“Don’t know. Feels nice though, doesn’t it?”
I’m surrounded by his body. His fingers work into my hair and against my scalp, making me moan in pleasure. When someone’s watched you throw up and then you’ve cried all over them, I suppose sitting on the floor being cuddled with their legs isn’t so weird.
Okay, it’s a bit weird. But I’m going with it.
He turns his head so his mouth his close to my ear. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Dree. You say things and my mind goes to crazy places.”
Rush’s deep voice is hypnotic. I sink even further into him, my eyes drifting closed.
“Listen carefully. You’re extremely cute and I like you very much. You’ve got to stop thinking I’m Striker.”
My eyes snap open. Panic plunges through me and I start to struggle in Rush’s arms, trying to get away.
“Would you sit still?” he growls, and his legs clamp around me and refuse to let me up. “Listen to me, Dree. I hate that piece of shit at least as much as you do. I don’t know what it’s like to work for him, but I hope you’ve seen enough from me and my people that you can trust that whatever he did to you won’t happen here. If you have reason to think it will, tell me now.”
The fierce expression on his face makes heat pool between my legs. “Do you really think it’s a good idea working for you, after this?”
“With me.”
Rush’s necklace has fallen out of his shirt and is swinging between us. I hook my finger into it, tracing the silver links of the chain, thinking carefully. I don’t think he’s like Striker, but that doesn’t mean that this couldn’t go horribly wrong.
Rush slides his palm around the nape of my neck and tilts my chin up to him with his thumb. The fierce way he is with me makes me want to call him Daddy again.
Louder.
And then keep saying it to him while he does all the things he described to me.
Our faces are close together. So close, I can make out the flecks of silver and purple in his irises. I slide my hands up to his shoulders. He’s making me think of really good sex, where you feel like you’re going to shatter with every thrust, and then you do, over and over again.
Rush swallows, and his Adam’s apple moves. “Dree…”
Footsteps sound along the corridor, and someone calls Rush’s name.
“Damn it,” he growls, sitting up.
I blink and notice where I am, sitting in the perfect little space between Rush’s denim-clad legs. I wish I could stay right here while he strokes my hair and calls me his princess, but if anyone sees me like this with him, they’ll think I’m a stupid little groupie, not the professional choreographer I’m trying my hardest to be.
I scramble to my feet, Rush’s hands slipping around my waist to help me up. “In here, Wes,” he calls, and I step away from him quickly. To me, he says softly, “Talk to you later, after you’ve had some rest.”
My fingers are trailing through his. At the last second, he grips me hard and pulls me close again.
“And stop whispering things you think I can’t hear, because I do.”
Oh.
He heard me call him Daddy.
And he doesn’t look mad about it. He looks like he wants me to say it again.
Barely seeing where I’m going, I make my way out of the room and down the corridor.
Bad idea.
Bad, bad idea. Don’t kiss Rush. Don’t get naked with Rush. Don’t go up on tiptoe and whisper Daddy against his lips, and then look deep into his eyes to see if that name evokes the possessive desire in him that I think it will.
I find the nearest set of doors to the open air. Going through them, I take a shuddering breath of cool, country air. As I brush my hair off my face, I feel how feverish my skin is.
In high school, people used to call me ice queen because I was so untouchable. Little did my friends know. I never told anyone the things I’d get up to with boys I knew I’d never see again. That stuff’s private. I like my privacy and I always have. Striker stripped that from me, and now I’m playing with an inferno by letting Rush think that anything can happen between us.
I walk along the terrace, watching butterflies dance over the flower bushes. Rush showed me this weekend that he’s ten times the man that Striker is. He didn’t have to take care of me at the hospital and stay all night. He could have gotten in touch with Jasminta and noped the fuck out of there.
But he didn’t. He stayed and took care of me himself. I feel my heart thawing at the memory.