The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,49

out of all the places she could’ve gone today, she came to me. That’s got to mean something.

“I want to see your apartment.” She cracks the window, rolling it down two cranks. Enough cool air blows through that I catch whiffs of Demi’s shampoo, and it instantly makes me want to run my fingers through her hair.

“My apartment’s in Glidden,” I say. “Half hour there, half hour back.”

“Oh.” She stares into her lap at folded hands.

“I guess if we hurry.” I don’t like seeing her disappointed. “I can always stay a little later tonight and make up for it. My boss won’t mind.”

I don’t know that. I’m taking a gamble. But she’s fucking worth it.

Demi turns to me and nods. “Okay, cool. Show me your place.”

“So this is it.” I kick open the door to my studio.

Demi takes five steps in and already she’s in the middle. If my bed were down, she’d be standing on it.

“Smells good in here,” she says.

“Thanks.” Not like I can take the credit for that.

“It’s cozy.” Demi goes to the window and stares down at the Main Street traffic below. “And warm.”

“Home sweet home.” I plop down on a love seat against the wall. When my bed’s down, there’s barely enough room to pass between the two. Sometimes I like to pretend like this is really my living room and that my bedroom is in another part of the place. It’s silly, but it makes me feel like I’m not living in a shoebox sometimes. “Why’d you want to see this place anyway?”

Demi paces the small patch of carpet in front of me and shrugs.

“I don’t know. Just wanted to go somewhere I’ve never been before, I guess.” She gathers a handful of dark hair and twists it around her finger before letting it fall against her shoulder. She looks up at me, and our stares hold for a moment. “And it makes me feel like I’m filling in the gaps.”

“The gaps?”

“Yeah.” She moves closer, gingerly, and then takes the second square on the loveseat next to me. Bringing her legs in and tucking them beneath, she sits cross-legged within arm’s reach of me.

It’s hard not to touch her when she’s so close. My fingers twitch when I think about tracing the perfect cupid’s bow of her upper lip or running them through her silky hair.

“I want to know what you did these last seven years. Where you lived. Where you worked. What life was like for you,” she says. “Maybe it’s ridiculous and crazy, but I feel like it might help me to understand you better.”

I laugh, leaning back against the loveseat cushions and refusing to take her out of my sight. I could never tire of this—her—sitting in my apartment next to me.

“The only thing you need to know about my life the last seven years,” I say, “is that it’s been awful. It’s been terrible. And none of it mattered, because I didn’t have you.”

I hear her suck in a breath and hold it, and her eyes dance between mine. Without thinking, I slip my hands around her wrists and guide her into my lap. I’m a man with limited opportunities, so I’ll be damned if I squander this one.

My hands fall to her hips, resting on the curves as her hair curtains her pretty face.

“What are you doing, Royal?” Her voice is a mere whisper and half-broken.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

She sweeps the hair from her face and tucks it back. “Playing with fire.”

“Don’t act like you’re the innocent one in all this.”

My hands cup her face, bringing her lips to mine, and I steal a kiss. And another. She exhales, and her arms slip around my shoulders. Her body melts against me, and her hips rub against my pants just enough to send a quick throb to my cock.

I should be watching the clock, but fuck that shit.

My hands snake beneath her shirt, trailing up bare skin until I reach the cups of her bra. I guide my palms under, taking a handful of her perfect tits and biting her bottom lip between my teeth. She moans when I drag my fingertips around her pert nipples.

Pulling the fabric of her shirt above her head, I lift her bra until she’s exposed. She lifts on her knees until her pink buds are near my mouth. The raking of her fingertips against my scalp as my tongue circles her erect nipples is almost too much. My cock aches, throbs,