Page 30 of Her Every Fantasy

‘Hotels don’t really do it for me. I like having my own space, cooking my own meals.’

‘You cook?’ I teased.

Her nod was a little wary. ‘Yeah. I kinda had to learn.’

My mood plummeted. Fucking Dan again. ‘Hadto?’ I grated.

She avoided my gaze. ‘To start off with. Then I found out I loved it so I took classes after...’ She cleared her throat. ‘After the divorce.’

My fingers tightened around the steering wheel, my foot sending the sports car flying towards the Central Business District and her apartment.

Silence pulsed in the car until she turned to me as I pulled up at the entrance to the boxy glass towers that housed her temporary apartment.

‘You know we can’t avoid this subject for ever, don’t you?’ she demanded huskily.

Since I’d arrived at the same conclusion ten seconds ago, I couldn’t very well deny it. ‘Yeah. But it’s not going to be tonight.’

In the reflected interior of the car, her eyes assessed me. Then she nodded. ‘Fair enough. Goodnight, Bryce.’

I wanted to stop her from opening the door. From stepping out and leaving me with churning feelings. But to do that I’d have to resort to drastic measures. Like kissing her. Like sliding my hand under her skirt to find out for myself whether sucking me off had made her as wet as her soft gasps and decadent eyes had promised.

But I didn’t want our first kiss to be a snatched event in full view of anyone who walked out of the building.

So I reeled myself in, managed a half-decent nod and even managed to step out and open her door for her.

She alighted, stepped close and attempted to scramble my brain all over again with her perfume.

‘I’ll expect your call tomorrow,’ she murmured.

I nodded, leaned against the car and watched her walk inside.

She didn’t look back. And I was grateful.

Because fuck if I wanted her to see me staring like a creepy, lust-addled fool.

Savvie

I stretched my back to relieve tension and blew a breath up my forehead.

Despite the air-conditioning, my exertions in the store for the last four hours had made me exhausted and sweaty. Not to mention a little cranky.

All morning I’d been plagued with flashbacks of last night. Lunch at Bryce’s apartment had been tense and uncomfortable before nosediving into a sizzling sex appetiser that had left me gagging for more.

But last night...

My face heated up as I recalled what I’d dared Bryce into. I’d brazenly believed I could handle it until, alone in my bed, serious doubts had steadily crept in. The sexual angle aside, there was a huge emotional iceberg right in the path of my intentions to coolly handle this. One that had flashed its colossal silhouette in the dead of night and terrified the hell out of me. In that flash I’d seen my own deeper yearnings, skating dangerously close to Bryce’s.

And in those early hours I’d been forced to admit to myself that there was nothing perfunctory about my actions. I wasn’t cool about losing Bryce for ever.

Bryce Mortimer was the only person who’d caught a glimpse of the true depths of my bruised bewilderment about my family. He’d never quite touched the heart of the secret I kept closed off and locked deep inside, but he’d known enough to attempt to salve a wound despite our specific deficiencies.

But even then, he’d been at a loss to see why I was lonely in the face of familial affection.

What he hadn’t known was that the affection and togetherness was all a carefully cultivated front. That away from shrewd eyes, the great Knight clan was far from lovingly familial behind closed doors.

That smiles hardened.

Eyes judged and teeth gritted long before I hit puberty and it became clear my interests didn’t align with my family’s. That no matter how hard I tried, I never fitted the mould.

---