‘I didn’t let him, and I don’t remember agreeing to you bringing me here.’
‘I don’t expect you to remember a lot.’ He leans down and bites my nose. ‘You threw up all over me and my new club; you fell over, more than once; and I had to stop the car twice for you to be sick. And you still managed to vomit in my Mercedes.’ He kisses my nose while I concentrate on cringing, mortified. ‘You then decorated the floor in the lobby of my apartment block and the floor of my kitchen.’
‘Sorry,’ I whisper. I must have sent him into a tailspin with his cleaning habits.
‘You’re forgiven.’ He sits up and pulls me onto his lap. ‘My pure, sweet girl turned into the devil last night.’
Another memory is jolted. My Livy. ‘Your fault,’ I repeat, because there’s nothing else I can claim, apart from it being my fault, which it is, partly.
‘So you keep saying.’ He stands and places me on my unstable feet. ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’
I try to focus on him, annoyed my clouded, post-drunken vision isn’t allowing me to absorb him all. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ll give you the bad news.’ He gathers my hair and rests it neatly down my back. ‘You had one dress and you’ve vomited all over it, so you have no clothes.’
I look down, finding I’m completely nude, not even knickers, and I doubt the vomit reached those.
‘They were lovely, but I prefer you naked.’
I glance up and find a knowing look. ‘You’ve washed my clothes, haven’t you?’
‘Your lovely new knickers, yes. They’re in the drawer. Your dress, on the other hand, was rather soiled and needed soaking.’
‘What’s the good news?’ I ask, slightly embarrassed by his acknowledgment of my new underwear and reminder of my vomiting episode.
‘The good news is that you don’t need them because we’re broccoli today.’
‘We’re broccoli?’
‘Yes, like veg.’
I smile my amusement. ‘We’re going to veg like broccoli?’
‘No, you’ve got it all wrong.’ He shakes his head a little. ‘We lie like broccoli.’
‘So we’re vegetables?’
‘Yes,’ he sighs, exasperated. ‘We’re going to veg all day, making us broccoli.’
‘I’d like to be a carrot.’
‘You can’t lie like a carrot.’
‘Or a turnip. How about a turnip?’
‘Livy,’ he warns.
‘No, scrap that. I would definitely like to be a courgette.’
He shakes his head on an eye roll. ‘We’re going to slob out all day.’
‘I want to veg.’ I grin, but he doesn’t give me anything. ‘Okay, I’ll lie like broccoli with you,’ I relent. ‘I’ll be whatever you’d like me to be.’
‘How about less irritating?’ he asks seriously.
I have a raging hangover, and I’m a little confused by how I came to be here, but he’s smiled at me, said some meaningful words, and he’s planning a whole day with me. I don’t care whether he laughs or smiles any more, or if he doesn’t engage with me when I’m trying to be playful. He’s too serious and there’s no sign of a sense of humour, but despite his clipped manner, I still find him impossibly captivating. I can’t stay away from him. He’s alluring and addictive, and as he glances down at his watch, I remember something else . . .
I think you know that I want more than four hours.
The memory thrills me. How long is more? And will he backtrack on that . . . again? Another image worms its way into my fuzzy mind – an image of pursed cherry-red lips and a stunned face. She’s beautiful, well-maintained, classy. She’s everything I would expect a man like Miller to go for.
‘You okay?’ Miller’s concerned tone pulls me from my thoughts.
I nod. ‘I’m sorry for vomiting everywhere,’ I say sincerely, thinking a woman like Miller’s business associate wouldn’t do something so lowly.
‘I’ve already forgiven you.’ He takes my neck and guides me to the bathroom. ‘I tried to brush your teeth last night, but you refused to hold still.’
I’m squirming, thinking it best that I can’t remember half of the evening. The things that I can are not making me feel any better about the stuff that I can’t – Gregory and Ben, for a start. ‘I need to call Gregory.’
‘No you don’t.’ He hands me a toothbrush. ‘He knows where you are and that you’re okay.’
‘He took your word for it?’ I ask, surprised, their heated words coming back to me.
‘I’m not compelled to explain myself to the man who encouraged your reckless behaviour.’ He puts some paste on the brush before putting it back in the cupboard behind the giant mirror that’s hanging over the sink. ‘But I did explain myself to your grandmother.’
‘You called her?’ I ask warily, wondering what he means by explaining himself. Explain that he’s moody, that he’s playing with my heart and sanity?
‘I did.’ He takes my hand and leads it to my mouth, encouraging me to brush. ‘We had a nice conversation.’
I put the brush in my mouth and start circling, just to stop myself from probing him on how that conversation went. But my face must be revealing pure curiosity, even though I have no desire to know what they spoke about.
‘She asked me if I’m married,’ he muses, making my eyes widen. ‘And once we’d cleared that up, she told me a few things.’
My brush slows in my mouth. What has she told him, damn her? ‘What did she tell you?’ The question I really don’t want to know the answer to just slips past my paste and brush.
‘She mentioned your mother, and I told her you’d already shared that with me.’ He stares thoughtfully at me, and I tense, feeling exposed. ‘Then she mentioned that you disappeared for a time.’
My heart starts a relentless, nervous beat in my chest. I feel mad. It’s not Nan’s place to share my history with anyone, least of all with a man that she’s met a handful of times. It’s my story to tell, if I want to tell it. And I don’t. That part I never want to share. I spit my toothpaste out and rinse, dying to escape the intensity of his inquisitive stare.
‘Where are you going?’ he asks as I leave the bathroom. ‘Livy, wait a minute.’
‘Where are my clothes?’ I don’t bother waiting for his answer, instead heading for the drawers, kneeling and pulling open the bottom one, then finding my bag, knickers and shoes.
He reaches me and pushes the drawer shut with his foot, then pulls me to my feet. I keep my head lowered, my hair tumbling all over my chest and face, giving me the perfect hiding place, until he removes it and lifts my chin, exposing me to curious eyes. ‘Why are you hiding from me?’
I don’t speak because I have no answer. He’s looking at me all sorrowful, which I hate. The mention of my mother and my disappearance has brought every second of last night flooding back, every single detail, every drink, every action . . . everything.
When he realises that he’s going to get nothing, he picks me up and takes me back to his bed, gently easing me down to my back and kneeling to push his shorts down his thighs. ‘I will never force you to do anything I know you don’t want to.’ He dips and kisses my hipbone, the feel of his slow moving mouth on my sensitive skin immediately chasing away my woes. ‘Please understand. I’m going nowhere, and neither are you.’ He’s trying to reassure me, but I’ve already shared enough.
My eyes close and I let him take me to that wonderful place where anguish, self-torture, and histories do not exist. Miller’s realm.
I can feel his lips climbing up my body, leaving a scorching trail in their wake. ‘Please let me take a shower,’ I plead, not wanting to stop this, but also not relishing the thought of him worshipping my post-drunken body.
‘I showered you last night, Livy.’ He reaches my mouth and pays some attention to my lips before pulling back to look down at me. ‘I washed you, stripped your face back to the beauty I love, and I savoured every moment of it.’
My breath hitches at the word ‘love’. He said the word love, and I’m so disappointed that I missed him doing all of those things. He looked after me, even after my appalling performance last night.
Taking my hair, he lifts it, and I register the absence of straight, glossy locks, my usual wild waves back where they belong. He holds it to his nose and inhales deeply. Then he takes my hand and shows me my bare nails, no red nail polish in sight. ‘Pure, unspoilt beauty.’
‘You dried my hair and removed my polish? You keep nail polish remover?’
His lips tip. ‘I may have detoured to a twenty-four-hour store.’ He lifts to his knees, reaching over to the bedside cabinet to pick up a condom. ‘We needed to stock up on these, anyway.’
The mental image of Miller scanning the aisles of a shop for nail polish remover makes me smile. ‘Nail polish remover and condoms?’
He doesn’t entertain my amusement. ‘Shall we?’ he asks, ripping it open with his teeth and sliding it out.
‘Please,’ I breathe, not caring if I sound like I’m begging. We don’t have a time constraint, there’s really no rush, but I desperately want him.
He takes hold of his arousal on a small hiss and rolls on the condom before pushing me onto my front and spreading his body all over me. ‘From behind,’ he whispers, guiding one of my legs out and bending it upwards, opening me up to him. ‘Comfortable?’
‘Yes.’
‘Happy?’
‘I am.’
‘How do I make you feel, Livy?’ He shifts down my back and bites at my bottom, moulding my cheeks as he sucks and licks. ‘Tell me.’
‘Alive.’ I exhale the word on a fast rush of breath, turning my face outwards, as he climbs back up my body and sinks straight into me, making no noise whatsoever, whereas I cry out. ‘Miller!’
‘Shhhh, let me taste you.’ He hovers his mouth over mine, keeping his body still. My cheek on the pillow pushes forward to capture his lips, meeting him harder than I intended to. ‘Savoured, Livy. Never rushed.’ He takes over the speed, calming my frantic mouth with his gentle pace. ‘See? Slowly.’
‘I want you.’ I raise my bum, impatient. ‘Miller, I want you, please.’
‘Then you’ll have me.’ He retreats and drives forward slowly on a suppressed moan into my mouth. ‘Tell me what you want, Livy. Anything you want.’
‘Faster.’ I bite down on his lip, knowing there’s some ferocity in there somewhere. He always insists on taking it so slow, but I want to experience everything that he has to give. I want his moodiness and arrogance when he takes me. He pushes me to it, makes me crazy with desire, yet always keeps his head and control.
‘I’ve told you before, I like to take my time with you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you deserve to be worshipped.’ He pushes himself up and slips out, sitting back on his heels before grasping at my h*ps and pulling me up. ‘You want deeper penetration?’ I’m on my knees, my back still to him. ‘Let’s see if we can satisfy you this way.’
I look over my shoulder to see him holding himself upright, looking down, the sight of his rippling stomach beyond the solid column of muscle he’s holding making me pant.
‘Rise and move back.’ He pulls on my hip, guiding me to him, until my kneeling body is straddling his lap. ‘Lower gently.’
My eyes close as I sink down onto him. ‘Ohhhhh,’ I groan, feeling him impale me, each fraction I lower pushing him deeper and deeper until I have to hold myself on my knees and take some steadying breaths. ‘Too deep,’ I pant. ‘It’s too deep.’
