Rock Me Deeper (Licks of Leather #5) - Jenna Jacob Page 0,11
mostly I was tired of the uncomfortable awkwardness filling the space between us.
Oh, I’d spent years dreaming of ways to inflict him with twice the heartache and misery he’d caused me. But it all felt pointless now. Syd’s actions tonight had snuffed out the decade-plus fire and retribution that had been burning in my soul.
Without asking for anything in return Syd had saved me from Zattman’s house of torture and certain death. Saved me from Monica’s betrayal. Saved me the embarrassment of strolling through the lobby of a five-star hotel in a blood-crusted sheet and offered me safe shelter for the night.
We’d been inseparable and hopelessly in love when we were young. But time and circumstance had changed us, changed everything between us. Though I’d never been able to erase my time with Syd, I wanted to try to close and lock that door for now. Maybe then we could forge some middle ground for the few hours we had left together. And if I was lucky, when the sun came up, I’d finally be able to put the past behind me, where it belonged.
“Hard to believe, right?” He flashed the same crooked smile that had always turned me inside out. It still did. My heart fluttered and my stomach tumbled, as if the empty years between us didn’t exist.
Great. One smile and I’m already picking the lock and kicking in the door.
Syd slowed to a stop and pulled a key card from his pocket. After swiping it through the lock, he ushered me inside his suite. My mouth nearly hit the floor as he led me across the glossy hardwoods, past the stately beige Grecian pillars and enormous green, leafy palms nearly touching the intricately carved coffered ceiling.
“Good god,” I whispered, feeling as if I’d stepped inside a flipping museum.
“It’s way over-the-top, I know. But…” Syd shrugged.
“You live like this all the time?”
“No. I stay in places like this. I live…well, I move around a lot.”
His veiled reply piqued my curiosity. “Don’t you have a house?”
“I do. I have a place in Michigan. It’s on the lake, but I don’t stay there often,” he replied before leading me through a formal living room with twin gold-toned couches topped with tufted accent pillows, a square glass coffee table, and a pair of ivory low-backed chairs.
Lost in a daze, it was all I could do to keep from leaving a trail of drool over the hardwoods. I drank in every detail as we passed a formal dining room and its massive, polished mahogany table and chairs, a smallish kitchen with shimmering appliances and dark-colored granite countertops, and through a lavish bedroom with gauzy curtains draping the corners of a huge king-sized four-poster bed.
“Will this room be okay for you?” Syd asked as he stepped inside another extravagant bedroom.
The space was nearly double the size of my first apartment and a million times more opulent. There was a sitting room with a plush loveseat splashed in red and black. A low, glass-topped pedestal table with an arrangement of white fresh-cut roses in the center. Behind them along the wall was a pair of French doors that opened to an actual balcony. Trying to digest the grandeur, I turned and sucked in a sharp breath when I caught sight of the ensuite adorned in black and gold. It had both a spacious glass shower with at least a dozen nozzles I could all but feel massaging my skin and a huge soaker tub surrounded with cream-colored candles and more vases of fresh-cut white roses.
“Okay?” I scoffed. “I feel like I’ve stepped onto the pages of a magazine. Yeah, Syd, this is way better than okay.”
“Great.” He rocked back on his heels and shoved his hands in his pockets. It was the first time I’d ever seen Syd acting nervous. Why? I had no clue, but I found it endearing as hell. “Okay, well, while you shower, I’ll go ahead and order us some food. What sounds good?”
“Anything will be fine. I’m not picky. You know that.”
He sobered and gazed into my eyes with such intensity I could almost feel him climbing into my soul. “You should be, angel. You should be picky as fuck about everything.”
I sent him a weak smile. “Come on, Syd. You know I don’t have that luxury.”
“You could. You could have this”—he waved his hand around the room—"and more if you’d give me a second—”
“Stop,” I blurted, panic spiking through every cell in my body. “Don’t. Please don’t suggest—”