Текст книги "Slut"

Автор книги: Jettie Woodruff

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Eleven

Paxton wasn’t kidding when he said he had guys coming to help him close off my doors. That’s what I woke to. A grinding saw, echoing through the house.

I looked to his side of the empty bed and to the clock. “Seriously?” I said out loud. It was barely eight in the morning, and Paxton was sawing the house in half. On a Saturday to boot.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he had Rowan and Phi helping. I could see them as soon as I walked out to the balcony, both carrying debris to a wagon parked right in the middle of the tiled patio, pieces falling into the pool. I tucked the sheet underneath my armpits and yelled down. Five times.

“Paxton!” I yelled just as he shut the saw off.

“What?” He questioned, safety glasses flipping to the top of his head while he looked at me like I was the silly one.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh hey, Mrs. Pierce,” Pete said, eyes peering up from below me.

With a polite nod to Pete, I tightened my sheet and glared down at Paxton. “I thought we were going to talk about this. Don’t you think you’re rushing it?”

“Look, Mom. We’re helping, and then Daddy is going to let us paint,” Phi called up with a hand over her eyes.

Paxton turned to Ophelia, carrying a brick to the wagon. “Not today. We have to let the mud dry first, remember?” He questioned before turning back to me. Phi ignored him when Rowan told her that her brick was bigger. “What did we need to talk about? I don’t get it.”

I groaned and walked inside and slid on a pair of his boxer shorts and a t-shirt. Jumbled thoughts of why I was so mad filled my mind while I rolled the top down on my shorts and descended the stairs.

Seeing the mess seared my rage even more. We had someone from state coming in one day and Paxton decided to tear up the house. All of the clothes from my closet were piled in three piles on our dining room table, my drawers full of clothes were stacked in three stacks, and boxes of who knew what splattered the floor. My bathroom things, all my makeup, my shoes, everything took up the entire dining area, and a thick layer of dust, blanketed everything. I turned in a circle, shaking my hair with my fingers. A failed attempt to calm down.

“Jesus, Gabriella. When the hell did you get so goddamn beautiful?”

“What?” I questioned with an instant sense of gratification.

“You’re fucking gorgeous. Why didn’t I see that before?”

I couldn’t help it. I cracked like an uncooked egg, the smile a dead giveaway. “Because you’re an idiot, and I’m not trying to be beautiful. I’m trying to be pissed off at you. What the hell are you doing, Paxton?”

“I told you this was happening.”

“I didn’t think you meant tomorrow, Saturday,” I said while I tried to remember the conversation. Did he say tomorrow? “You can’t just pack all my stuff and throw it out like this. We don’t have time for this.”

“Yes we do. You didn’t want me to get dust all over your stuff, did you?”

I couldn’t even think straight yet. Everything in sight was dusty. “I have to get coffee.”

Paxton stopped me when I tried to sidestep him and the mess he had made. On the wrong Saturday! “There’s plenty of time, Gabriella. I’ll help you move your stuff up to our room tonight, and we’ll go shopping for Vander tomorrow.”

Our room, that’s the only thing I heard. “You can’t just do this. I never even said I wanted any of this.”

“Vander? You don’t want Van?”

“Of course I do, but you don’t know that is even going to happen. I never even said I would sleep in the same bed with you. Paxton, no. You’re going too fast.”

“Too fast? I’m doing this for you, Gabriella. I’m trying like fuck to make things right with you.”

“Paxton, you haven’t even given me time to process the whole Lane thing. Would you have ever told me had I not found out?”

Paxton shook his head in disbelief. “Why do you have to ruin it, Gabriella?”

“Ruin it? Hmm, okay. I’m just going to go get coffee before this turns into something nasty. I’ve already got a bad taste in my mouth.”

“I don’t get it. Last night you were fine, sitting on my face and fucking my brains out. You didn’t seem to have a problem with that last night. What the fuck, Gabriella? What the fuck do you want me to do?”

“Watch your mouth for one thing,” I said with a glare, ducking around him in search of the girls. I looked up to him, placing my fists on my hips. “Look, I know this is an adjustment for you, too, but you gotta see things from my side. Jesus Paxton, you guys used me like some slut you picked up from a bar.”

“No, from a beach. I did think you were a slut. You never said no, Gabriella. Not once did you say no.”

“I was scared, Pax.”

“You say that like you remember it.”

“No, I say it like I feel it. You treated me like trash.”

Paxton moaned while the back of his head banged off the wall in frustration. Like he had anything to be frustrated about. I was the one he treated like a slut. “I treated you like that because you let me, because the fear in your eyes ignited every fire in me, and you asked for it.”

That pissed me off. “I asked for it. Oh, okay, well, since I asked for it.”

“Fuck this, Gabriella. I’m trying to show you how much you’re igniting the fire in me now. Can’t that be enough?”

My eyes narrowed on him while I contemplated his words. “You mean because you were getting bored with me before? What happens when you get bored the next time? Maybe I’ll get my memory back and that’ll keep you entertained for a little while?”

Paxton didn’t say another word. The veins in his neck didn’t pop out like they normally did, but I did see his fingers twitching. I wasn’t scared though. I’d felt them around my throat enough to know it was only a threat. He wouldn’t hurt me. He didn’t even speak. He grumbled some sort of incoherent language under his breath and walked away.

“Hey,” I called after him.

Paxton turned to me without a word. I think that was one of those times where the rule about not saying anything if you didn’t have anything nice to say was applied.

“I didn’t sit on your face last night.”

“You do listen,” he admitted, winked at me, and walked away.

I scratched my head, staring after him, and then groaned. My first stop had to be coffee. Just looking at the mess Paxton made gave me anxiety.

The first part of my morning was spent in Paxton’s room. Our room. I moved his things from both walk-ins to one. What else was I supposed to do? It wasn’t like any of it was mine if we quit anyway. Paxton wouldn’t give me a pair of shoes, let alone an entire wardrobe.

Sliding the last box from the shelf of my new closet, I dropped it when Paxton spoke.

“Wow, just move right on in,” he teased in playful voice, Rowan and Phi right behind him.

I started to scold him for scaring the hell out of me when I knelt to pick up the box, but stopped, frozen in my tracks. I shifted my gaze back to his somber face and to the girls. Both of them held onto the middle bar in the closet and did backflips.

“You went after it?” I questioned while sliding the golden envelope from the box. I knew it was the one from the cottage without a doubt.

“I didn’t open it yet,” he assured me.

“What is it?” Phi wanted to know.

I turned to them and frowned, pulling their dirty little hands from the empty bar. “What are you doing? Stop that. You’re filthy. Look at the handprints all over the wall. Go wash-up.”

“What is it though, Mom?” Phi questioned again.

I swatted her butt and told her it was adult stuff, and she walked away, following Rowan out with her dislike of adult stuff.

“When did you get this, Pax?”

“The same day you told me about it.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. I swear I didn’t look. I had all intentions of it, but I stopped myself. We’ll look together.”

“Now?”

“No, I have to get through this thing with Van first. You hid it there, not me.”

“What does that mean? You’re afraid if you look now, you’ll stop. You won’t want Vander?”

“No, that’s not it.”

“You’re afraid you won’t want me?”

“Gabriella, this is a lot of shit. You’re not the only victim here.”

“Now I’m a victim?” I questioned while calling him out on his own words. He’d just insisted that I stop playing the victim the night before.

“Give it to me. I’ll put it in the office until we’re ready for that.”

I stood with the copper colored envelope, crisp and new. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been there long. “I want to see what’s in it.”

Paxton crossed his arms and leaned into the doorjamb. “I’m not going to tell you no, if that’s what you’re waiting on, Gabriella.”

My eyes shifted from his back to the hidden secret as a soft sigh echoed throughout the empty closest. Our eyes locked when I stepped toward him and shoved it into his chest. “You have no idea how hard this is. I know all the things I am learning are the truth, but I can’t remember them. I hid that there. I know I did, but I have no clue what’s in it. With the way things are, it could be anything.”

Paxton held my hand over his chest and spoke in a calm collective tone. “That’s why we’re not going to open another can right now. We have enough open. Vander. That’s it today. Getting ready for him. That’s all we’re focusing on. Let’s take the girls out for pizza and tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

“About Van. Let’s tell them why Daddy demolished your room today.”

“No, let’s not. What if it doesn’t happen, Pax? What if you’re doing all of this for nothing? They don’t just hand kids over to people they don’t know. I’m sure it doesn’t work like that.”

“It’s going to happen, Gabriella. Stop looking for things to fight against. There is absolutely no reason why they wouldn’t take a little boy out of the system to be with his family. You’re looking for problems.”

“I’m afraid to believe that, Paxton.”

“Believe it, baby. He’s going to be living here sooner rather than later.”

“How soon?”

Paxton shrugged both his shoulders and kissed my nose. “We’ll find out Monday. Come on. I want your opinion on the window seat.”

“Since when do you want my opinion?”

“Since I’m trying to make you happy.”

I smiled a little on that note. It was kind of hard not to. He was sort of cute in an asshole kind of way. “You hear all that laughter and water going on in your bathroom? That’s your mess.”

“Okay, I’ll go grab my two little messes and you clean up their mess. Love that idea. Come see what I’ve done.”

I stood on the tips of my toes, bringing my lips closer to his. “You’re a sneaky bastard, you know that? Very manipulative.”

“My specialty,” Paxton admitted with a grin. His tongue traced my bottom lip and slipped inside, once again, causing that sparkly feeling, right in the middle of my chest.

I kissed him back, leaning into his chest, expecting his body to hold me. It did, and I was hooked—again. I bit into his poisonous bullshit, hook, line, and sinker.

Giggling little girls separated our lips, and I pulled away, keeping my lips on his. “Stupid little fish.”

Paxton looked down at me with an instant frown when I stepped around him. “What? Why am I a stupid little fish? I don’t get it.”

I ushered the girls out of our bedroom, smiling at him over my shoulder. “I’m the stupid little fish.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“Forget it, Pax.”

“I have a fish. I got it from the animal bus,” Ophelia reminded us. That look over my shoulder was meant to be nasty. I missed that because I went to jail.

All in all the day turned out to be pretty okay. Other than Paxton’s quick window demolition, things went pretty smooth. The place he had used for the past five years didn’t have the window he wanted in the size that he wanted in stock. It wouldn’t be there until Tuesday. It wasn’t really a big deal though. At least the state people could see it was in the process. He just had to nail plywood in its place, and to my surprise, he wasn’t even a jerk about it. He was happy and playful the entire night.

Even after we had finished for the day, cleaned up, and were on our way to dinner, Paxton was playful, happy and in a good mood. He made it hard to be anything but that with him.

“I think we should get mommy a mini-Van,” he joked.

I frowned toward him, laughing at the hidden joke, and the girls, agreeing with the minivan.

“I’m not driving a minivan,” I assured him with warm fuzzy feeling. I was sort of in love with the moment, yet cautious. Trusting Paxton was hard for me. The man who drove his family out for pizza wasn’t the same man I’d left the hospital with. But…he was still there, and I knew this.

“I like to have a blue one, Mom. Hey, look, there’s a horse in there,” Ophelia called when we passed a truck pulling a trailer with a black horse, and just like that, the minivan was forgotten. Crazy kid.

Of course Rowan couldn’t just let it go with that. “That’s not a horse, it’s a pony, right, Dad?”

“It was a horse.”

“No it wasn’t. Horses are bigger.”

“Nuh-uh, Rowan. It just didn’t grow all the way up yet. It’s little like you.”

“I’m older than you.”

“But you’re not bigger.”

Paxton and I exchanged a glance right before he stopped the silly argument.

“Let’s go eat chicken,” he said through the rearview mirror.

I laughed when they simultaneously, yelled no.

“Chuckie Cheese,” they both agreed.

Paxton turned right, heading to Maria’s, his favorite pizza.

“Oh no, I said pizza, not Chuckie Cheese. I hate that place.”

“Well, we want to play there,” Phi whined.

I stared out the window, half listening after a sudden premonition, déjà vu. Like I’d already lived this scene in my life once. Only I was in the backseat. I was the one arguing.

“Gabby said we was bastards cause we don’t have a daddy. I’m not a bastard. Tell her I’m not one of those,” I complained from the backseat.

“Yes, you are. We both are. We don’t have a daddy.”

A truck squealed its tires behind us, blowing his horn when my mom whipped the car to the side of the road.

“You’re not bastards. You have a daddy.”

I blinked my eyes, trying to focus on Paxton.

“Hello?”

“Huh?”

“Where’d you go?”

“I—I’m not sure. I have a dad.”

“Um. Okay.”

Paxton derailed that one when the girls asked who my dad was. He talked about school instead, asking Rowan what she thought about skipping the first grade.

“I’m going to skip kindergarten, too,” Ophelia decided.

Again my attention ceased to be held on my family and the feud between my bickering little girls. Paxton explained to Phi how fun kindergarten was, and she changed her mind right quick. I stared at the guardrail, trying to get it back, the daze I needed more of.

I forgot all about it once we were seated at Chuckie Cheese, once again, falling for my man. Paxton was such a good guy. The kind of man women drooled over, the kind of daddy every wife wanted, the kind of lover that curled your toes. I smiled at him across the table, thinking about my silly observation, head shaking back and forth.

“What?” He instantly questioned.

I looked down to my cheese pizza, twirling cheese around my fork. “Nothing, it was just a fantasy.”

“What’s a fantasy?” Phi asked as she bit into her third slice of pizza.

Paxton looked over to Phi, and then right back to me. “Jesus, didn’t you feed that girl today?”

“I know, right?” I replied to Paxton and answered Phi’s question, staring right at him. “It’s make believe. A fantasy is something that isn’t real.”

Paxton narrowed his eyes on me, contemplating what I’d said. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t the truth. He knew it, too. There was no argument about him being able to shed his sheep’s clothes in the snap of a finger. I’d seen it many times over the past few months. One minute he was a soft and gentle like a sheep, and the next the wolf that ate the poor little lamb. Chewed up and spit out in the blink of an eye.

“My belly’s full,” Rowan announced with a hand swirling in small circles around her tummy.

“You can go,” I nodded while wiping sauce from the corner of her lip.

“And me too, Mommy?”

“Yes, are you done?”

“Yes, but I still want my drink. Don’t throw it away,” Ophelia called on the run, trying to beat Rowan.

I watched them run off while talking to Paxton like a normal conversation. “Watch, they both go straight for the rock wall, one hell-bent on beating the other one.” I sucked on my straw and turned to him when he didn’t respond. “What?”

“You think this isn’t real?”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the girls, Ophelia hitting the rock wall two steps in front of Row. “Don’t make that something, Paxton.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll just toss it into the conversation with the girls and you can decode it, okay?”

Why I felt guilty for anything I directed at him was beyond me, it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve every single bit of it, but I did. “I’m sorry,” I said while slipping my left shoe off, a cheesy attempt to flirt. I ran my toes up the leg of his jeans with a tilted head and a crooked smile.

“Do you think I don’t love you, Gabriella? I do. I’m not the type to sugarcoat my feelings. I don’t say shit I don’t mean.”

“Paxton, don’t make a big deal about it. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Why did you tell me you have a dad in the car?”

I blinked my eyes a couple times as the thought entered my mind. “I don’t know. It was a quick vision of me driving down a highway with my mom and sister. I was mad at Gabby for saying we were bastards because we didn’t have a dad. My mom jerked the car to the side of the road and turned to both of us, telling us we did have a dad, but that was it. That’s all I saw.”

Paxton stared at me with a concentrated glare.

“What?” I finally had to ask.

“Gabby? Gabby said you were bastards?”

“Yeah…” I said with a little sarcasm. That’s what I said.

“So you’re not Gabby? You just said it yourself.”

“Oh, my God, Paxton. Will you stop with that already? We were little, like Ophelia’s age. I would have been Izabella then. Do you really believe that? Tell me the truth. Do you honestly believe that I am not the Gabriella you married?”

“I mean, I have times when I don’t, and times when I do. If you are, you’ve—”

“Gabriella! Where’s Rowan and Ophelia?”

I turned to catch Chance with open arms and an excited expression. I hugged her because I wanted to, not because I had to. I sort of loved her, just not her mommy and daddy. The conversation going on between her parents was obvious over her shoulder. Candace wanted to leave while Lane tried to be civil.

“Hi, baby. How are you?”

“Good, I lost my front tooth, see?”

“You did? Rowan did, too. Same one.”

Chance’s eyes grew wide with her opened mouth. “She did? I’m going to go see.”

I turned my attention back to the glare on Paxton’s face. “Get the girls,” he ordered.

My hands went into the air, defensively, stopping him right there. “Oh no, I’m not doing it. They just got in there. You go get them. I’m scared.”

Paxton couldn’t help it. He snickered a little, and so did I. Tension eased between us with a simple smile and a look. A look that I didn’t understand, and I was pretty sure he didn’t either. An understanding that neither of us understood.

“Can I bribe them with ice-cream?”

“And putt-putt golf?”

“Humph,” he grunted as the idea sunk in. “I like it, I haven’t golfed in ages. Let’s do it partner.”

My heart exploded with glitter again, and I didn’t understand that either. One little word had the same effect on me as making love. Partner.

Fortunately, the bribe worked. Paxton lured them away from their friend and the play-place, dangling the carrot in front of their noses. Suckers.

Neither Candace nor Lane acknowledged that we were even there. Not even a glance. The girls and I said goodbye to Chance, but that was it. I didn’t even look their way.

Ice cream and miniature golf was the icing on the cake. Paxton sucked at aiming the ball, and he sucked at being a loser even more. I found it comical as did our giggling girls. Rowan and Phi were even better than him. Of course he let us all win. Of course.

The sun was just about to disappear for the day as we made our way back to the cul-de-sac. A burnt red sky paved the way, ending a pretty good day. I turned to the girls when I heard the click, knowing exactly what it was. Rowan sat behind her dad, Ophelia was behind me, and their hands rested in the middle. Magic stones coming together with a click, click, click, over and over while they stared out the window, lost in their own little worlds.

Paxton pulled his hand from his pocket, placing his hand on the center console, black stone in hand.

Crap.

“It’s at home on the nightstand,” I confessed with an apologetic smile.

“You suck at magic stones, just so you know.”

I chuckled and placed my hand over his stone, loving the way his fingers wrapped around my hand.

I did however have to go upstairs after my stone once the girls were bathed and settled into Rowan’s bed for a story. There was no way I could go to the shower without charging it with power. What was I thinking? I had suggested they power up with their dad while I soaked in a tub of bubbles. That didn’t go over well, but I didn’t stay long. I was serious when I said I wanted to go soak in a hot tub of lavender. My head hurt, but not bad, just a dull ache, enough to make me not feel the best.

I finally left them both with kisses half way into the book Rowan was engaged in reading. She really was quite the reader. Paxton had to help her sound a couple of the bigger words, but for being six, she killed it. Made me extremely proud.

“Keep reading, I’ll be right back.”

I stopped in the hall, knowing that break was for me. “You okay?”

I did try to hide that surprised look?

“What? You look like you don’t feel good.”

I shook my head a little and kissed him. “You didn’t ask me if I was okay when I couldn’t even stand for five minutes. I have a little headache and you’re concerned?”

“It’s never going to be real if you keep holding on to this stuff, Gabriella.”

I almost said something smart, something about him kicking my crutches out from under me when I couldn’t walk on my own, but I didn’t. “Yeah, you’re not the one that has to let it all go. It’s hard. I’m fine. I just have a little headache. I’m going to go soak in a hot bubble bath for a little while. Go finish up with the girls.”

Paxton stared at me briefly while taking in a long breath of air. “Go upstairs.”

“I want my tub.”

“That’s not your tub anymore. Go upstairs.”

“Okay, but I don’t want to do the video tonight.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t. We’ve had a good day. I don’t want to ruin it.”

“Dad, are you coming?” Rowan called from her knees, peeking out to the hall from the foot of her bed.

“Go read with them, I’ll see you in a little bit.”

“I’m coming,” Paxton said as he took my hand. Of course the magic in our hands had to click, two stones coming together as one. One step forward and I was against the wall with a knee pressed right between my legs. Instant euphoric endorphins rushed my body quicker than lightening. “Do you believe in magic, Gabriella,” he asked in that damn husky rasp he used, usually when he was inside of me. His tongue slid between my lips while his knee pressed harder into my suddenly awake clit. Traitor.

“Jesus, God, Pax,” I exclaimed with my hands flat on his chest, trying like hell to get him off of me.

The same sexy words were spoken warmly to my throat. “Continue on, Mrs. Pierce?”

I held in a moan when Paxton jerked my hair, forcing me to look up to him. “You better stop. I’m about to take my clothes off.

That cooled his attempt of being a dominant sex God long enough for me to get away from him. I sucked at playing games. I never won and just like always, I bit the hook, swallowing it whole. Dumb, dumb, fish.

Taking a bath in Paxton’s tub was going to take some getting used to. Not that it wasn’t nice, it was. It was just different. My body was used to the way mine fit. His was too long, and didn’t feel like it hugged me the way mine did. Or maybe I was just looking for every little thing I could find for this not to be real.

Real scared the hell out of me. What if it wasn’t real? Nonetheless, I soaked in the floral scent, relaxing just fine. The hot steam felt amazing on my body, but did little for the dull ache right behind my eyes.

I don’t know the exact time I stayed in the water, but it was long enough for my fingers to start wrinkling. I got out, wondering why Paxton hadn’t come up. It had to have been at least twenty-five minutes. I didn’t have those kids that went full force half the night. Neither one of them could make it past nine o’clock. Of course that was probably due to having Paxton as a father. Captain consistency.

I wrapped my head in a towel, cussing under my breath because I couldn’t find my favorite robe. The soft white one I’d just washed and hung on the back—I stopped looking and stopped cussing my husband when I remembered where it was. My guess was still on the hook, hanging on the back of the bathroom door. I slid on one of Paxton’s long t-shirts instead. Why he even had the shirt was beyond me. Something his guys got him for Christmas I presumed. I was sure he’d never worn the tacky blue shirt that said ‘I’m the boss’ in pink letters.

I stuck my head out from the railing, wondering where Paxton was when he still hadn’t come up. The light illuminating from his office explained why. I groaned while scrubbing my wet hair with the towel, and then descended the steps.

“What are you doing? I thought you were coming upstairs.”

Paxton looked over the frames of his glasses and smiled. “You think you’re the boss?”

I looked down at his shirt and smiled, too, almost forgetting that I had put it on. “Watcha doing?”

“Working, come here.”

“Why are you working on a Saturday night?”

Paxton shrugged and slid his chair back for me to sit. “I don’t know, I didn’t mean to be this long.”

I sat on his lap, pulled my knees to my chest, and looked at his screen. “Are you building that?” I questioned, seeing the pool on the screen.

“Yeah, and he wants a waterfall, guess how I’m doing it?”

“Recycled concrete and cement?”

“Yes, I love it. Best idea ever.”

“When are you going to build one for the girls?”

“You’re not wearing panties. I don’t know, maybe next month.”

“Didn’t think I needed them.”

“You don’t,” Paxton said with a kiss to my arm. His fingers ran back and forth over my inner thigh, close to my naked sex, but not touching me. Not quite. A soft touch to my lips now and then, but that was it.

“Let’s go to bed.”

“Mi sent you a message.”

I looked around, trying to remember where I had left my phone. “What did she say?”

“You left it on the island. She said hi, asked about the girls, and to check your email.”

“What’s in the email?”

“Nick, he doesn’t want you to hear this one, only me, and then I’m supposed to tell you from my side of things.”

“No, I don’t like that. We said we were doing this together. We’re watching it together.”

“I told him you would say that, he said to tell you that you’re going to get your turn, and you’re going to be happy you get to tell me your way.”

“No, Paxton. You won’t do that. You’ll tell me what you want me to hear, and then you’ll insist on watching it with me, or later.”

“You can’t watch it later. That’s why we have to log into this secret world of Nicks. I won’t, Gabriella. I swear.”

I closed my legs and dropped them over his, not liking it. I didn’t like it at all. “But why can’t I hear it with you? I mean I said it, that is me there telling Lane all my deep dark secrets. Not you.”

“I don’t know, but you’re the one who wanted to do this. Let’s just keep going. Go on up to bed. I’ll be up soon.”

“Are you going to watch it now?”

“Yes.”

“But now I want to have sex. Let’s do it first.”

Paxton stood with me, backed me against his desk, and pressed his hips into me. My legs wrapped around him all on their own, and the moan in his mouth was unforeseen. We made out with his hands touching me everywhere but where I needed, until he pulled away. He slid me back a little and opened my legs, placing my feet on each side, and pressing out on my knees.

“Sit there and behave for a minute. I’ve got to finish this up real quick.”

My endorphin injection suddenly ejected. The pitter patter I’d felt in my heart and the throb between my legs halted. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Isn’t that what you wanted? You wanted me to pay attention to your pussy? Right?”

“Well, I mean,” I started, ready to differentiate his version of that from mine.

Paxton stopped me from standing by coming to his feet again. “Don’t move, Gabriella. Stay right there, just like this. Got it, baby girl?” He questioned with words dripping sex appeal to my lips.

My heart picked up where it had left off while adrenaline rushed my veins, raging through my entire body. His teeth tugged lightly on my bottom lip, and then shoved into my mouth. The sudden jerk from a fistful of hair and his lips to my throat left me spinning in circles, wanting more. More that I didn’t get.

I whimpered, letting my legs fall open even more when Paxton sat back in his chair and ran a finger from my opening, to my throbbing little button, growing by the second. An instant wetness saturated me, and my body begged for more.

The smirk when he moved away from me was all too familiar. Only this time it sent a different kind of surge through me, excitement that I had never known before, or remembered anyway. Ten minutes I stayed right in front of him while he worked with a blueprint inches away from me. Our eyes locked here and there, his eyes dropped to my exposed sex, and twice he dipped a finger. I was going berserk.

“There, I like it,” he decided with a nod to his design as he came to his feet. One quick kiss and he pulled me to my feet. “Go upstairs, and get out of this shirt. I think I’ll take over the boss role. Okay?”

I nodded like a love sick school girl, unable to mutter a single word.

“That’s my girl,” he said with one crack to my ass.

That just intensified everything else going on in my body. I was ready to explode and he hadn’t even touched me yet. This was actually kind of perfect. We could have sex, he could go back downstairs and watch the stupid video, and I could sleep. Having the whole night to sleep on it made more sense anyway.

I tossed the shirt to the settee at the end of the bed and turned to the door closing. “No way. You’re joking,” I said as soon as I saw him. Those days were over. I wasn’t about to let him put that contraption on me.