Page 95 of How to Bang a Billionaire

At last. The faintest of smiles. Poor ghostly thing. And suddenly I didn’t feel quite so messed up anymore. He was good at putting the world at a distance. But once you got past that, he did look wrecked. I guess having his non-boyfriend disappear with his not-completely-stable sister had hit him pretty hard.

“Can you try?” I asked. “For me? Just a little bit?”

I went to smooth the hair back from his brow, but he caught my hand and brought it briefly to his lips instead. “I don’t know.”

“Please?” I leaned in and kissed his mouth through the prison of our entwined fingers.

“What do you want me to do?” He gave this broken-sounding laugh. “Trust me is a very nonspecific and difficult-to-measure goal.”

Ack. Either I was really bad at being angry or Caspian Hart was secretly adorable. “I’ll be sure to prepare a Prezi. But you could start by maybe…spending the day with me?”

“I can’t. The situation with Eleanor put me behind schedule and I have too much to do.”

“What about tonight then? Can you come tonight?”

“I…I’ll try.”

“I’m not scared of you, Caspian.” I pressed my free hand against his chest—felt the thud of his heart and the way he trembled to my touch. Such heat and longing in him sometimes. If only I could convince him to give them to me. To surrender, just a little, so I could too. “What you said before…I mean, the hot kinky stuff about screaming and begging, not the scary tyrannical stuff about always having my phone and using the designated driver…”

He blushed. “I can’t force you to do those things, but I hope you’ll think about them. It’s not unreasonable for me to want to know where you are and that you’re well.”

“Maybe not, but it makes me feel like you’re one step away from fitting me with one of those GPS tracking collars you can get for your pet.”

“I rather like the sound of that.”

His mouth pressed hot and hard against my throat. And I glooped all over him like a badly made Baked Alaska. “S-save it for the bedroom.”

“I rather hope at that point I’d be well aware of your location.”

“No, but you might want to make sure I can’t get away. And besides”—I tilted my head for him, baring vulnerable places for his teeth and tongue—“from what you keep telling me I’m going to be in grave danger.”

“You can hardly expect me to rescue you from myself.”

I pulled away and slipped off his lap. “Of course I do. Why bother with a hero and a villain when you can have both at once? As a businessman, you’ve got to admit it’s efficient.”

“I can see you’ve thought this through.”

“You’ll really come tonight?”

A terrifying pause.

“Would seven work?” He seemed almost…shy about it suddenly. It was unexpectedly endearing.

I grinned the biggest grin in the entire world. “It’s a date.”

Chapter 24

As soon as Caspian was gone, I actually eeeeee-ed and did a little dance. That had gone better than I could ever have imagined.

And tonight…oh my God. My brain went a little haywire with potential scenarios. Most of them sexy as hell. But, honestly, if he just wanted to have dinner and an early night, as long as it was with me, I didn’t care.

Once I’d calmed down, I went to shower. It wasn’t as exciting as I’d thought it might be when I was completely high, but it was still nice to wash the night from my skin. Also the water drops were noticeably pretty—the way the light defined them in silver filigree—and they did feel unusually good.

Afterward I felt I probably ought to rest, so I went to bed.

Except I couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t the bad not-sleeping, like when you’re restless or anxious. I was just…awake. As if I hadn’t been up for a day and a night but had, instead, arisen in buttery sunlight to a chorus of bluebirds.