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I don’t say anything. Instead, for some unknown reason, I begin massaging her foot. She moans, and it spurs me on. She lets out a squeal when I reach a sensitive spot on the arch of her foot, but it's quickly replaced with another moan that has my dick throbbing painfully.

“I knew you’d be good with your hands,” she says suggestively. I don’t know where this newfound confidence of hers has come from, but it's edging me toward a very dangerous line that I might cross if I don’t regain a little control here. I release her foot and stand over her, needing to stop this from going too far. She isn’t a random hook up, it’s Gabriella. A drunk Gabriella.

“Do you have something to wear to bed?” I ask looking round here room for an overnight bag.

“Uh, yeah. In the closet. Sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?” she asks, attempting to stand. She wobbles slightly as she folds her arms over her bare waist.

Needing to reassure her I say, “No, you’re just making it really fucking hard to remain your friend and gentleman when you are looking like that.”

Mentally slapping myself for saying that, I walk over to the closet, find her case and begin searching through it.

The first thing I’m met with is an ugly-looking baby pink jacket that I’ve never seen her wear. I lift it and hold it up. “What the fuck is this?”

She rolls her eyes and huffs. “Ugh, my outfit for my mother’s lunch tomorrow.”

“It’s… tweed,” I say, furrowing my brows.

“Oh, I know, and there’s a matching skirt. My mother loves it. She owns an insane amount of tweed. Tweed jackets, hats, pants, skirts…news flash, Catherine,” she says, animatedly holding up her hands. “Other materials are available for purchase.”

I purse my lips together and hunt for something to cover her before I explode in my pants like a horny teenage boy.

“If you don’t like it, why don’t you wear something else?” I ask as I pull out various bags until I finally find a pair of silk pink pajama shorts and a matching top. It’s still sexy as hell, but it will be more bearable than what she’s currently wearing.

I pass them to her and she slips them on as she says, “Oh, dear God, no, my mother would clutch her pearls if I turned up looking less than perfect.” She’s clutching her neck with her hand, and suddenly the vision of my own hand wrapped around her neck as I thrust into her comes into view.

Fuck, I need to stop this.

“If you don’t want to go, why don’t you just say no?” She holds on to the bedframe for support and laughs like I’ve suggested the most ridiculous thing.

“Yeah, good one. You don’t know my mom, or my dad… or me,” she says the last part so quietly I almost miss it. I want to ask her what she means, but she continues. “Maybe I could just fake my own death, so I don’t have to go.”

“Seems dramatic,” I say dryly, refolding her clothes in her suitcase, letting my OCD urges take over.

“Look, if you met my mother, you’d understand.” She reaches round her back and, in a Houdini move, pulls free her strapless bra from beneath her top and then throws it in front of me in her open suitcase.

“Do you know what I’d love to do? Just once?”

I shake my head.

“Just once, I’d love to tell them to just… fuck off.”

I laugh. “Do it.”

“Whoops,” she says, clamping her hand over her mouth and then releasing it. “And now I said a cuss word. My mom would spank my butt if she heard me say that… well, actually, she’d get the nanny to do it. She’d be scared of chipping a nail.”

What the fuck.

I’m confused, concerned, and turned on all at the same time.

I don’t know much about Gabriella’s past or her parents, but from the little parts I’ve heard, or she’s shared in the past, they are very strict, overbearing and put an insane amount of pressure on Gabriella, and for some messed up reason, she acts like she owes them something.

“I just want to say, no, Mom, I don’t want to come to your pretentious lunch with your pretentious food with your pretentious friends,” she says in a mocking tone.

“Do it. You’re an adult. You can do what the fuck you want,” I say and she looks at me, brows furrowed as if I have just suggested the most ridiculous thing.

“Catherine Monroe would never accept no. It’s just easier if I go, trust me.”

I don’t say anything. Her phone pings with a message, and she roots around in her purse for it as I pack everything back into her suitcase.