Page 96 of Marrying the Billionaire Single Dad

I yelp, leap toward it…too late. The door shuts with a snick. There’s a click. Oh no, he locked it. He did. I know he did. I move forward, more out of habit than anything, intent on testing the handle to check if he did lock it, then stop. I won’t give him that satisfaction. I will not repeat the stupid scene from earlier when I had tried to open the bloody door and had to give up and turned around to— Heat envelops me from behind. I gasp.

He tugs on my backpack and I allow him to lower it to the ground.

"Unbutton your coat," he orders.

I pause.

"Do it," he snaps, and all thoughts drain from my head. I reach for my coat, release the buttons. He reaches around, to pull the lapels aside. He lowers the coat down my arms, then eases it off of me.

I should feel cooler without it. Instead, the heat of his body cocoons me, thrums across my skin.

He pulls on the hair that I’d piled on top of my head, and the strands come lose and slither down and around my shoulders. Goosebumps pop on my skin. How can I be hot and cold at the same time? I curl my fingers into fists so he can’t see how much I am trembling.

"Look at me," he whispers.

I shake my head.

"Please," he urges and I freeze. OMG, Damian… Asking me for something? That’s a first, and somehow, so apt, in the quietness of this space, with the crackling of the wood fire in the background and the heat of his big body that burns me deeper than any flames ever could. It feels right to turn around, raise my gaze to meet his. Cerulean, bright, blazing brighter than the fire I have seen in any kiln. What a strange thought. I bite the inside of my cheek.

"You’re amused about something?" His beautiful lips kick up in a smile that mirrors the rightness I feel inside. Shit, what’s wrong with me?

"Your daughter," I venture. "Is she asleep?"

"She’s fine where she is."

His features take on that slightly remote expression I am coming to recognize, the one that signals he’s put up a barrier between himself and the world, the one which is as clear as a sign that says ‘fuck the hell off.’ What the hell? Why did I have to go and blurt that out right then?

I glance at the settee and spot a few sheafs of paper with his writing on it. "You've been composing?"

He glances down at the pages, then sweeps them up and sets them aside. "They're not for public consumption."

"I'm hardly a member of the ‘public,’" I make air quotes with my fingers. "Please?" I wheedle, “I want to read the lyrics."

"Not happening." He ambles toward the piano.

I reach for the pages on the settee and he clicks his tongue, "Don’t even think about it."

I pout. Does he have eyes at the back of his head or what?

"Considering it was my orgasms that fueled the words,"—seriously can you believe this?— "you could at least let me take a peek."

"I explicitly forbid you from looking at the lyrics," he snaps.

And now, I definitely need to read them.

He saunters over to seat himself in front of the piano. That's when I bend down, grab the papers and glance over them quickly. Oh, wow! These are good...different...but so good. Better than anything I've heard him sing before.

He begins to play a few notes, and I place the pages back, then walk over to him. "Is that the tune for the new lyrics?" I ask.

"Maybe." He continues to play the instrument with those long thick fingers which shouldn’t seem so at home at the keyboard, but they do. Gah! He can play me anyway, too. I shake my head, and clearly, his influence is rubbing off if I can’t stop the word play on my own thoughts. I take in his features, his tense shoulder muscles, his spine which is ramrod straight. I reach him, place my hands on his shoulders and begin to massage. He stops playing. I dig my fingers into the knots, begin to ease them out. He grunts.

I drag my knuckles down either side of his spine, in the hollows between his vertebrae, and he heaves out a sigh. "You’re good at this."

"Comes from all the clay I’ve molded," I say, only half-jokingly.

"Oh, baby, how I’d like to mold you," he smirks.

"Ugh," I frown, "you can’t resist the bad puns, can you?"