Billion Dollar Beast - Olivia Hayle Page 0,51

me for my reputation. The name, the fame. They expect me to be dominant and harsh and big and strong. And for years, playing that role was enough. It was predictable. It was safe. It was shallow.

Blair is different. She’d laughed in bed with me tonight. Somehow, I was funny with her around. I go to bed with the scent of her hair still clinging to me and sleep deeper than I have in months. Funny how doing the wrong thing can feel so right.

When Cole had said that she used to have a crush on me…

The first thought was, What have I done? If this meant something to her—something real, something deep, something fragile—and I’d indulged in having her…

But she’d disavowed me of those illusions. She’d as good as admitted it was just one of Cole’s jokes. Exactly what I wanted to hear—I couldn’t in good conscience have followed her up if it’d been true. And yet, the first thing I’d felt when she said it hadn’t been triumph.

It had been disappointment.

17

Blair

“Come here.” The dark command in Nick’s voice is impossible to resist. I cross the living room to him, my hairbrush still in hand, and surprise him by climbing into his lap, one knee on either side.

“Are you going to make us late?” I ask.

“To an event I didn’t want to go to in the first place?” Nick reaches up and runs his fingers through my hair, undoing the hard work I’d just done with the large curling iron. “Yes.”

“Cole and Skye asked us both,” I point out.

“He asked me while I was half-dead, stumbling off the tennis court.” Nick’s eyes are locked on my neck as his thumb moves over my pulse. It quickens at his touch. “I’d near forgotten all about it until you reminded me yesterday.”

“Are you that against opera?”

“Can you even be against the opera? It’s not a cause you can champion.”

“Of course it is. That’s what Cole’s doing tonight,” I protest. My brother had donated generously to the Seattle Opera and was now rewarded with a private box on opening night. Although, knowing him, it had probably been for networking or business and not so much for a genuine love of the art.

“You blue bloods,” Nick says dryly. “I should never have gotten involved with you.”

I straighten the collar of his tux and enjoy the feel of his large body against mine, the touch casual and reassuring. My heart does a double-take when he presses a soft kiss to my cheek.

“Aren’t you happy you gave me a chance? I’m not so awful when you get to know me.”

He leans back against the couch and watches me through half-lidded eyes, large hands gripping my bare waist. My skin is still damp from the shower, dressed only in underwear.

“No,” he says. “You’re so much worse.”

I laugh. “Yes, I am. And you spent years disliking me in vain.”

“You thought I didn’t like you?”

I raise an eyebrow. “In eight years, you’ve never once responded to any of my attempts at friendship. None of my invitations to events. No attempts at conversation.”

Nick is quiet for a beat. His hands move instead, sending shivers across my skin as they trail my waist, my breasts, my shoulders. “It was simple self-preservation,” he says quietly. “Not dislike at all.”

My heart skips a beat.

The words hover on my tongue. You know that crush I said was over? Well, I am over it—it’s now full-blown infatuation.

But I can’t imagine anything that would make Nick run away from me faster. His lack of commitment is legendary.

“Self-preservation, huh.”

“Yes.” He leans forward and kisses my collarbone. “Which you should cultivate. If you want to make it to the opera in time, and if you are too tender, you should go get dressed before my self-restraint snaps completely.”

“I’m too tender?”

His fingers smooth up my inner thigh. “We did a lot of practicing yesterday. Aren’t you?”

I am, in fact, but admitting that… “Yes.”

“Then up you go. Put on a dress.”

But I don’t. My heart swells instead and I press my lips to the strong column of his throat. His skin is warm and I speak the thought aloud. “How come you’re always so warm?”

Big hands smooth over my back. “Go get dressed.”

“Come on.” I kiss my way up to his ear. “Tell me.”

“Why I’m warm?” There’s quiet amusement in his voice.

“Yes. I demand an explanation.”

His hands skate down the length of my arms with the lightest of touches. “Why are you so soft? It makes no sense. Skin