The floors were an immaculate, gleaming dark wood. The walls were painted a neutral brown that was just a shade or two darker than beige.
To the other end of the room was the massive kitchen space which was cut off from the living room with a swirling brown, gold, white, and black marble-topped island that I would swear was big enough to be a bed. The cabinets matched the shade of the floors, and the stainless steel appliances were devoid of a single fingerprint.
In fact, the whole space was spotless.
I imagined that was a very nice side effect of living in a hotel - maid service.
But even so, it was more than just vacuumed and mopped and wiped.
It was, well, empty.
There weren't any personal touches, unless the very expensive coffee machine that looked like it came straight out of a Starbucks counted. Which it didn't.
Right inside the door against the wall was a long low wooden bar cart the color of all the other stain in the room, lined with a few different liquor bottles and several glasses. The only bottle with any liquor missing was the bourbon which I had learned was his personal drink.
Down beside the kitchen was a hall that seemed to lead to four doors.
Three beds and a bath?
For one solitary man.
It was almost sad how empty it felt.
I could picture him up here, all alone, day in and out, nothing but his own deep intensity to keep him company.
And for reasons I didn't understand, my heart ached.
"Addy," he called, voice a little loud, making me realize he must have called me more than once. "Do you want a drink?" he asked and, sure enough, he was standing beside the bar cart.
It was nearly morning.
I shouldn't be drinking.
That being said, it was still technically night if you were seeing it from this side of the pillow, right?
"Sure," I agreed, watching him reach for the bottle of wine that was sitting there, going through the motions of peeling the foil, popping the cork, then pouring the deep maroon liquid into a rounded wine glass before handing it to me to go and make himself his drink.
I brought the glass up, taking a deep breath because - as I had learned at Famiglia - there absolutely was a difference between cheap and expensive wine. To me, a twenty-dollar bottle of wine was 'nice,' but the wine at Famiglia - and this wine I was sure as well - had to be at least double that. It was in the smoother, richer taste. And smell. Which was why I was breathing it in before tasting it.
"Oh, my God," I moaned as I closed my eyes.
I opened them to find Ross watching me with warmth in his eyes I didn't often find there. "Good?" he asked. "I don't drink wine, but the sommelier from the restaurant downstairs told me this is the cab I needed to keep up here for guests."
"Wise, wise man," I agreed, taking another small sip, wanting to savor it.
"You want to order then get the tour?" he asked, moving toward the kitchen, producing a menu from a drawer. And not a paper menu. Oh, no. This was a fancy hotel. They had leather-clad menus with fancy parchment paper and specific fonts.
I noticed as I walked over, putting my glass on the island, and taking the menu from him, that not a single price was listed.
I was pretty sure that was how you knew that even an orange juice was going to cost twenty dollars.
I ended up ordering cocoa crepes stuffed with whipped cream and strawberries, figuring trying them was going to be a once in a lifetime experience.
Ross ordered some kind of fancy egg scramble thing with a name I didn't know how to pronounce, then put the menu away.
"Alright, want the tour?" he asked as the silence went tense.
"Ah, duh," I agreed with a smile.
He led me down the hall, showing me the hall bath which, while fancy, was just a typical washroom. There were two guest bedrooms. One was being used as another office with the same amount of computer screens as he had at Hex, even though they were currently all dark. The other room was simply a guest room with a full-sized bed and cream comforter.
"And this is the master," he said, and I tried to pretend that that declaration didn't make my belly go all fluttery.
It was an unnecessarily large space dominated by a huge California king bed covered in a dark brown comforter. The walls were a shade darker than the main area of the space, giving the whole room a more cozy feel. There was a dresser and massive TV on the wall across from the bed and two doorways off to either side of that.
"What?" I whisper-yelled as he flicked the light on to the one to the right declaring It's just a closet. "This is not just a closet," I corrected, moving inside, taking a breath because the whole space smelled overwhelmingly of him, something I found incredibly comforting for some reason. There were shelving units built into three of the walls, all his suits and shirts hanging perfectly. Down the center were lower units meant to house shoes, ties, and cufflinks. "This is practically the size of my apartment," I informed him. "I mean, I could live in here," I added, shaking my head.
He chuckled a little at that, and I turned to find him watching me, realizing I had been absentmindedly stroking my fingers over the sleeves of his suit jackets as I passed them.
"I'm almost afraid of how grand this bathroom is going to be if you think this is just a closet."
"The bathroom is pretty fucking badass," he admitted as we walked back into the bedroom. "Even I can see that."
I walked in the doorway and, yep, 'badass' pretty much covered it.
There was warm sand-colored tile on the floors and up the walls of the shower that sported four shower heads. The door leading in was entirely glass, no brass or silver anywhere except the tiny handle. The floor was laid with small neutral-colored river stones, giving the space character as well as acting as a way to prevent slipping.
There was a double vanity flanked by two floor-to-ceiling cabinets. The countertop matched the marble in the kitchen, and the entire wall behind the sinks was mirrored.
Reflected in that glass, yeah, it was the tub.
And it was just begging me to climb in, I swear.
It was beautifully white, deep, and slightly scalloped on the top, higher in the back to rest your back against. There weren't any jets, but it looked like the absolute perfect place to unwind.
Finally, there was one small door to the side of the tub where, I imagined, the toilet was located.
I literally wanted to curl up in the bathtub and cry the whole thing was so beautiful.
"Okay, I changed my mind. I will live here. Rent out the closet to someone else." He made a chuckle and I turned shaking my head at him. "Such a waste. I bet you've never even been in that tub."
"Got me there," he agreed, rocking back on his heels. "If ever you have the need for a bath, you're welcome to demand I let you in," he offered, moving out of the way, then toward the door to the living room. Almost, it seemed, as if in a rush to get away from me.
If I didn't completely understand that urge to run after saying something you didn't exactly mean to, I might have been offended. As it was, I just followed him out, grabbing my wine, and moving over to look at the view.
"This view might make whatever you pay for this place worth it."
The darkness was easing up off in the distance, casting streaks of light across the otherwise black sky.
Soon the sun would be up.
And I would have, sort of technically, spent a night at Ross Ward's place.
"There's the food," he declared, still all the way across the room when I had expected him to come and stand beside me.
I hadn't even heard anything, but I figured if you lived somewhere long enough, you became very aware of the ding of the elevator.
I reached under the island to pull out the half-hidden stools as Ross let a man in all black in, wheeling a cart over toward where I was sitting.
Feeling weird, I gave him a smile. "Hi," I said as he looked up at me.
"Hi, Miss," he said, then turned back to Ross who d
id that smooth tip pass thing, and the man let himself back out.
"I didn't even think I was that hungry, but now I want to eat every bit of it," I declared as he handed me the plate after he took off the silver top.
And, well, as one could expect from an uber fancy hotel with a built-in restaurant, the crepes made me want to cry.
"I think the plate is clean, doll," Ross said, a chuckle in his voice, making me realize I had been scraping the very last streak of whipped cream up to eat. "Good, right?" he added when I looked up a bit guiltily.
"So when I move into the bathroom, room service is included with my rent, right?"
He chuckled at that, taking the plates, putting them back on the tray, and sticking the cart in the hall to be dealt with later.
"You look tired," he observed in almost a sad way, taking away the sting that would normally come from someone saying you look tired, which everyone knew was just synonymous with looking like crap.
"I am usually in bed by eleven," I admitted, shrugging at my kinda lame bedtime, yes, even on Saturday nights. "I need to be at work by eight-thirty. You look tired too." Especially considering his schedule likely meant he was up until the early morning a lot of the time.
"I can lend you a shirt," he started oddly, making my brows draw together. "To sleep in," he clarified. Oh, well then. My desire, recently tamped down by some serious foodgasming, rekindled. "The guest bed is free."
Oh.
Alrighty.
Yeah, I totally misread the invitation to come over, didn't I?
What a waste of really pretty panties.
"I can just drive--"
"Stay," he commanded. "That way, when you get up, you can see what is on the menu for lunch."
"Well," I said, smiling big, "when you put it that way!"
He gave me another of his smiles that didn't reach his eyes, leaving me to wonder what, exactly, it might take to get that kind of reaction out of him, if it was even possible to.
"You have two choices. Dress shirt or tee."
"What?" I asked, mock-outraged. "You? The man who is perpetually in suits that cost more than my car actually owns something as lowly as a t-shirt? How workaday is that?"
"Gotta have something to workout in."
"Really? You think a shirt is necessary? I think all the women at the gym would be fine with you going without."
His eyes heated slightly, and the silence went awkward for a moment before he broke it. "How do you know I'm not rocking a dad-bod underneath all these suits?" he asked, the first bit of teasing I had maybe ever seen in the man.
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with a dad-bod, but I have a feeling you have abs under there. The kind that you can trace a finger between."
Crap.
That was too much, right?
Way too suggestive considering I was just an overnight, spare room guest. That was a comment that potential lovers said.
"You'd be right," he said, giving me a smile that wasn't even meant to be confused with a real one. "What's your poison, Addy?"
"A dress shirt," I decided. Preferably the one you're wearing. Because I was a freak like that apparently. Normally, the long sleeves and the buttons would drive me up a wall. But, like my aforementioned freakishness implied, I wanted the dress shirt because it made me think of him, because there was something inherently sexy about feeling a shirt he had worn against my bare skin, skimming my thighs, brushing over my nipples...
Okay.
Yeah.
I needed to shut that down.
"Addy," he said, in that voice that implied I had drifted off again. And I had. Into sexy thoughts of him sucking my nipples into his mouth through one of his shirts.
"Yeah?"
"You wanna try out the bath first? I know you were eye-fucking it."
Oh, boy.
He wasn't allowed to use the phrase eye-fucking. Not even talking about an inanimate object. It was not helping at all. It sounded way too good coming from him.
"If you're offering, I'm in."
"I'm offering," he said, moving off down the hall to, I realized as I followed, run it for me and put out a couple fluffy towels. "And here," he said after digging through a cabinet. "They left all this bath shit out when I first moved in."
This bath shit was a large, fully stocked basket with salts, scrubs, bombs, bubbles, and loufahs.
I took it, looking up at him with what had to be wide eyes. "You're excused now," I said with a smirk, making him chuckle.
"Knock yourself out, Addy," he said before closing the door.
I would claim to have shyly undressed, worried he might peek in. But, well, that would be a lie. I ripped my clothes off like I was a drunk girl begging for Mardi Gras beads. If he wanted to peek, well, I was all for that.
But, unfortunately, that door stayed respectfully closed as I got in the water, as I used a little bit of each of the products in his basket, maybe silently pleased that they were all in the package still. Because it sort of implied that there had been no long-term woman around recently, right?
Then again, many women hated baths.
And it was none of my damn business what went on before me anyway.
Not that there was a me anyway either.
I was a house guest.
A very lucky, very spoiled house guest.
He might have gone down on me just hours before, but since I pulled into the lot, he had been nothing but, well, friendly. As in, that was what he wanted.
Friendship.
And I was going to go ahead and be that pathetic girl with a crush on a guy who didn't see her that way, but went on being friends with him because she liked being near him. Also, because she was a masochist.
Water cool, I stood up, drying carefully with the fluffy towels, and only then realizing... he forgot to bring in a shirt to wear.
I considered slipping my old clothes on, but chose instead to just wrap up in the massive towel, and peek my head out.
The door opened silently, clearly not alerting Ross who was sitting off the end of the bed, legs somewhat spread, his elbows on his knees, his head ducked. His tie was gone, as was his suit jacket, and the first three buttons of his dark shirt were undone.
My shirt was sitting folded on the bed right beside him.
"Ross?" I asked, my voice oddly airy.
His head rose slowly, his eyes deep, intense, heavy, full of something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
He said nothing though, and the silence made me shift from foot to foot.
"I just... you forgot to give me," I said, advancing toward him, ready to grab the shirt and hightail it back to the bathroom.
But just as my hand moved down to snatch the fabric, his arm moved, his hand encircling my wrist, making my head snap up to look at his face.
I recognized it then.
The look.
I hadn't seen it often, but it was there.
A man barely holding onto his control.
His fingers at my pulse point, I was sure he felt my heartbeat speed up even as I had the same sensation in my throat, temples, and between my thighs.
"I said just breakfast," he said, voice low.
"I know," I agreed, not wanting to admit this part because it was ridiculous, but I had totally screenshot that entire conversation.
"I lied," he admitted. "That wasn't all I wanted."
"Oh, no?" I asked, trying to talk through a sudden heaviness in my chest, my air seeming trapped in a corset of anticipation.
"That was never going to be enough," he went on, his finger stroking up the side of my wrist. "I'm a little worried that no matter how much I get, it might never be enough."
I couldn't say for sure because I didn't know him that well, but that seemed like it was a pretty monumental declaration for a man such as him, someone so guarded, someone so tight-lipped.
Maybe, just a tiny bit, he was letting me in.
I shifted, moving to stand in front of him, watching as his head angled up to keep my gaze.
With my free hand, I reached up, working out the tuck in my towel.
"We can test that theory out," I suggested, dropping my hand, letting the towel slide down.
His head moved up to face the ceiling, eyes closed.
"Fuck," he growled, taking a breath before lowering his head again, his eyes drifting open, on my face for a long second before drifting downward, over my breasts, my torso, waist, thighs, all the way down to my feet before going just as slowly back up.
I swear his eyes had impact, I could feel them brushing over me, my skin goose bumping in response. My nipples tweaked as a heavy pressure came down on my lower stomach, and I got wetter by the second.
Just when I was sure I couldn't take another second of inspection, his hands moved out, sinking into my hips, pulling me forward and down, straddling him like I had been in his office earlier.
The brush of his pants against my thighs, his shirt against my breasts, was enough to set my skin on fire, and I had to fight the urge not to rub my nipples against the smooth warmth again as his hands slipped around to my lower back, then down to sink into my ass.
"Don't deserve you," he murmured as he moved forward, scraping his scruff up the column of my neck. "But that's not gonna stop me," he added before one hand left my ass to grab the back of my neck, dragging my face down so his lips could claim mine.
It seemed like seconds, just a brief meeting of lips, but by the time his mouth pulled from mine, my lips felt swollen and overly sensitive.
I looked down into his deep eyes, the promise there making my belly flutter as I scooted back slightly to put space between us, allowing me to reach for his buttons, slowly undoing the ones he hadn't already.
As my fingertips brushed the skin at the lowest one, the muscles beneath contracted, something that somehow managed to make my belly do the same.
There was something intoxicating in knowing you managed to affect a man like him, a man whose experience you knew had to trump yours, who must have had arm candy that rivaled Victoria Secret models.
Grudge Match Page 9