CHAPTER 13
Theo
I pulled into my garage around midnight after a full evening of choreography following the auditions. I was fucking exhausted. I’d been at it for three weeks, and the show still wasn’t coming together at the speed I’d hoped it would. No way could I admit that to Winter. Up until tonight, I couldn’t even admit that to myself.
Winter’s set was twenty-four songs long plus a half dozen instrumentals, and all of that needed my attention. I’d created maybe a third of the show, and tomorrow, I would start unloading choreography to Winter’s backup crew and Winter simultaneously. Somehow.
I still hadn’t figured out how I was going to pull off any of the featured solo and partner routines since I was out an assistant. Janelle wouldn’t be available, and I sure as hell wouldn’t be asking Reggie to fill in. Except … he was beginning to look like the best choice.
To make everything worse, it was late, and I hadn’t eaten a thing all day besides a bag of peanuts and a store-bought salad. I pulled out a few leftovers from the fridge. Chinese, Italian, Mexican. I warmed them all up and ate them in one sitting.
I should have been tired. I should have been asleep when the doorbell rang at one in the morning. And when I looked through the peephole and spied Winter standing there, a knee-length white trench coat pulled tightly around her, I knew I shouldn’t answer the door. Not now, my inner thoughts groaned.
I propped the door open, catching her as she swayed a little on her heels while her high ponytail swirled and slapped her in the face. She giggled.
“Are you drunk?” It was a stupid question. It would have been a miracle for her to have shown up sober.
“Hey, Theo,” she purred, or maybe slurred.
I kept myself wedged in the doorway.
“Can I come in?”
I held her stare with one of my own, mentally calculating how to approach the situation. This was already bad. The car that had brought her here was waiting in the driveway, and I had a feeling it would stay there until she decided to leave, whenever she thought that might be.
“Why are you here?”
A manicured hand reached for the tie at her waist. “I can tell you or I can show you.” She slipped off one heel and chucked it down the concrete steps. Her next heel followed, then she turned to me with another drunken smile.
“Maybe you should tell me first.”
“You want words?” She exaggerated a pout. “Okay. You seemed tense at the audition today. I don’t want you to be tense working my show. So”—she popped a smile and dropped a finger down the opening of her jacket—“I brought you something to help.”
I felt the familiar growl low in my belly, my groin tightening and threatening to spring to life if she made good on her threats. As much as I wanted her to leave, my body wanted the opposite.
“Whatever you brought me, I can’t accept. Not right now. I have too much work to do, and it’s late. And you’re drunk.”
“Don’t you want me?” She pouted again, slipping her fingers over each button from the top down and popping her jacket open to reveal her expensive red undergarments.
Fuck. My cock pushed against my sweats, disobeying my desperate internal objections. Did I have the willpower to stop this? Sure. But did I want to?
She pushed her jacket completely open then slid it down her shoulders until it was a crumpled pile at her feet. I looked over her shoulder again. The driver’s eyes glanced away. I sighed and pulled her into my house before slamming the door behind her to keep her out of view.
I’ll grab her some clothes and send her home. This can’t be the way rehearsals begin.
Winter didn’t have the same thoughts. She pressed into me, her hands cupping my cock and squeezing.
Fuck me. A release would be nice. I didn’t even want to think about how long it’d been since I’d properly fucked a woman. I refused to think of the last time. The memory was too painful. Yet here one was—the queen of them all—offering herself to me on a silver platter.
I knew that getting this job would put me in close proximity to Winter, closer than I’d ever been. I worried about it. About the expectations that came with the job. But not enough for me to turn down the biggest opportunity of my life.
I didn’t have time for expectations in the romantic sense. And I certainly didn’t want to give Winter the wrong idea. Nothing against Winter. Those were my rules. No cuddle sessions, no daily repeats. No cravings for deeper connections. And definitely no public appearances.
But then again…there was something amazing about letting a powerful woman sit on my cock and watching her fall apart on top of me, but that was where the intimacy ended.
Her lips met my collar as her hand moved beneath my shirt, scratching my abs with her nails. “Ah,” I hissed, pushing her hand down and out of my shirt. “Winter. We can’t do this.”
She pressed against me again, dipping her free hand into my pants and boxer briefs, stroking me before I could protest again. I groaned and thought about moving her. I thought long and hard about how I should send her back to the car and tell her driver to take her home. And I thought about how pissed she’d be at me in the morning.
But when she sank to her knees and put her wet mouth around my cock, I decided that turning her away would just be rude.