I held my breath and nodded.
“Have a care, Olivia.”
More honesty.
I’d mentioned David’s name. And Dad.
There were things he could read in that but David was the legitimate side of the business. No one would have interest in that.
But still, what Nick said was the first indication he gave that he wasn’t just out for a fuck or whatever else he could get from me.
But that he was looking out for me.
I stared into his eyes.
Then I lunged.
I did not need years of visits with a psychologist to explain to me that I had zero control in my life so that was why I liked control in bed.
The partners I’d chosen, none of them had seemed to mind. All of them had seemed to like it. They had provided varying degrees of pleasure depending on their talents. They appeared to receive the same.
It wouldn’t matter if they didn’t. I never saw them again so their opinion of my performance meant nothing to me.
The battle for control with Nick was entirely different.
There weren’t varying degrees of pleasure.
There were varying degrees of dizzying pleasure.
Everything was a contest from kisses to touches to the ultimate fuck, with each contest having two opponents.
And two winners.
I’d spent the last four evenings banging Nick Sebring, and until last night, getting dressed when it was smart and getting the hell out.
But that morning, in the light of day, both of us naked, Nick talking quietly on the phone to order breakfast that included champagne, seeing his grin, our banter of the night before I knew I shouldn’t engage in but couldn’t help myself, falling asleep under him, something else I knew I shouldn’t allow but I didn’t stop—our fucking went manic.
For my part, I needed that time to turn things back. To reduce him to a tool, a length of warm, hard flesh, a stiff cock, all there simply to get me off.
This was what I always tried to achieve with Nick. Effort that was wasted because I spent every moment between being with him until being with him again thinking about being with him.
I suspected his game was much different. I didn’t know his game but I knew there was one. I was not just a fuck. But I was also not the woman he intended to take to dinner with his brother and his family either. If I was, we wouldn’t be meeting at a hotel. If I was, he’d ask me out to another type of dinner, a getting-to-know-you one.
So that morning, in the light of day, I had to win. I had to reduce him to a length of warm, hard flesh, a stiff cock and nothing else in a way I could keep him in that place until this was over.
If I didn’t, over coffee, champagne and a fruit plate, all would be lost because I would get lost in the desperate desire to swim forever in Nick Sebring’s eyes.
And as we engaged in our intimate war, Nick played safe like he always played safe.
Bigger and stronger than me, he could overpower me easily and make this a scene I would not enjoy.
He never did that unless it was safe for him (which meant safe for me) to win his point.
As for me, I always took advantage of this handicap.
Like I did then after we both tired of the scrimmage. Ready for more, I got him to his back and climbed on top.
I tried to ignore the beauty of his collarbone carved in a wide rise on either side of the apex of his throat. The smooth, sculpted bulges of his pectorals. The rippled swells of muscle over ribs. The flat but indented plain of his stomach and downward pointing angularity of his hip muscles that led to the spread of dark hair that fed to then bedded the root of his perfectly formed cock.