wrong about that. Especially now that I’ve met her,” I say. “I’d be imagining her looking at me disapprovingly for messing up the linens the whole time. A real mood killer.”
First he laughs, then he frowns. “Hold up, sex? Who said anything about that?”
“It isn’t what you had in mind?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Oh. I thought ‘comfort you’ was a euphemism.”
“What a dirty mind you have. Not to mention checking for locks on the door. Who even does that?”
“Sorry.”
“Look, Alice,” he says, face set in the most serious of expressions. “Don’t get me wrong. I really like you as a person. I just don’t feel as if we’re quite there yet.”
“You don’t, huh?”
“No.”
“And yet I’m meant to be moving permanently to Denver now at your say-so. Okay, then. My bad.” My brows rise. “Wow. How awkward.”
“Us being in the same city and having sex are two very different things. And don’t be embarrassed.” He sighs. “It’s just, if we rush in…”
“Yes?”
“Taking it slow is best, letting the emotions and connection between us build.” This is all said with various complex hand gestures. A kind of rolling and turning motion. Not really sure what any of it means. Where does the playful banter end and the truth begin? Or maybe I’m just not used to anyone wanting to attempt serious and slow with me. In today’s dating world, it is kind of an outdated notion. Especially around about the time he flies me a couple of states in a private jet. “So, Alice, would you care to cuddle? It’s just like hugging only done horizontally.”
“Sure. That sounds nice.”
I settle in beside him on the bed. The empty bottle of red wine sits abandoned on the bedside table. Beck slides one arm beneath my neck, the other over my hip. Both urge me closer. He smells good. But then he always smells good. The heat of his body and the small smile he gives me are all so deeply personal. Just for me. It’s like we’re back in our own little bubble and nothing else matters. Despite the luxury accommodations.
“Hey,” he says, voice deep and low.
“Hi.”
I slide my palm over his chest, fingers toying with his black silk tie. One of his hands slides down, over my hip and onto my thigh. Low enough to draw my knee over to rest on his leg. We’re basically plastered all over each other from top to toe. With the tip of a finger, he draws circles on my back. It’s relaxing. The cadence of my breath soon matches his. In and out, nice and easy. We’re a world away from the tension that was running through him downstairs.
“Comfortable?” he asks.
“Very.” I smile, inching a little closer. “You were telling me about Jack and his amazing marriage.”
He stares up at the ceiling. “Not really much more to say. She came from old money, but a dwindling fortune. He had no pedigree, but serious cash. It was a match made in capitalist heaven. They tolerated each other enough to produce Jack Junior and he in turn fathered the rest of us. More money was made. More friends were lost. So on and so forth. On and on it goes.”
“And this is where you grew up? Among all of this grandeur?”
“Some of the time,” he says. “Mom was a model. She was from Denmark originally.”
“Hold up. Your mom is Lise Olson?”
“Heard of her, huh?”
Shit. “Just a little. She was in all the fashion magazines my mom used to buy when I was growing up.” Mom would never have been able to buy any of the brands we used to lust after—not with what she had to squirrel away for my college fund. But at least she could afford the magazines, and we spent more than a few evenings sighing and dreaming over them.
“That’s her,” he confirms. “The amount of fellow students at boarding school who kept pictures of her under their beds was…disturbing to say the least.”
“Ew.”
“You said it.” He sighs. There’s been a lot of sighing today. “Anyway, she and Dad got involved. When Rachel, Ethan and Emma’s mom, found out about it, she divorced him. By then, Mom was pregnant with me. Accident or not, who knows? But I had the distinction of being the first and only family bastard of the last few generations.”
“People still care about that sort of thing?”
“Some do,” he says. “They didn’t last long together. With the proviso that I took on the family name, Dad set her up in a flashy New