10. Miles

CHAPTER 10

MILES

T he way Olivia moves her body against mine makes me feel like a teenager all over again. It's already warm in here, but every time she brushes against me, I feel another shot of warmth shoot through my body like she's trying to set me on fire.

She's not the best dance partner I've ever had — her limbs fly around everywhere a little too much to be called coordinated. But she does have a sense of rhythm, and she does have a fluidity to her hips and arms that tangle me in her web even deeper than I already was.

I knock back the last of my drink and, leaning in to her, I whisper loudly in her ear. "You know, with you, it's the first time in my life I've ever actively tried to escape a pretty lady chasing me around." She chuckles in a way I can only describe as uncomfortable, and I frown. "What?"

"Oh, no, nothing," she stammers, almost too quietly for me to hear. "It's just that all this is weird for me too."

"Not used to someone calling you pretty?" I'm both flirting with her and starting to feel a genuine concern. Her self-esteem surely can't be that low, can it? Nobody with a body or smile like hers deserves to feel shame about anything.

"No, it's not that," she says. "You're being dumb."

"I am never dumb," I say. "But I am sometimes silly." The way she laughs at my joke makes my heart flutter again. "Let's get another drink," I add, taking her elbow to lead her away from the mass of people and back towards the bar where it's less crowded and ever so slightly quieter.

I order us both a drink and lean against the bar next to her. She turns to look at me, and for a moment she's the only thing I can see in the room, like she's glowing. Then she says, "Why do you do it?"

"What?" I ask, blinking in confusion.

"Act like this." She gestures around us, her lips ever so slightly pursed like she's sad. "Like you're some kind of idiot — when you're not. Why've you got to always make a spectacle of yourself?"

My head swims with the pulse of the club, the drinks in my system, and the feeling of Olivia being right here next to me. With her here, it's almost like the entire world melts away, leaving us in a bubble. It should be impossible to hear what she's saying, to have a conversation like this in the middle of the club. But I feel I would always be able to hear every word she says to me perfectly. She attracts me in a way nobody else does.

"I don't know," I lie, shrugging. She narrows her eyes ever so slightly at me, giving me a look that cuts through to my very soul, stripping me open like my cool exterior is nothing. Despite myself, I confess, "It makes me uncomfortable."

"What does?" she presses.

I hesitate. I think if I had one less drink in my system, I probably wouldn't be about to continue the confession I'm making. But I do have a lot of drinks in me, and she is cracking my vulnerability wide open like an egg. "I don't like being watched," I say. She raises an eyebrow, and words start tumbling out of me. "I mean, like, you know, the constant surveillance. The feeling like everything I do is being seen by someone. Being seen by you. The feeling that you're always there, always waiting to jump out at me at any second. It puts me on edge."

"You could just behave a bit better, then," she says like the solution is simple. "I would back off."

I shake my head. "I don't like being alone, either." She squints at me again and I keep going. "I don't like the feeling of being in a room with my own mind and thinking thoughts and knowing that everything is just happening because that's the way the world is, and nobody wants me for me. All they see is Miles, the footballing legend, rather than me as me. Like I'm not even a person at all."

I turn my face away from her, wincing, hoping she didn't really hear what I said at all. Then she places her hand gently on my shoulder, her thumb rubbing in circles with a tenderness I'd forgotten could exist.

"I understand," she says, so softly I have to strain to hear her. "It's hard, getting used to yourself. But you're more than your reputation." She chokes out a laugh. "God, I'm gonna regret saying this, but I've seen who you can be without the front. I know you can be more than that bad boy you pretend to be. I don't understand why you won't just let that side of you out."

I take a deep breath, letting my eyes flicker shut and the music pound with my heart in my chest. Even though I'm standing firmly on the ground, I still feel dizzy, like I'm at the top of a tall, tall tower, like she's slicing me into shreds and dropping me off a cliff. No one's said things like that to me for years and years. Not since my grandad died. I can't remember the last time someone saw who I was behind the mask.

"It's hard not to get carried away when you're surrounded by beautiful women," I say quietly, leaning in towards her again. We're already closer than usual, in order to hear each other, and it feels like a mistake is waiting to happen. But everything in my body is screaming out for her. It's almost painful inside my chest, the way I want her.

"I suppose a handsome man like you must be flocked with them," she says in a tone that's very nearly self-deprecatory, like she can't quite believe I'd ever look twice at her. I can't have that.

"I have had this one particular girl who just can't leave me alone. She keeps following me around like she can't get enough of me."

She blinks slowly, batting her eyelids. She knows exactly what she's doing to me, and it's working. "And what if she wants a little more of you?" she asks softly.

I think I must have misheard, so I ask, "Is that so?"

She nods, slowly and surely, and my heart does a somersault. And before I can second-guess it again, I lean in and press my lips to hers. It's an explosion, a desire unlike anything I've felt before. I've kissed loads of girls, but nothing has ever felt like this. Nothing has ever felt so right . Somewhere in me, I guess I'm expecting her to pull away from me, but she doesn't. Instead, she kisses me back harder, her hands wrapping around me, drawing me in like a snake coiling about me, and I want her to suck every breath from my lungs. I need to be part of her.

I let my hands roam, dropping lower and lower towards her butt, and when she moans into my mouth, a hot flash of arousal hits me, my erection making itself known by straining against my trousers. I kiss my way to her ear to whisper, "What do you say I pay for a taxi home?"

We leave the club hand in hand and shamelessly make out in the back of the cab, the journey passing in a blur of lips and lights, our hands and legs tangling together, and by the time we get back to my apartment I am throbbing with so much want, I feel like I might be about to burst.

It's a struggle to even make it into the elevator before I start tugging her dress up, letting the silky green fabric bunch at her hips. "Miles," she gasps, "we're still in public!"

The elevator doors shut, and I kiss her again. "Who's watching?"

"God, I hate how hot I find you."

"No you don't," I shoot back quickly to cover the awkwardness I feel at her sincerity. It's no wonder she feels like that now, and probably she means it, but there's no way I'm the kind of guy she'd want in a serious kind of way.

I'm going to take advantage of this fun while I can.

In response, she pulls my shirt out of my trousers, her cold fingers brushing against my skin. I shiver.

The lift dings, and I all but drag her down the corridor to my flat, bumping into the walls as we go and fumbling with the key in the lock, not wanting to let go of her, my hands sweating and shaking with excitement. I swear at it as it slips, and Olivia comes up behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist to lean over my shoulder.

As soon as the door shuts behind us, I spin us around to press her into the wall, finally kissing her the way I've wanted to since I saw her in this dress, slowly and passionately, my hands roaming the bare skin of her arms and pulling up her skirt to explore her legs. At the same time, she's pulling on my T-shirt, her knuckles brushing against my stomach.

Our clothes leave a treasure trail to the bedroom as we stumble towards it, stripping and kissing and touching, and when we finally hit the bed, all that's left are her knickers and one of my socks. We take one look at the last layers, giggle, then toss them to the floor too.

"You're fucking gorgeous," I whisper, kissing her throat, her jaw, leaving damp marks on her skin, running my hand down her stomach, unable to stop myself grinning at the way she moans and reacts, at the way she leans into me as if begging me to keep going.

"Protection," she whispers as my fingers get closer to her heat.

"I'm clean," I say. "I might sleep around a lot but I'm not stupid. I get tested all the time."

"Me too, but we should be safe anyway," she says, not letting go of her tight grip on me.

I kiss her again, hard and passionate, full of all the heat and desire bubbling inside me. "For sure. I've got condoms in the drawer."

Fortunately, she's satisfied with that answer as she pulls me down on top of her, our bodies pressed together as we grind against each other, my cock growing unbearably hard with wanting to be inside her, my fingers growing slick with her wetness as I toy with her clit and start exploring deeper. I want to figure out what makes her shake, what makes her gasp, what makes her eyes roll back and her mouth drop open as she experiences perfect ecstasy.

When she comes, it's explosive, her whole body tensing in on itself before she arches, letting out a howl as I don't stop moving my fingers, guiding her through her orgasm to wring every sensation out of her. I want her to have something to remember.

I want to keep her here for as long as I can.

"Miles, fuck me now," she demands in a breathy moan as she comes back down from climax. "Now."

I don't need to get asked again. Doing my best not to elbow her, I scramble over the bed to reach into the bedside table, struggling to grab the box of condoms. Finally, I manage to get it and tear one of the packages open, tossing the box and the wrapper on the floor before I roll it over my hardness.

Like we're dancing, we shuffle into the middle of the bed, arms and legs and hips tangling until finally my cock brushes over her opening and we both moan, which makes us both giggle. Her fingers grip tighter into my shoulders, urging me on, and I don't need any further persuasion.

The feeling of her clenching around me makes fireworks explode in my brain. I've fucked a lot of women before, but somehow this doesn't feel like any of that. Most other women I didn't know that well first. Most of them hadn't been driving me crazy for weeks.

None of them were her .

And as we meld together here, flipping and rolling and laughing as we come again and again, there's a thought in the very back of my mind, one that's trying to tell me that if I could only ever sleep with one girl again, it would be Olivia.

Somehow, wrapped in her arms, giving her the night of her life, I don't think I hate that thought at all.