Brad’s arms constricted, squeezing me. “I didn’t think it was possible for a woman to be as sexy as you are, Delilah. It’s… This is blowing my mind. I’m…” He sighed and curled around me, resting his face against my neck. “You’re a fantasy come true.”
Breathing heavily, I gripped his thighs and closed my eyes, but he didn’t lift his hands any higher. Instead, he waited for the elevator to ding again before stepping around me and grabbing my hand. He entwined our fingers and led me down the hall and to a nondescript door like all hotel doors.
“For the penthouse, they could’ve at least lined the trim in gold, am I right?” I said, the flutter in my stomach amplifying as he opened the door, revealing a small entryway with a partition blocking my line of sight to the room beyond. The outlet on the right was a small kitchen, and to the left was cavernous space.
The kitchen was the size of the one in my apartment back home; the living room looked substantially larger than mine.
His hotel room was bigger than my apartment.
I was a little blown away. It almost seemed like I should be preparing to ransack the place. Why else would a person such as me, who was always under the Grand Boot of Life, end up in a high-dollar place like this? To steal silver—it seemed like the most plausible explanation.
“Are you sharing this with your friends, or…” I let him pull me left, and then gulped when I was presented with a spacious living room housing two couches facing a TV mounted on the wall. The floor plan was open, so behind me there was a dining room table surrounded by six chairs. Through the sliding glass door, I could see the ocean. A door to the left was slightly ajar, but it didn’t take a genius to guess what waited beyond.
I had to ponder: What the fuck was I doing with this man? Or more importantly, what the fuck was he doing with me?
And then: Shut up, bitch. Take this shit and run with it! Just because you’ve never had a high-dollar place, doesn’t mean you’re not worth it.
I had great inner pep talks when I was tequila-free.
“My company paid for this,” he said, either reading my earlier thoughts or my expression.
“Your company likes you a helluva lot better than mine likes me, I’ll say that much.”
“Sometimes.” He dropped my hand and headed into the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?”
“Will it come in a gold goblet? Because let’s be honest, nothing else will do.”
“Hilarious.”
I wasn’t trying to be.
“Drink?” he asked again.
“What do you have?” I wandered toward the sliding glass door, pleasantly buzzed and enjoying the simmer of heat deep in my core. As I looked out through the glass at the breathtaking view, I said, “You are not allowed in my hotel room.”
“We can order anything we want, but on hand I have wine, beer, and…vodka, looks like.”
“Color of wine?”
“Really hate beer, huh?”
“Really hate having a beer when other people aren’t, huh?”
“A little,” he said with a laugh. “I feel low class.”
“You feel low class drinking a beer in the penthouse, do you? You should, Mr. Trashy,” I said.
“I can honestly say no one’s ever called me that. Decision, please.”
“Beer, if you want. I don’t care. Anything but that vodka.”
“You don’t care, but you don’t want vodka. Got it.”
I heard the pop of a cork and turned back with a smile. He matched it, but his smile was ten times more compelling than mine. I just stared in rapture for a moment. It was all I could do. The man was a god, plain and simple. He probably had women kissing his feet as he walked all over them.
He’d better think twice about doing that with me, of course. There was no telling what I would do in retaliation.
I grimaced at the memories of some of the things I had done in the past. I wasn’t lying when I’d told him they weren’t my finest moments.
“Here you are.” He handed me a glass of white wine and then slid his arm around my waist. “Have I told you how beautiful you are?”
Better and better. If this were a dream, I would stick a knife in the eye of anyone who woke me from it.
I snuggled into him and took a sip. Some sort of high-dollar stuff. Tasted great.
“So what is it you do?” I asked, angling my face up to him.
He took his eyes away from the scenery and regarded me. “I rescue pretty girls from crowded rooms.”
“You really aren’t going to tell me?”
He shrugged and looked back at the horizon. “I’d rather let you get to know me without the overhang of my job.”
Obviously he was successful, then. Although the hotel room and his friends had told me that much.
I rested my head in the hollow between his shoulder and neck. “Suit yourself.”
“Thanks. It’s just gotten harder to date these last few years.”
I took a sip of my wine, letting the relaxation settle over me. We watched nothingness for a time, quiet. Finally he said, “Do you want to sit outside for a while?”
“Not unless you have a fantasy regarding balconies.” I chuckled.
“Food?”
“We should eat.”