambered into my lap again, and I didn’t want to disturb him.
Okay, maybe I also wanted to make that blush spread all the way down Clark Kent’s neck. Besides, he hadn’t outright asked me to leave. That was permission enough to stay, in my book.
“So … is this all yours?” I asked, gesturing to the opulent room. “This whole palatial bedroom, all to yourself?”
He opened a drawer on the other side of the bed, rooting around in there. If he’d twigged that I was subtly asking if he shared the room with a girlfriend, or boyfriend, he didn’t let on. “Yes. The Girl on Fire is my home.”
“The whole thing? As in, you live on this yacht?” I gaped. He paused in his rummaging, pointedly eyeing the orange blob in my lap.
“No … I thought that my cats would enjoy attending a calamitously noisy party full of people determined to cover as many surfaces as humanly possible in their bodily fluids.”
“Ooh, sarcastic Superman! I am so down with that.”
He quirked an eyebrow, turning back to his drawer.
“Tough crowd,” I murmured, shifting under the weight of the cat on my lap. “How much of this is just hair, anyway, Abernathy?”
“Most of it. He’s ninety percent hair, ten percent unadulterated fury.” He stood, heading to his desk chair. I swivelled as best as I could to keep watching him.
“Aww, don’t say that about my darling Abby! He’s a sweetheart!”
Clark Kent’s eyes met mine for a split second before darting away. “Apparently only for you.” He set down a vape pen on the desk.
I wrinkled my nose, my stomach dropping. “Is that tobacco?”
He shook his head. “Cannabis.”
“Nope!” I jerked to my feet, tipping Abernathy onto the floor. He made a strangled yowling sound and scuttled into a kitty igloo under the desk. “You might be a hot swimmer-bod Clark Kent with his own yacht and have the cutest blush I’ve ever seen … but I draw the line at drugs.”
He raised an eyebrow. “It’s a cannabis vape. It’s not like I pulled out a crack pipe and offered it to you.”
Disgust and panic crept their way up my throat. “It’s not legal!” was the first thing I could think of to blurt out that would make any sense to him.
“It is if you have a prescription.”
I snapped my jaw shut so fast my teeth clacked together. “Are you dying? That’s the only reason it’s legal, isn’t it? Like, if you have cancer, or …”
The befuddled look on his face was so annoyingly adorable, because right at that moment, with my emotions churning, I couldn’t enjoy it the way it deserved.
“No, I’m not dying, as far as I’m aware …
although, I suppose we’re all dying, aren’t we?
Life’s just a meander towards death at the end of the day. ”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “This is far too deep a conversation for me to be having without any panties on, in the bedroom of a rich drug user who I don’t even know the name of!”
He stood, reaching out a hand towards me. “I’m Henry Baxter. And no, I’m not dying. I suffer from anxiety. I medicate with prescription cannabis. And this whole thing—” He waved his other hand up at the ceiling— “is making me very, very anxious.”
There was something in the earnest expression on his face, in the honesty in his words, that calmed the storm inside me. I reached out and shook his hand. His warm fingers clasped mine and squeezed gently. And then he released me and took a seat once more, and the contact felt too brief.
“Well, I suppose that since it’s not illegal … I don’t need to get on my hot horse about it.”
He paused mid-way through picking up the vape. “Your hot horse?”
I waved a dismissive hand in his direction. “You know what I mean. English is not my first language—your silly little sayings get confusing sometimes.” A hint of a smile played at the corner of his mouth, and my stomach erupted into butterflies.
“Do you mind if I partake?” he asked, tilting the vape in my direction. I shrugged, ignoring the swirling in my stomach. It wasn’t an illegal drug. It was a medication. A measured dose of an approved substance. Not hard drugs cut with fuck knew what …
He put the vape between his lips and took a long pull, closing his eyes. I found myself mesmerised by him. There was a tightness in his face that I noticed now that I was staring unashamedly at him. He really was anxious.
“Why did you agree to host a huge party when you clearly find parties stressful?” I blurted.
He opened his eyes, the emerald of them meeting mine for just a fraction of a second before he glanced towards the window behind his desk, leaned over and cracked it open. The sounds of the party above hit me with renewed clarity. Henry blew out the vapour into the night air.
Well, that was considerate of him.
“I have a very persuasive business partner,” he muttered, taking another pull on his vape.
He shrugged, massaging his knee almost compulsively.
“It’s just one night … and the app should be celebrated.
” He paused, glancing at me fleetingly. “A not-insignificant role in this party happening was played by you, you know.”
Huh?
“Me?”
He nodded. “Your viral posts brought us a surge in subscribers. And the party is—primarily at least—a celebration of reaching the three hundred million milestone.”
I frowned. “You … you know who I am?”
He barked out a quick laugh. “I do, Irina.”
The way he said my name, in that quiet, thoughtful tone, had heat flashing across every inch of me.
“How?”
He shrugged, setting his vape aside. “Tickle is my app. I developed it, and one of the perks inherent with my position is access to all the back-end data.”
So, not only was this guy rich, gorgeous and adorable, but he was smart too?
I folded my hands over my chest, raising an eyebrow.
“I want to make a dirty joke about back-end access, but I’m kind of stuck on the fact that you stalked me.
” The thought should have worried me, I supposed, given my slightly less-than-legal-residency predicament, but I couldn’t dredge up any emotion other than amusement.
But the way his face paled made me think that he’d misinterpreted my teasing.
“No, I … it wasn’t like that at all. I checked on the accounts of every creator that Atlas invited.
” The blush really had spread down to his handsome jaw.
He ruffled his curls nervously, and the sleek Siamese—Trinket—leapt off the bed and trotted over to paw at his leg. He reached down and stroked her.
“So … you watched my content? And what did you think of it?” There was the husky purr again. Would he admit that he’d gotten himself off to me like so many people in my comments did?
A not-small part of me hoped for that.
He completely refused to even glance in my direction. “I think it’s a very smart strategy—teasing viewers with enough to make them want to follow for access to your more explicit content. You’re giving them a value-add proposition, and it’s paid off.”
“Is that all?” I asked archly. Come on, Henry, I’m trying my hardest to flirt here! “Nothing else you … learned about me?”
“Well …”
I held my breath.