BANCROFT

Four weeks later

Ruby’s schedule is very much the opposite of mine, so text messages and brief phone calls are sometimes all we can manage for days on end.

Tonight is one of her rare nights off. She performs five days a week, often twice a day, especially on weekends. It’s wonderful, but it means I’ve restructured my own schedule so I’m home on her days off.

She spends most of those days in my condo. Currently, she’s lounging in her hideous recliner and I’m stretched out on the couch with Francesca curled up in my lap. She moved here about fifteen minutes ago, and before that she was snuggled up in Ruby’s shirt with her head peeking out of the neckline. Ruby thinks she needs a friend to love. I’m inclined to try the stuffed variety first. I’m not sure why Ruby’s sitting so far away—apart from her need to give that awful chair a reason to continue to take up space in my condo. Not that I would throw it away on her. Sometimes I threaten to, though.

In the time we’ve officially been dating, I’ve managed to convince my father to limit my business trips and to allow me to oversee the renovations on the New York hotels alongside Griffin.

Ruby has had a huge role in helping to facilitate this. My father adores her. It’s not a surprise. She’s easy to adore, and when I mentioned sending me out of the country would take me away from a new relationship I was trying to foster, he softened. Then I threw my brother Lexington under the bus, saying he was still unattached, so sending him instead wouldn’t be a bad idea. I was hoping it would help rebuild my father’s trust in him after the London hotel issue.

Beyond that, I’ve shown him that my strength lies in the renovation-management side of this business and that while knowing everything is important, having a core skill set will make me a stronger asset down the line.

I tuck an arm behind my head. “Are you going to sit in that chair all night?”

She glances over at me, then back at the TV. “You’re watching rugby. You’re not going to pay attention to me even if I do sit over there.”

“I won’t ignore you.” I move Francesca so she’s on my chest and spread my legs, patting the space between them.

“I’ll come sit with you if you take those socks off.” She gestures to my feet.

I look down. “What? Why?”

She glares at me.

Ruby has a thing about my socks. Apparently they drive her nuts, which is the exact reason I keep them on all the time when she’s here. Also, I don’t like it when my feet get cold.

I lift one leg, bend my knee, and lower my head to sniff. They smell fine to me.

“Ew. I can’t believe you just did that.”

“I was checking to see if odor was the problem.”

“It’s not the smell. They’re ruining my view.” Ruby rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her wine.

“Are you drunk? What’re you talking about?”

“I’ve had one glass.”

“So you are drunk.”

“My tolerance is better than that now.” This is somewhat true. Ruby has discovered a fondness for wine over martinis. The lower alcohol content and the fact that it takes her two hours to finish a single glass means that she rarely passes from tipsy territory to drunk off her ass. Although she has been that drunk a couple of times. I will say, she’s very adventurous in the bedroom when she’s imbibing, and that’s saying something since she’s already pretty damn open to trying new things.

She struggles to get the footrest of her ancient recliner to fold down. It rocks forward when it does and she almost ends up wearing her wine. It sloshes over the side and drips down her hand. She sets her glass on the coffee table, beside the coaster, not on it. There are rings all over it. It should drive me up the fucking wall, but I kind of don’t care. Okay. I care, but the housekeeper will be here tomorrow to deal with that.

Ruby wipes her hands on her camisole, the one that doesn’t require her to wear a bra. It’s distracting me from the rings on the table. And the game on TV. And everything, really.

She rounds the coffee table, grabs the toe of my sock, and starts yanking.

“What’re you doing?”

“Fixing the view.” The sock comes free and she tosses it on the floor. Then she drops to her knees.

At first I think I’m about to get a Ruby Special. Especially when her tongue peeks out as she rolls my other sock down, forcing it over my ankle. Ruby’s oral skills are fucking phenomenal.

She blows her hair out of her eyes and purses her lips, then wraps her hands around my ankle and rubs up and down my calf—kind of like a vigorous hand-job, except it’s my leg.

She uses my thigh to push back to a standing position. She’s wearing my favorite shorts. The ones that ride up on her right ass cheek all the time.

She props her fist on her hip. “Much better.”

I drag my eyes back up to her face, pausing at her chest for a few short seconds. “You want to fill me in on the issue?”

“You know what the issue is.”

“I don’t understand why you hate socks so much.”

Ruby huffs, annoyed. God she’s hot when she’s annoyed. I was so right about her and angry fucking. I was also accurate about her being a biter and a scratcher.

“Socks are not sexy. You ruin all the sexy with the socks.”

“But without them?”

Her voice goes low. “So much sexier.”

“Sexier?”

“Yes.”

“What about sexiest?”

“Mmm, you’d have to up your game for that.” Her grin is what sin is made of.

“What would take it from sexier to sexiest?”

Her smile grows wider as she grabs the hem of my shirt. Francesca jumps up and scampers across the back of the couch, settling at the other end, away from all the commotion.

“What’re you doing?”

“Making you the sexiest.” She tugs it up, until I have no choice other than to raise my arms. It takes a little effort on her part to get it over my head. She tosses it on the floor beside my socks.

The way she looks me over has me flexing every damn muscle in my body, particularly the one below the waist.

“Perfect.” She sighs and flops back down in her chair.

“So that’s it?”

“Unless you want to lose the shorts, too, yeah.” She grabs her wine and focuses on the TV again.

“What if I’m commando?”

“Even better,” she mutters.

“You do realize this is objectification, right?”

She lifts her gaze briefly. “You asked how you could make the view better and I showed you. No one said you had to keep your shirt off.”

I stretch an arm across the back of the couch and spread my legs. Her gaze drops.

“What about my view?”

She gestures to the TV. “You can always change the channel if it’s a problem.”

“I’m not talking about the TV.”

She looks down at what she’s wearing, stretches her legs and wiggles her toes. “I’m not wearing socks, so your view is fine.”

“I don’t think we’re even here.” I gesture to my chest and then motion to her.

Ruby fingers the strap of her tank. “You mean this?”

I quirk a brow and wait.

She doesn’t look away as she lowers her hands to the hem. I stop breathing. I stop moving. I stop everything. That camisole, the one that barely hides anything anyway, rises up, up, up, exposing her belly ring and she keeps going until it’s over her head and on the floor. She’s braless. We’re totally even now.

I push up off the couch as she struggles to bring the footrest back up. I straddle the chair and her legs, forcing her to make space for my knees.

“I’m not sure this chair can handle both of us.” She palms my erection through my shorts.

The tinkle of a bell draws our gazes away from each other for a second. Francesca has found one of her toys and seems to want to play. She’ll have to wait her turn.

“I guess we’re about to find out how much it can take.” I put one hand on the backrest, pushing to make it recline. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do this?”

“Do what?” She slides one hand up my chest.

“Fuck you in this chair. I wanted to do it that first night you were here.”

“Is that right?” She hooks her feet around my waist.

“It is. I wanted to bend you over, yank these fucking shorts down, and find out exactly what it was like to be inside you.” The backrest seems to be stuck. I push harder and all of a sudden it drops back with a huge crack and we land in a heap on the floor, with me on top of Ruby.

She looks around, startled. Francesca bounds past us, down the hall toward our bedroom.

“Huh. In my imagination we got a lot further than this though.”

“You killed my chair!”

“Your chair was too fragile.” I kiss her neck.

“I love this chair.”

I lift my head. “More than me?”

She makes a noise and gives me a look. She’s perfectly annoyed.

“If this chair can’t even withstand my love for you it’s worthless anyway. I’ll get you a new one. Or we can use that one—” I motion to the one that’s still intact. The huge chair we can both fit in. The one we can screw in comfortably.

“I think you broke my chair on purpose.”

“Untrue. If you hadn’t started taking off my clothes and then your clothes, your chair might very well still be in one piece.” I drop my head and kiss the tip of her nipple.

Her hand goes into my hair, gripping tight to keep me there, her voice is breathy now. “I knew I should’ve moved it to my apartment.”

I move to her other nipple. “What would be the point since you’re not going to be there much longer.”

“I still have”—she gasps when I bite gently—“some time on the sublet.”

I push up on one arm so I can look at her. “You don’t have to stay until the sublet is up. Besides, my place is closer to the theater.”

“By all of five minutes.”

“Why can’t you make this easy for me? Does everything have to be hard?”

She smiles and tightens her legs around my waist, pulling me closer until my erection is pressed against her.

“I like hard things.”

I ignore the comment, although it isn’t easy. “I want you to move back in.”

Her smile drops a little. “I thought we were waiting until the sublet is up.”

“Do you want to wait until then?”

“Well, it’s been the plan.” She plays with the hair at the nape of my neck. It’s what she does when we’re having conversations she’s unsure of.

We’re still lying sprawled out on the floor. I push up onto my knees, which causes another huge crack and the top and bottom of the chair separate completely. At least there’s absolutely no way to fix it now.

“Are you committed to sticking to the plan?” I fold back on my knees and rearrange her until she’s sitting in my lap.

She glances at the broken chair beside us on the floor and nudges the top with her toe. “I don’t have to be.”

“Then move back in. You’ve proven you can do this on your own and I know that’s important to you. We both know you can. I want us to do this together.”

“Are you sure? It hasn’t been that long . . .”

“It’s been months if you count all our video chat dates.”

“You make it sound like bad Internet dating.”

My stomach drops a little. Maybe I’ve read all the signs wrong and she’s not as interested in taking this to the next level like I am. “Is this you skirting an answer?”

“You’re so cute when you’re insecure.” She wraps her arms around my neck. “I just wanted to give us enough time to make sure it’s not all hormones driving us, and you know, that the sex wouldn’t get boring or anything.”

At my narrowed eyes she leans in and kisses me softly through a smile.

“Of course I want to move back in with you.”

“We can clean out your apartment tomorrow.”

She laughs. “No rush, though, right?”

“I want what I want, and I don’t want to wait if I don’t have to.”

“It must’ve been hell for you to wait more than five weeks between first kisses.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, tomorrow we move me back in.”

“And tonight we celebrate.”

“Oooh . . .” Ruby bites her lip. “What kind of celebration?”

I slide my hands down to cup her ass and pull her tight against me. “A naked one, with lots of orgasms. You in?”

“Will there be naughtiness to go with the nudity and the orgasms?”

“Isn’t there always?”

She doesn’t need to answer and I don’t need to say anything else. She skims my lips with her fingertips, then replaces them with her mouth.

Every kiss is an echo of the first time. Accidental or not, some part of me recognized her as my future and now she’s mine to love.