When she speaks, her mouth moves against the material of my T-shirt. “Can I stay in here? There are no curtains in my room.”
“Yes.”
I know what you’re thinking. My agreement was a little too quick. Yes, I am a bastard, but not the brand of bastard that would use a girl’s fear to get her panties off. And coincidentally, her panties are the only thing I’d need to take off, because that’s all she’s wearing. If the staff hadn’t gone home hours ago, I would be in a rage over her walking through the house almost completely naked, but as it is, we’re alone. We’re alone and her nipples are in such hard points, I can feel them through my shirt.
“Go get under the covers,” I instruct hoarsely.
Veda looks at me curiously, but does as she’s told, crawling across the mattress without a hint of self-consciousness and settling into the wealth of pillows and sheets, looking so at home my throat hurts. When I climb in beside her, she turns onto her side, tucking her hands beneath her cheek. “How many women have you had in your bed?”
“Veda.”
She purses her lips at my warning and raises a feminine eyebrow. “How many girls?”
Beneath the covers, you know I’m hard as a rock but I make sure not to betray the excessive arousal on my face. “One. One girl.”
With a little purr, she rubs her thighs together, eliciting the whisper-soft sound of silk caressing silk. I can no longer tell if she’s knowingly seductive or if she was just born this achingly sensual creature and can’t turn it off. “I thought you would come to my room when you got home.” Genuine curiosity flits into her gaze. “Why didn’t you?”
I picture her lying there in the flashes of white, naked, watching for the door to open and I barely stifle a groan. “You didn’t move in here for the purpose of my…comfort.”
“You mean sex,” she whispers.
“Yes,” I rasp. “I mean sex.”
I can see that I’ve surprised her, but she’s not ready to believe me yet. A fact that is confirmed when she rolls over onto her back and she stretches out like a contented cat, hollowing the valley of her stomach, angling her tits up toward the ceiling, arms flung above her head. “So you’re just going to stay on your side of the bed?”
“You’re enjoying this aren’t you?” I growl, my hands fisting in the sheets, a bead of moisture rolling from the tip of my elongated cock, down to the base.
“Maybe a little.” She yawns. “Maybe I think you’ve been given too much power and it’s nice to be given some in return.”
God, she’s a crafty little thing and I know that’s probably part of my fascination. With Veda, there is more than meets the eye. “I haven’t been given power,” I enunciate. “I’ve taken it.”
“Like you’ve taken me?”
Thunder booms outside and it leaves a deafening silence in its wake, except for the pounding in my ears. Before I can respond, a mischievous smile transforms her face and she tosses a pillow in my direction. I catch it in mid-air, very aware that this high school student thinks she can play games with me—one of the most powerful men in New York—and it’s not going to happen.
You’re even more handsome in the light…I can’t think straight around you…the more time I spend around you, the less I’m going to care.
I never put much stock in how women react to my appearance, but in Veda’s case, I care. If she’s even a fraction as attracted to me as I am to her, she’s affected. If I have to use that attraction as a means of reminding her I’m not one of the boys who probably beg to do her bidding on a regular basis, so be it.
When I reach out, allowing my hand to hover over her breasts, she visibly braces, her brow wrinkling when I merely pinch the gold locket she’s wearing between my fingers. “Who gave this to you?”
I’m already bracing for another bout of jealousy, but her words calm me. “It belonged to my mother,” she murmurs. “We couldn’t always afford nice things, but we saved up enough to buy this one year for Mother’s Day. She gave it to me before she died.”
The importance of the jewelry is threaded in her voice, so I lay the necklace down again gently, nearly hissing a breath when my knuckle grazes her warm skin. “Are you similar to your mother?”
She doesn’t answer for a long time and when she does, her words almost get swallowed by the storm. “If you mean, were we both kept under lock and key…yes. My father was overprotective over both of us.”
Gratefulness isn’t an emotion I’m familiar with, but just then, I’m feeling it toward Veda’s father. But it’s mixed with restlessness. I don’t like knowing she’s spent any amount of time in discontent. I’ll change that. “His intentions were to keep you safe, were they not?”