He leaves me and disappears inside the apartment. I walk over to the kitchen. It looks modern, if underutilized. Retrieving a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge, I uncap it and take a long drink. I’m twisting back the cap when Landon returns with a deep green sweater.
“You can wear this,” he offers, handing me the sweater.
I take it from him. The material is soft and smooth to the touch. I remove my blouse and shrug it on. It’s a little big, but it smells like him, and feels heavenly against my skin.
Landon folds up my blouse and hands it to me. “It looks better on you than it ever did on me.”
I scoff. “Somehow I doubt that.”
“I love it when you pay me compliments,” he says with a heartbreakingly beautiful grin.
“I was only making an observation.”
He shrugs. “I love your complimentary observations.”
I chuckle despite myself. “So what now?”
He takes a strand of my hair and curls it around his finger. “Now that there’s no question of how good we are together, I hope you’ll finally agree to spend more time with me.”
I look up at his face. “You mean sex.”
“Lots of it.”
I shake my head. “Actually, I meant, what happens right now.”
He chuckles and releases the tendril of hair, letting it fall back to my face. “Now, I take you home.”
There’s a private elevator from the apartment to the garage on the ground floor. He left his jacket and tie, behind in his office. In just his tailored shirt and pants, he looks more casual, but still sexy as hell.
The car he leads me to is a sleek silver jaguar convertible, low to the ground, with leather bucket seats and a softly purring engine.
He keeps the top up, sliding on a pair of dark glasses as he navigates the car out of the garage. Even driving, he’s powerful, controlled, his fingers light on the steering wheel as he moves through the late afternoon traffic.
In front of my apartment building, he turns to me. “About San Francisco,” he says. “I want us to go together. I want you to stay with me, spend the whole period with me when you’re not working. If that’s not what you want, you don’t have to do it because of what happened today.”
I nod, knowing that I want that trip with him. I want it so much it hurts. “What happens after it’s over? When we come back?”
He taps a finger on the steering wheel, making me wonder what he’s thinking. “What do you want to happen?”
My mind goes to Jack, and all the feelings, hard to recall, but still there, unresolved. “I don’t want a relationship,” I tell Landon. “This is just sex and I don’t want to pretend that it’s anything more.”
He doesn’t reply, so I continue.
“I also want exclusivity, for as long as it lasts.”
“Not a problem,” he says with a shrug.
How long would that be exactly, I wonder. How long till he gets whatever desire he has for me out of his system and moves on. I don’t want to be rejected again. I won’t be able to take it. I swallow.
“And it lasts only as long as we’re in San Francisco,” I add quickly, before I change my mind.
“A week?” The words are accompanied by a frown. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
“Yes,” I reply
He nods slowly. “All right.” He looks down at his sweater hanging off my shoulder, and then glances at his watch. “Why don’t you go up and change, I’ll take you back to the office.”
I glance at the time on the dashboard. It’s almost five. “I’m done for the day.”