“I can calculate these numbers,” she says, glancing at the computer screen.
“I have no doubt that you can. But you’re not going to.” She tries to reach for my laptop, but there’s no way I’m letting her touch it—tired or not, I block her with my body and shove her back with enough force that she stumbles into the wall.
She gapes and then her lips tighten. “You always talk about how I need to accept help once in a while. You’re becoming a—”
“Think hard before you finish that sentence, darling.”
Her eyes brighten at the challenge. “A hypocrite.”
That’s it. I grab her around the waist, and she starts hitting my chest with closed fists. “Set me down right now, Richard!”
I carry her towards the kitchen sink, my hand gripping her ass, while she thrashes against me. When she bites my arm, I grimace into a laugh. “You want to play rough?” I set her feet on the ground, and before she can orient herself, I push her hard against the kitchen island.
I lose my hand in her hair and yank forcefully. She gasps, but she blinks quickly. “Let me help you.”
“No.”
Her nose flares. And she slams the heels of her palms into my chest, forcing me back. “I’m doing half of your report.” She’s about to storm over to the kitchen table, but I seize her again. My lips find her ear as I draw her ass towards my cock.
“No,” I force, “the only thing you’re going to do is sleep.” My hot breath hits her skin as I lower my head. Her perfume smells like white roses and ivy—a scent that dizzies me in an intoxicating lull. I love every inhale. My lips skim her neck before I suck deeply.
She lets out an audible noise of pleasure before spinning on me again, her gaze flickering to my laptop.
“No,” I tell her.
“Yes.”
When we disagree, we usually don’t speak for a couple days until one of us concedes. I don’t want that to happen tonight, not with Scott upstairs trying to encroach on my territory. I watch her shift in anger, her black robe stopping mid-thigh. Adrenaline pumps into my veins as her blazing eyes dance over me.
I rub my sensitive lips, and I make a calculated decision. I shove her into the island again, and she lets out a sharp noise. She tries to fight me at first, but I pin her to this place with my pelvis, her spine curving against the counter.
I squeeze her chin and glare as though she’s been a bad fucking girl, a look she rarely sees from me. Her whole body shudders. I feel every quake against my chest, my legs, my arms and groin. Her lips part and a high-pitched moan staggers upon release. The noise grips my cock so tightly that I choke on a groan. I want to be so far inside of her. I want to pound between her legs until her eyes flutter, until her limbs slacken in exhausted defeat.
She breathes heavily, as do I, and I trace her lips, her flushed cheeks, her narrowed eyes.
“I’m helping you,” she says with a raspy voice.
“No,” I say before I bite her lip. She moans again, and I slip my tongue into her mouth, kissing her forcefully. She returns it with just as much power, her hands clenching my hair with a desperation that I haven’t seen from her in a while.
I lift her up onto the counter and pull her legs towards me. I wrap them around my waist, not giving her time to be uncertain. My hands drift underneath her robe, relaxing on the bareness of her thighs. I kiss her while guiding her shoulders onto the cool counter. My lips break from hers, sucking a line from her collar towards her breasts. With one hand, I slowly untie her robe, and then her eyes meet the cameras overhead.
She shoots up and places two hands on my chest. “Wait…” Her eyes flicker to the rafters again. I don’t want Scott to see Rose naked any more than she does, but I knew this would be the easiest way to get her to forfeit.
I’m not really a winner in this scenario. My cock hates me, dying to slip between her legs and thrust for as long as we both can last.
“Let me help.”
“I’m either fucking you right now. Or you’re going to bed.”
She realizes there’s no alternative. Really, I wouldn’t deflower her in the middle of the kitchen with cameras pointed on us. I may be horny, but I have an idea of how I want to take her virginity. And this isn’t it.
“Fine,” she concedes. “I’ll go to bed this once, but if I catch you up again like this, I’m helping. Or you’re going to wake up with bruises.”
“Such threats.” I kiss her cheek, my lips lingering.
She holds my arms and swallows hard. I put a little space between us, but I keep my hand on her knee as she stays seated on the counter. A sudden thought sweeps my brain. It’s one I’ve meant to ask before. “Where do I rank in your life?”
She frowns and shakes her head in confusion. “You want me to rank you?”
I nod. I want to know how far I have to climb to be her first importance. I’m willing to work hard to get there, but I need to know who fills her heart before me and if I’ll ever be able to surpass them.
“I have siblings,” she says.
Her sisters outrank me. All three of them. That’s what I thought. “I almost had brothers,” I tell her honestly.
Her face falls. “What?”
“Twins. They would have been fourteen by now.” I skim her knee with my finger.
“How can you say it like that?” she asks.
“Like what?”
“Detached.”
“I’m not the one who carried them for nine months.”
She slaps my arm. “Stop being an ass. This is serious.”
“I know. That’s why I’m telling you. I’m not sure if having brothers would have made me a different person.” I’ve often thought about this event and how it could have reshaped my life, but it’s too foggy to see a clear outcome. They would have been ten years younger than me. They would have gone to boarding school, been distanced from my life at Penn. Would I have been as fiercely protective of them as Rose is to her sisters? I don’t know. I was never given the chance to see. “My mother had complications during their birth. They both passed, and I have no idea how she coped afterwards. She seemed…fine. She could have been as cold as she appeared to be, or she could have just hid her grief. I wouldn’t know.”
“Didn’t your parents separate two years later?”
I nod. “But I think their marriage was already strained when she was pregnant. I rarely saw them together.”
“Do you think…?” She trails off, not able to say the words.
“That she cheated on him? That those weren’t his kids?” I shrug. “Maybe. But all of it is neither here nor there. It’s all just…gone.”
She exhales loudly. “That’s a lot to take in, Richard.”
“No one knows that except Frederick. I didn’t think it was important.”
“It is,” she says.
I still don’t see how, but somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I must have believed it was significant too or else I wouldn’t have shared it. “So you love your sisters the most?”
She runs her fingers through her shiny brown hair. “I can’t imagine loving anyone more than them.”
“You do realize that Lily loves Loren more than anyone else on the planet? If they were both given the ultimatum of oxygen or each other, I’m fairly certain they’d choose to suffocate.”
She contemplates this for a second, her brows scrunching in thought.
“I’m not asking you to love me,” I tell her. “I think we’re both smart enough to choose oxygen.” I don’t see how love could benefit me.
Her eyes fall and her lips downturn. After a full minute of silence, she says, “I’d choose to die if it meant my sisters could live. You think it’s stupid, but sometimes love is worth every foolish choice you make.” She hops off the counter. “Oh, and you’re my number three.”