Page 12 of Silver Fox Grump

“This address?” I reel off the one they mentioned, and my boss’ eyes narrow.

His brothers laugh, but I hold Mr Blackwood’s gaze.

“Oh, she just owned you, Sev,” my dad says.

But I’m watching my boss. There’s something inexplicably proud in his expression. Like he’s impressed.

“Very good, Miss Matthews.”

Tension sizzles between us for one second, then two, as Vito speaks, and I really am not listening this time. I’m looking into Sev Blackwood’s face and the only thought in my head, ishow? How did he know?

He growls at me regularly, and I’ve always assumed he didn’t like me, and that my crush was totally one-sided. But I’m wondering now. I live in a property owned by Mr Blackwood, and I have since I started working here.

There’s only one way my boss could know I hurt myself dancing on a table, since I don’t look like the kind of girl who does that. If he saw it happen.

6

SEV

I only see her once during the rest of the workday, and I snap at her, “Why aren’t you having that eye sorted out?”

I am an unmitigated arsehole.

And when I open my phone to the surveillance app after the little blue dot on the tracker shows me she’s at home, I breathe a sigh of relief.

I settle down with a glass of Scotch and my tablet to an evening of my favourite pastime—stalking Maisie.

It’s more fun to follow her in person, but it’s a weekday night, and my brothers have only just finished giving me shit. I wonder what my girl is doing?

I flick to the surveillance app with a smile, and anticipation in my heart. I love watching her read, or…

My jaw falls open. I cannot believe what I’m seeing. Maisie’s usual attire once she’s home from work is a slouchy T-shirt and yoga pants, with her hair in a haphazard ponytail. She relaxes on the sofa, and reads on that little digital thing, and eats cereal or something from the microwave.

But not tonight. This evening, Maisie has chosen violence towards her hidden audience of one.

She’s wearing a tiny negligee. I can see her tits peeking out from the cleavage, and the tops of her thighs are tantalisingly just in view.

She’s reading a book, but that’s the only familiar aspect of this.

I know her reading tastes are what is sometimes called “fairy porn”, and that’s not totally inaccurate having read some of it myself, but honestly anyone who has watched porn knows that you don’t have to wade through eight hundred pages of battling monsters and cheek touches to get to the good stuff. There is no comparison.

And she has just started this series. It’s unlikely it’s this horny on page twelve.

Part of me wants to download the book she’s reading right now to find out, but another part of me—my cock, specifically—demands that I remain where I am.

A drink, a view of the woman I love, and a huge empty penthouse. I guess this is as good as it gets.

My cock hardens as Maisie gets comfortable on the sofa, but my mind gets stuck, as it sometimes does, particularly when I’ve seen my brothers. She looks hot. Maisie is my ideal masturbation material.

But I don’t touch myself yet, because my heart aches. I wish she were here.

My elder brothers both have wives, and children on the way. They have love and laughter and companionship, and I am fucking jealous. When it was just Rafe that was bad enough. But now it’s Vito too—only months after I got him back from Milan—and the contrast makes the feeling even more stark.

I’m lonely. In the past I got a kick out of sabotaging Rafe, giving Vito shit about his accent, breaking the fingers of some ticker who overstepped, or finding an especially good planning loophole.

I used to find joy in watching Maisie. It was enough for so long. And past me is delighted that she is wandering around in a see-through dress. Negligee. Whatever.

But now I’d give everything to have Maisie with me, fully clothed.