Page 33 of Beauty and the Billionaire
I said nothing. I let him have his moment.
“You dance well,” he said.
My heart glimmered with some strange emotion. The sensation spread to my stomach, fluttering and heating up. He was only a couple of feet away from me, so when he turned to face me, we were very close.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
“You don’t need to thank me,” I said, setting my glass on the mantelpiece above the fireplace.
“I know this isn’t your kind of entertainment,” he said. “But you put on a brave face.”
“I didn’t need to put on any face,” I assured him. “You made it easy.”
He smiled and took a step toward me, lifting his head earnestly and looking at me. Was he hopeful? I couldn’t tell what that expression was. Suddenly, the night flashed before my eyes. His sweat-slicked face, his damp hair, and the warmth of his heated body against mine.
I had to fight against all my instincts in order to stay where I was. My body longed to move an inch closer to him, but the moment when everything had been possible was gone, stuck in time back in Neon Nights.
Zain licked his lips, still looking up at me. “I’d like…”
“It’s late,” I said. “Maybe we should get some sleep while we can.”
Zain closed his lips and stepped back, looking away from me as his face glowed with the heat of blood rushing into his cheeks. He closed his teeth around his lower lip and forced a smile. “Of course.” He nodded, turned away, and hesitated. “Where is my room?”
I walked over, avoiding getting too close so as not to send the wrong message. The desperation that opened up in my chest was like a black hole, sucking in everything, including every glimmer of light.
Zain followed me through the broad hallway, then left into a narrower one. Two doors faced one another, and I leaned against mine, aware of the suspended expectations and disappointed hopes filling the narrow space between us. I pointed at the door, and Zain thanked me, hesitating a momentlonger as I slowly opened my own door, slipped inside, and made myself close it.
His room was slightly smaller than mine, but it was just as well equipped, with a spacious bathroom, a sitting area, and a large bed. Mine felt empty despite all the necessary amenities. I turned on the lamp on the nightstand and walked over to the armchair near the window, facing the east side. The night was deep and dark, still so far from sunrise, but sleep was hopelessly gone from me.
I sat in the shadow, looking at the distant light of the lamp on the far end of my bedroom, and wondered where I should be. And who? Had I not had enough of my self-imposed exile from the rest of the world? Or were these just foolish notions filling my head after a night of not running into disappointments?
Yeah. Only causing them, I thought, but it was false. If I disappointed Zain when I stopped us from doing something he would regret, I disappointed myself just as much. The only difference was that I wouldn’t have regretted it. My body was starved for touches, for embraces, for the wild and reckless passion we could search for, and I wouldn’t have considered it a mistake. I had trained myself to adjust my expectations and not go wild with daydreams and fantasies. But Zain…
He was a virgin. He was twenty-two. By right, he shouldn’t give himself to someone like me.
I had to push down the longing for what he was so tempted to offer in order to protect him. It took so much effort to accept this that I was drained. I had no will left in me, only enough to stop myself from marching into his room right now.
It must have been another hour before I showered the stench of clubbing and circled the bed. Just then, the knock on my door made me freeze on the spot.
Zain
I couldn’t sleep like this.
I couldn’t get it out of my head, my chest, my abdomen. This dizzying feeling that had accompanied me since the first moment he touched the small of my back buzzed through me even now.
And when Dominic opened the door of his bedroom, wearing only a pair of black boxer briefs, my heart leaped. Fear, excitement, and nervousness mixed in my bloodstream, and I looked at him with my bravest face. It was hard to keep it on, but I had to. I had already risked it all by knocking long after he’d sent me to my room. Part of me felt like a coward, not letting me rest until I tried again, but another part had hoped Dominic would be fast asleep and deaf to my visit.
But there he was, eyes wide and chest rising and falling with each breath. He stood in the doorway, neither moving aside nor closing the door in my face. He stood still, quiet, as dawning surrender came over his face. He waited.
I licked my lips and searched for courage. There were no great reserves of it that revealed themselves when I needed them the most. There was nothing but this moment, and the two of us looked at each other with a mix of longing and wariness.
“I want to come in,” I said.
The resistance crumbled away, and Dominic stepped aside, holding the door for me.
I had been sure, in hindsight, that he would shake his head and tell me never to do this again. But I remembered. I remembered so clearly the feel of his hard cock brushing againstmy leg. I’d made it happen in a moment of feeling brave, spending the last of my bravado back in Neon Nights.
“Zain,” he whispered reluctantly, and I prepared myself to be turned away.
