“Just that you are obviously doing this for a reason. But I can also see that it’s the last thing you want to do. So I’m giving you an out.”
I press my lips together, my eyes burning. “I need the money, Wes.” That’s a bitch to admit, but it’s true.
“You’ll get your money.”
“You bid half a million dollars,” I say, stunned. “And you’re willing to pay that even if you don’t get what you paid for.”
He smiles. “I’ll make you a deal. Come home with me tonight. We can just hang out. Watch a movie or something. Then we’ll go get that coffee tomorrow, and you can tell me all about that screenwriting program.” He shrugs. “After that, we’ll see. We’ll take it day by day.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. He wants to pay half a million dollars to basically date me? Without the guarantee of sex?
And what’s even crazier is that I feel disappointed.
Wes
Celine’s laughter is contagious. I’ve learned this in the last few days. She’s also crazy funny.
“You really should consider comedy,” I tell her, as she tells a story with such perfect timing that I can just see her writing scripts for sitcoms.
“Now who’s being funny,” she teases, bumping her shoulder against mine as we eat takeaway Chinese on my couch in my penthouse.
Things are just that easy between us. True to my word, I didn’t make her hold up her end of the contract. We haven’t had sex. But it’s been right at the front of my mind every single day I’ve spent with her this week. Which is every day.
I want her. Badly. But I’m also enjoying getting to know her. Something I don’t take the time to do. And I’m finding that it’s fun, this whole dating thing. At least it is with her. She’s just as amazing as I suspected.
We finish up dinner, and I carry everything into the kitchen to throw it out and grab a bottle of wine.
Celine follows me into the kitchen, but when I top off her glass, she just sets it down on the marble countertop and turns to me.
“Wes,” she begins, nerves evident in the shake of her voice.
“What is it?” I ask, setting my own glass down and pulling her toward me, resting my hands on the curve of her hips.
She relaxes into me as if we’ve been doing this forever, as if she’s totally comfortable with me. “I think we need to talk about this.”
“This?” I pretend I don’t know what she means.
“Us.”
And fuck, I love the sound of that. Never thought that was something I’d want to hear. But from Celine, it sounds like something I’ve been missing out on.
“What about us?” I ask, pulling her closer.
She bites her lip, and I want to kiss the worried expression right off her face. Even though I’ve yet to even kiss her. Another first. I want her to know that I don’t expect anything from her other than what I said.
She blows out a breath. “I want to give you my virginity.”
My eyebrows fly up. “We talked about this. You don’t owe me anything.”
She fixes her gaze on me, the shy girl nowhere to be seen tonight. “I said I want to.”
“We can do that. When you’re ready.”
“Tonight,” she says.
And fuck, I’m instantly hard. It’s taken everything in me not to strip this girl down and toss her on my bed and fuck her brains out yet. And here she is offering it up to me.
I can’t argue with that.