“I deeply regret what I did,” he says quietly. “I shouldn’t have made my donation to the health center conditional on you teaching me how to become a better person.” He takes a deep breath. “There have been times in the last couple of days when I’ve thought. . .” His voice trails off. “The money is the health center’s to use as it sees fit. No conditions, no strings attached. I would like to see more of you, Sophia, but only if you want to as well.”
“Oh.” My head spins. “Okay?” He quirks an eyebrow at my reaction. “Should I leave?”
He blinks. “Do you want to go?” He takes a step toward me, closing the distance between us. His voice dips lower. “Because it doesn’t seem like it. Unless I’m reading your signals all wrong?”
So Damien has noticed I’ve tried to flirt with him. I swallow hard. His nearness is melting my mind. “I should shower,” I stammer.
“Of course.” He throws open the door, the beginnings of a smile tipping the corners of his mouth. “Guest bedroom,” he says in explanation. “There’s an attached bathroom.” He vanishes for a moment and returns with a folded towel. “If you'd like, I can put your clothes in the wash.”
My brain takes in the bed and short-circuits. My mind fills with images of the three of us, bodies naked, limbs entwined. It takes me a moment to focus on Damien’s words. “But then I'd have nothing to wear,” I say stupidly.
He chuckles, warm and smooth and oh-so-sexy. “You can borrow one of my shirts.” His eyes sweep over me, and I feel his gaze like a touch. My heart jolts, and my pulse pounds. “Do you want to hand them to me?”
The air around me seems electrified. I remember this feeling from ten years ago. I felt the same excruciating mix of awareness and anticipation when I followed Damien to Club M.
And now? He’s waiting, watching me with an unreadable expression in his eyes. I almost open my mouth to ask if he wants me to undress in front of him but stop myself. What the hell am I doing? This is madness. I'm having a temporary attack of insanity.
“Give me a second.” I dart past the bed into the attached bathroom and shut the door. I strip naked and open the door a crack, just wide enough to hand him my jeans and T-shirt. “Here you go.”
His laughter is soft and knowing. I hold my breath, almost giddy with lust, but he doesn’t say anything. After a long moment, I hear his footsteps recede.
The shower is blissful,and I linger under the hot water for a long time. I come downstairs, my hair damp and only dressed in Damien's white linen shirt, to see it’s just Julian in the kitchen.
He takes in what I’m wearing, and his eyes flare with heat. I haven’t bothered with a bra, and his gaze lands on my chest. My nipples start to pebble. My mouth goes dry, and I instinctively take a step toward him.
He drags his eyes back to my face. “Damien had a work emergency,” he says. “He promised to be quick.”
“A work emergency? It’s Saturday night.”
“We’re talking about Damien Cardenas,” Julian responds. “He doesn’t have an off button.” He holds up a bottle of wine. “Would you like something to drink?”
I'm not exactly a lightweight, but I don't like to drink and drive, even if I’ve only had one glass of wine. It’s just not worth the risk. If I take Julian up on his offer, I’m either spending the night here or, at the very least, I’m staying for a very long time.
It would be more sensible to drink water.
Except I don’t want to leave.
“Wine sounds good.”
He pours me a glass. “I want to talk to you about something,” he says.
Not Julian too. I’m still reeling from Damien’s declaration earlier. “Umm, okay?”
The smile that ghosts over his lips doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “There’s chemistry between you and Damien, and I don’t want to make any assumptions based on something that happened a decade ago. Do you want me to leave?”
Whatever I thought he was going to say, this wasn’t it. We had lunch earlier this week. Did he not notice the way I was staring at his naked chest? I've masturbated to him spilling marinara on himself. Except in my fantasies, it's chocolate, and I lick it off him.
A wave of uncertainty washes over me. “Do you want to go?”
“What I want doesn’t matter.”
Huh? What’s this about? “Of course it does,” I reply, puzzled. Julian might be quieter than Damien, but he’s never struck me as the shy, retiring type. At Club M, he was the more dominant of the two. He was the one with the fiendish imagination. The one who tied me up, spread my legs wide, put a vibrator between my legs, set an hourglass in front of my face, and told me that I had to hold back my orgasm until the sand had fallen to the lower bulb. What’s changed now? “Why do you think your needs aren’t important?”
He doesn’t meet my gaze. He chops a tomato with swift, efficient strokes and then moves on to a cucumber, dicing it into squares. It’s clear that he knows his way around a kitchen.
It’s also clear he’s not going to answer my question.
“I don’t want you to go.”