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Story: Long for Me

Chapter Sixteen

Bennett

Rebecca always thought I was an arrogant prick. I wasn’t an asshole. I respected the hell out of women—their beauty and their brains—and she knocked both out of the park. I was loyal as fuck to my friends, still kept in touch with guys I went to high school with more than twenty years later. If my parents needed something from me while they were living up the shuffleboard life down in Boca, I’d hop on a flight, charter one if I had to, to get to them as quick as possible.

I was also astute. Everything in Rebecca was pulled so tight if I touched her again before she fucking relaxed, she’d snap, and not in the good way.

“Do you know what sold me on this place?”

Her gaze scanned my room, kept darting back to my windows and she nodded. “The view.”

“No.” I turned the corner and she gasped. “The bar.” I waved a hand out toward the bar that was bigger than any actual one I’d sat behind as a customer. Same cherry wood and marble counters as the kitchen, the entire wet bar spanned the back length of the condo opening on the other side to the entertainment room. Behind it, the floor-to-ceiling windows continued with a door open to the wrap around balcony. Yeah, my place was the fucking shit.

It was also big and more than once, I got really fucking tired of being in it alone. Not that I was planning on asking Rebecca to move in. But I hadn’t been lying to her. I’d imagined a dozen places in the condo where I could take her and drive her crazy.

“Holy sweet mother of pearl,” she murmured. “How—do you have a lot of people over? Throw weddings here? This thing is huge.”

“And fully stocked.”

She walked between the wet bar and large island, running her hands down the length of the marble. “It’s bigger than any liquor store I’ve been in.”

“Nice though, right?”

She spun around and cocked her head. “You don’t even drink that much, do you?”

“Never more than one glass when I play sexually.”

Her brows drew tight. “But you offered me wine.”

“Yeah, because you’re knotted up so tight you need to relax, but I’m not trying to get you drunk nor would I allow it.” I walked to her and curved my hands around her waist. Quickly lifting her, I spun her around and out of the way of the wine fridge before I set her back down. “So what would you like?”

“You just...moved me out of the way.”

“Cute that you seem surprised by that. I would think by now you’d be used to me putting you wherever I want you.”

She blinked several times. “If this is your way of helping me relax, you’re failing.”

“You wanted red?”

Her voice softened, the sass evaporated and damn it, when she let down her guard, dropped her walls even a little, she was spectacular. “Yes, please. And thank you.”

I searched for a bottle, grabbed one I’d opened the other night and poured her a glass. After handing it to her, I took her other hand in mine. “Come with me. There’s still more to see.”

I led her around the corner of the bar area to the media room where I had a projection screen television set up for movies and Blackhawks games. I might have been from Michigan, but I was raised a loyal Chicago fan in all things. She pulled her hand from mine, spun in a slow circle, her smile widening with everything she saw, the fire pit on the balcony, pool table, old-school pinball machine games. Large rugs covered the wood floors, she even took in the trayed ceiling painted a similar mossy green as my walls. It’d cost a fucking fortune to have my place designed the way I wanted, but damn if I didn’t love everything about this room.

Here was where I kicked off my suits, threw on my sweats and acted like the teenage kid I used to be.

Her lips twitched and she took a sip of her wine. “You have pinball games.”

“I like all manner of games.” I unbuttoned the cuffs of my dress shirt, rolling the sleeves up as I walked toward her. “Would you like to play or would you like to see my bedroom?”

She took a healthy drink of her wine and set her glass down. “That depends, what kind of game are you planning on playing?”

“Not nervous anymore?” I wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her against me.

She hung on to my biceps, red painted fingernails digging into my muscle through my shirt. “No more than usual, I guess.”

“You remember me telling you I’d thought of a dozen different places in this condo where I could spread you out?” At her nod, I dipped my head, brushed my nose over her temple. Delicate and feminine, the scent of her dove straight to my cock and he took notice. “Do you have preferences for where you’d like to begin or do you want me to decide?”