‘My arms don’t work.’
‘Give me my thing, Livy.’ He raises cautionary eyebrows at me, making me smile more. ‘Now.’
It doesn’t take much effort at all to fulfil his demand. My arms circle his shoulders and crush him to me. ‘I want to be in your bed,’ I mumble into his hair, wishing I were there already.
‘Then you will be.’ He rolls over, taking me with him, and then pushes me up so I’m astride his stomach. He studies me quietly.
‘What are you thinking?’ I ask.
‘I’m thinking I’ve never been shocked in my life,’ he says, reaching up and circling my ni**les until they’re bullets, tingling and sensitive, ‘but when you threw that money on the table in Langan’s, I had to resist coughing up my wine.’
I blush a little at my own brashness, wholeheartedly wishing I never had. ‘I won’t be doing it again.’
‘Neither will I,’ he whispers, transferring a hand to my wrist and stroking over the area where the sores have now faded to nothing. ‘I’m so sorry. I was so consumed with desperation to—’
I pull my arm from his grip and shut him up by dropping my body to his and my lips to his mouth. ‘Please don’t feel guilty.’
‘I appreciate your compassion, but nothing you can say will ease my remorse.’
‘I pushed you.’
‘It’s no excuse.’ He sits up and shifts us to the edge of the bed, placing me on my feet. ‘I’m going to make it up to you, Olivia Taylor,’ he vows, standing and cupping my cheeks in his palms. ‘I’ll make you forget that man.’ His lips meet mine, reinforcing his words, and I nod my acceptance against him. ‘He’s not the man I want to be for you.’
I let him drown me in his mouth and remorse, let him push me up the wall desperately, let him feel me everywhere. ‘Take me to your bed,’ I plead, needing the comfort and security that being in Miller’s arms and bed brings – something that I’m not wholly feeling here in this hotel room, where the four-poster bed is a constant reminder of an entirely different Miller.
‘I’ll do anything you want me to,’ he breathes, letting up a little on his apology kiss and pecking continuously at my lips. ‘Anything you want. Please try to erase what’s happened.’
‘Then take me away from here,’ I insist. ‘Get me out of this room.’
He starts to panic a little, pulling away when he realises the extent of my desperation to escape the reminders. It’s made him desperate, too. He shakes himself into action, removing the condom and getting dressed at lightning speed, not caring for a straight tie or a crease-free suit. He leaves his shirt half unbuttoned and hanging out of his trousers, his waistcoat is thrown on haphazardly and his jacket equally so, before he’s snatching up my dress and quickly getting me into it.
After grasping my hand, he leads me away from the coldness of the extravagant hotel room. We take the stairs, and he looks back every few steps to check up on me. ‘Am I going too fast?’ he asks while keeping up his determined stride.
‘No,’ I answer, my legs struggling to keep up but wanting to go faster. Nothing will get me out of this place quick enough.
We hit the palatial foyer of the hotel, both of us catching the eye of the posh clientele in our dishevelled state. I’m not concerned by the looks and neither is Miller. He practically throws the room’s key card over the desk to the lady at the reception. He’s as desperate to get out of here as I am.
The car park feels like miles away, when it is only around the corner. The journey feels like hours when it’s probably only minutes. The stairs to Miller’s apartment feels like thousands, but there are probably only a few hundred. And as soon as the door is shut behind us, my dress is pulled impatiently from my body, my underwear discarded, and I’m lifted up to his carelessly dressed physique and carried across his apartment, while he indulges me in his mouth the whole way, except we don’t enter his bedroom. He takes me to his studio and places me on the sofa, where I sit awkwardly and a little bewildered by his mounting desperation as he hurries out of his clothes, leaving them a pile of expensive material on the floor. Bringing his body down over mine, he engulfs me completely and pins me to the old worn sofa beneath me. His face is in my neck, taking a long inhale of my hair, and then his mouth is on mine, working through delicately with his tongue, humming and moaning as his kiss gets harder, completely defeating the whole purpose of our reunion. It is always me driving things forward and Miller insisting on calm, and now I know why. But worry is getting the better of him.