“I suppose.”
His big hands pushed my coat off my shoulders, and I let it slip away, then allowed myself to lean back into him, accepting the simple contact of bodies through a few thin layers. I wasn’t sure what I was doing here. But his touch felt good. Too good.
“This isn’t really where I’d have expected you to be,” I said quietly, waving my hand around the vast suite. “Before…”
“Before, when I was a pauper, you mean? I suppose a bit’s changed since then.”
I chuckled, then considered his story about his father. Even then, he hadn’t been a poor student, but had already started his business. “But you weren’t really a pauper back then, were you?”
There was a brief pause in his ministrations. “Not quite, no.”
He didn’t elaborate anymore, instead taking the opportunity to nuzzle into my neck. I couldn’t help but arch into it. His lips were soft, and the way his large form arched around me, I wanted more. So much more.
“What is that you’re wearing?” Xavier wondered after a long inhale just below my ear.
“It’s called C-covet.” I could barely get the word out.
“Of course it is,” he purred as his teeth ran over my pulse. “How fitting.”
I shuddered as fear and desire warred with every heartbeat under his lips. Only one of them won.
“Xavier, wait.”
He sighed, but stopped, as good as his word. “Whatever you say, Ces.”
He didn’t move but stood straight and pulled me back against him while we both focused on the city. Or tried to.
I looked down to where his arms now encircled my ribs completely. My fingers drifted over one of his knuckles, stroking the edge gently.
“We really hardly know each other at all, do we?” I asked quietly.
There was a long silence. For a moment, I thought he might have had enough of all my doubts.
But then he gently rotated me in his arms so that I was facing him, back to the window, trapped against the glass. But I didn’t feel trapped. I felt precious.
“What do you want to know, then?” he asked gently.
I couldn’t quite meet that deep blue gaze. “I don’t know. Anything. Everything.”
“Come on, Ces. Don’t be shy.”
I sighed. “Fine. What’s…your favorite color?”
I looked back to find him staring directly at my mouth.
“The kind that’s almost dark pink. Like a lip that’s been bitten.”
Gently, he tugged at the bottom lip I didn’t know I’d been biting.
“Xavi,” I murmured.
One side of his mouth curved into a delicious half-smile. “I like it when you call me that.”
I tipped my face up without even realizing it, and delicately, he clasped it between his hands. His thumb again drifted over my bottom lip. He bent down.
And the damn elevator door opened again.
Xavier growled, face suddenly full of thunder. “Fucking hell.” Then, as he released me to sag backward against the glass, he called with slightly less vitriol, “Come in, Martin.”