“Suck me off?” He reached down, putting his palm against her cheek. “I can wait. And you didn’t answer my question.”
God. He was relentless. “You didn’t ask a question.”
His thumb brushed over her cheek. “Why do you think asking me to give you pleasure is selfish?”
“It’s not. I don’t know what I’m talking about.” The gentle touch on her skin made her want to turn her cheek against his palm and rub against it, like a cat seeking to be petted.
“Did he not ask you? Or did he tell you that it wasn’t right to ask?”
Phoebe sighed and looked up at him. He was leaning over her, a wall of hard muscle and heat, one hand on the doorframe and the other cupping her face, an intent look in his eyes. As if he really wanted to know the answers, as if he was trying to understand her.
Don’t you want him to understand you?
Yes, she did. Because no one had ever wanted to, and no one else ever had.
“No.” That tightness inside her got even tighter. “Charles never told me that, and I didn’t ask because it was too hard. He tried to . . . give me pleasure but I could never . . . c-climax.”
Nero’s brows pulled down in a scowl. “Like I told you. He must have been doing something wrong because I have no problems with making you come.”
She flushed at the very male note of satisfaction in his voice, oddly pleased by it. “He got impatient,” she admitted, trying not to feel disloyal. “And it was easier to give him what he wanted. At least it made him happy and not just frustrated and angry.”
Nero said nothing for a long moment, studying her, his thumb brushing back and forth over her cheek. “It’s not only sex though. You don’t ask for anything for yourself. Why not?”
Well, that was a lie. “Of course, I ask for things for myself.”
“Really? Name one thing you’ve asked for since you came to work for me.”
She shifted against the doorframe. “Money is a good start.”
“Your salary comes in return for the work that you do. It’s not given to you.”
God, why did he want to know this stuff? Why was it important? Maybe she didn’t want him to know her after all. “I’m not sure I want to talk about this,” she muttered, glancing away. “I don’t see how it’s relevant.”
“Because I want to understand.” His fingers firmed on her cheek, gently drawing her gaze back to his. “I want to understand you.”
“Why?” The question was blunt and almost thrown at him, but she didn’t have it in her to say it any other way. “I’m only your personal assistant that you happen to be sleeping with. Why should you want to understand me?”
That look on his face was full of fierce concentration, as if she was an ancient text he was struggling to decode. “I don’t know,” he said, and she heard it then, the note of almost desperation in his voice. “I only know that I do.”
Chapter 10
Her skin was so soft against his palm and he could still taste her in his mouth, and he was so hard he hurt. And he didn’t know why he was talking to her when all he wanted to do was fuck her. But it felt like understanding her was more important. More important than anything.
He’d never felt this way about another human being before and he wasn’t sure he liked it. No, scratch that, he fucking hated it. But hating it didn’t stop the feeling inside him or the need. As if she was a strange and unknown country he was desperate to explore every inch of.
There was a look in her eyes that he couldn’t decipher, though it had a soft element to it that he felt like a caress. “There’s nothing much to know,” she said after a moment. “I’m just an English girl who fell in love with an American and came to live in New York. Full stop.”
“No, there’s more than that.” He knew that much. He could sense it. “Why did you come here?”
She opened her mouth and her stomach rumbled, making her blush suddenly.
Of course. Dinner. She needed to eat.
He pushed himself away from her, reaching into his pocket for his phone. “Tell me while I organize James to heat up the dinner.” He didn’t wait for her to respond, typing in a quick message to James to come and collect the plates. Then he turned back to her and slid an arm around her waist, drawing her away from the door and over to the couch.
She went with him without protest, leaning into him, which he liked. And when he sat down on the couch and pulled her down beside him, she didn’t resist.
Keeping an arm around her waist, he reached out to the bottle of wine he had brought up with the dinner and poured a glass. Then he sat back, tucking her in close to his body, because he wanted the warmth of her right next to him, and handed her the glass of wine. “Talk,” he ordered. “Why did you come to New York? Why didn’t you want to stay in London?”
Phoebe settled against him, nursing her wine glass. “Charles’s work was important, and he didn’t want to leave New York. And I thought I needed to get out of London for a bit.”
There was a slight catch in her voice. He stared down at her face, trying to work out whether it was pain he saw there or something else. “Why?”
She sighed. “My parents. My father is very . . . exacting, shall we say, and my mother is a bit of a basket case. She needs a lot of emotional support—which Dad doesn’t do—and so I had to provide it for her. It’s fine, I don’t mind doing that, but it got a little draining. So when Charles asked me to come to New York with him, I said yes.”
“That seems like a good plan.”
Phoebe took a sip of the wine, her gaze directed at the glass. “Yes, but Mum was very upset and Dad was angry. He wanted me to stay and look after her. According to him, he could never get anything done while she was around because she was so demanding.”
“But you didn’t stay.”
“No. I needed . . . a break. But I still get constant calls from both of them. Dad keeps wanting me to come home and so does Mum, for different reasons.” She took another sip of wine. “They don’t actually want to see me, though. They just want me to be around to make their lives easier.” Her expression twisted all of a sudden. “That doesn’t sound very grateful, does it?”
He didn’t like the bitter note in her voice, the echo of pain. It felt painful to him, too. Tightening his arm around her, he tucked her even closer, finding somehow that holding her helped. “Why should you be grateful?” he said roughly. “They sound like assholes.”
She gave a soft laugh and shook her head. “They’re not that bad.”
He disagreed, though he only said, “Don’t you have any brothers or sisters to help?”
“No. I’m . . . I want to say I’m an only child, but I’m sort of not.”
“What does that mean?”
“I had a sister, Lily, but she died before I was born. She had leukemia. My mother had me pretty soon after Lily died, and she didn’t have any more kids, so it’s only me.” She paused, swirling the wine around in her glass, and he had the feeling she was going to say something important so he stayed quiet, watching her pale face. “Mum told me that she had me to fill the gap left by Lily’s death, because she needed something to love. But Dad didn’t want another child. He’d never got over Lily’s death and was angry with Mum for getting pregnant with me.”
Nero felt all his muscles tightening. “Did he . . . do anything to you?”
Phoebe glanced at him in surprise. “Do anything to me? Who? Dad?”
“Yes.” He knew asking the question had given something away, but he couldn’t help himself. He had to know. Fathers could be assholes, and he suddenly found the thought of Phoebe’s father hurting her absolutely impossible.
“What do you mean do anything?” There was a faint crease between her brows.
Ah, fuck, he shouldn’t have asked the question. Especially when it was clear now that Phoebe’s father hadn’t hit her or abused her or any of the other terrible things fathers did to their children. Because if he had, she wouldn’t have needed to ask what he meant.
“Did he get angry with you?” Nero asked instead, hoping like hell Phoebe wouldn’t have picked up on his tension.
Phoebe glanced down at her wine again. “Oh, Dad was always angry. He liked things done a certain way, and he didn’t like fuss, didn’t like emotional displays. Which meant my mother was constantly disappointing him.” There was another pause. “I think I constantly disappointed him, too. Actually, no. He would have had to care about me in order to find me disappointing, and I don’t think he cared enough. I wasn’t Lily, and the most important thing about me was that I deal with Mum so he didn’t have to.”
Again, that bitter note in her voice. It hurt her that her father didn’t care.
“That upsets you,” he said carefully, watching her expression.
She tilted her head, looking up at him. “Of course, it upsets me. I mean, I’ve come to expect it now, but still . . .” She lifted one shoulder. “They’re my parents. And you can’t help hoping for more from them.”