17. Drew

My alarm goes off, and I fumble for my phone, immediately cognizant of my surroundings, Olivier's scent, his body's heat and weight, and also—the rock-hard bulge leaving a dent in my hip. I can't believe I didn't wake up before my alarm. My sleep is typically restless—blame the night shift—but right now, I feel damn near reborn.

I hit snooze, just in case.

I don't have full wood, but I do have a semi, and the friction between our bodies from my movement increases my awareness of it. And of him.

An adrenaline pulse forces the age-old question: fight, flight or fuck? My heartbeat speeds up. I give his bare back the slightest brush with my hand, re-familiarizing myself with what it feels like to touch his very male body.

Admittedly, things got a little overly intimate this morning, and I'd gone a little soft for The Heir. But there is a sweetness behind all his taunts and snark that I don't hate. My body doesn't hate him either. If I ever manage to make the body-mind connection, I might be in some trouble here.

"You need to do something with that thing, Peach."

His long, elegant fingers tense against my chest, telling me he's awake and knows exactly what I'm talking about. "Like what?"

How the fuck am I supposed to know?"Why don't you tell me what you want, and we can go from there."

"Wanna fuck you," he mumbles, turning to faceplant into my armpit.

My eyebrows lift. Yeah, no, I don't see that happening. "What's the next option?"

"Want you to suck it."

"Next."

"Just touch me, Drew. Fuck."

He squirms against my side, really digging his cock in, his hips moving in short, upward thrusts.

"Are you a little fuckboy, Olivier?"

"No, that's not how I currently identify."

"How do you identify?" I ask, becoming more intentional with my hand on his back, slowly stroking up and down, fanning my fingers out over his ribs.

"Like a player. Most eligible bachelor. That kind of thing," he says, grunting slightly.

"You feel more like a bitch in heat."

"Valid," he murmurs, continuing to thrust, dry humping my hip.

I slide my hand down to try something new. I clutch his distinctly great ass, finding it firm with some give—like a perfect peach.

And then I crack my palm against it once, hard, causing him to buck and groan. "Again," he begs.

I do it until he stops asking for it, and when that happens, I jerk myself to the rhythm of his increasingly frantic humping.

It's perverse what he's doing. Needy and hot. It's a simp move, and it's getting me off, knowing I turn him on, too. Not that he's ever led me to believe otherwise, but positive reinforcement has been hard to come by lately.

An intrusive and unwelcome thought has me jerking myself even more vigorously. Is he seeing Elodie tonight? Since he hadn't gone out last night, I'm guessing yes, and I don't fucking like the idea of it.

I get that I don't have any justifiable reason to be jealous—I have a girlfriend, too—a real one, but she's so intertwined with Manhattan for me, I wonder if I'm already writing her off as a loss since I'll likely have no choice but to leave the city soon.

"Gonna come, Drew," Olivier moans in my ear.

Jesus, his lips are right there, his hot panting breaths putting chills on my neck.

His nails dig into my chest as he works himself against me, and now that I'm back in the moment, I give his ass one more, unrequested smack.

He grunts, but this grunt doesn't end in a short sound—it draws out into a long, agonized groan as warmth soaks my waist. "Unh, unh, unh…" he chokes out as he works himself through his release—the sounds so hot they go straight to my balls.

"Fuck." I throw my head back and squeeze my eyes shut. "Want you to drink my come… I'm close… So fucking close."

"Fuck, you're so beautiful, Drew… you feel so fucking good. Need to taste you."

"Suck me dry. Please," I gasp, desperate for his mouth and not caring if he knows it.

With the speed of a sloth, he moves away from my side to the space I make for him between my spread thighs. He watches me jerk myself a moment before taking over, first with his hand, then with his glorious wet hole of a mouth.

"Oh fuck yeah—yeah, Peach, oh fuck… Suck that cock for me…"

He groans around my shaft as he swallows it up, tongue twining around the length as he goes down. Our eyes meet, and I take in the wrecked, dark-eyed sight of him, my cock stretching his pink lips wide, and that's all it fucking takes. I'm coming down in his throat in seconds, fighting the urge to slam myself against his vocal cords.

He slurps and gulps, sucks and swallows, and our gazes remain locked as he demands more cum from my cock with every draw of his mouth. I grip him by the hair, not letting him look away, and not wanting this picture of him to fade.

One word pounds like a drumbeat through my skull as I stare at the lewd sight of him wrapped around my dick. Mine. Mine. Mine.

He pops off with a gasp, and I release his hair. Sitting back, he stares down at my body, flushed, heaving air, cum on my side, a wet dick, and his fingernail marks on my chest. Shit.

He runs his thumb along his lower lip and meets my gaze, then asks, "Blow jobs not getting old yet?"

I shake my head, not quite capable of speech.

He sighs.

Am I boring him?

With a knee, I nudge him hard enough to give him the impetus to move away from me. He gets off the bed and stretches, his lean body going taut as his long arms reach over his head. Damn.

Never thought something like that would turn me on, but here we are.

"I'll go see if the laundry's back."

He's gone a few minutes before I'm able to get moving. Finally, I roll off the bed, take stock of myself, and decide I need a shower. I grab my things from my bag on the bench at the foot of the bed.

One more night—tonight—of work, and then I'm off for two. I probably have plans with Jericho I've forgotten about. I need to follow up with the plumber, get a haircut, and otherwise catch up with my life outside the Upper East Side.

Sounds kind of grueling to be honest. Like I'm wondering if anyone needs a shift covered, which isn't like me at all. Except I could use the extra money. And there's always…

Olivier reaches the top of the stairs with a dry-cleaning bag in his arms. He hangs it on a hook on the wall near him. "If you have any questions about how the shower works…"

"I'm sure I'll figure it out."

He gives me a shrug like, Good luck, chump. "Just saying."

I shake my head and turn to enter the bathroom, closing the door behind me. Five minutes later, while I'm sustaining second degree burns from the scalding water, I'm realizing what a colossal mistake not listening to him was. I finally manage to work out all the gears and levers, but if I wind up in here again, I'll have him get the water running first and maybe ask for a tutorial.

Lesson learned.

I try to keep my cursing to a minimum, but when I come out of the bathroom in my fresh t-shirt and shorts, he's sitting on the bed with a satisfied smirk.

"How was it, then?"

"Shut the fuck up."

He laughs.

I manage to quiet him when I say, "I'm sure you have dinner plans, but do you mind if I order something before I go to work? I'll stay out of your way."

"What way?" he asks, his tone now having gone from gleeful to morose.

"Look, I'm just hungry."

"Then order something."

"You want anything?" I ask, once again trying to poke around in his personal business without asking directly.

"No," is all he gives me, and it could mean literally anything.

Fine. "Are you going out tonight?"

"Yes," he says. Miserably.

"Elodie?"

"There's no one else who'll talk to me, so yeah."

I frown. "What do you mean?"

He casts me a look all too reminiscent of the dismissive attitude I used to hit him with every time he walked through the door of the building trying to show me up. "Did you not notice the crime scene tape outside the door when you came in? No one comes near me anymore. Even my parents are barely speaking to me."

"Ah… not allowed to fuck up at all, huh?"

"Not on camera."

"You know," I say as I open my food delivery app, "There is a world beyond the Upper East Side where no one gives a shit about you." I say this from experience. I would never have heard about Olivier Arnaud if I didn't work in the building. But this neighborhood is its own microcosm of old money, massive wealth, reputation, and appearance. It's almost cartoonish—the eccentricities—the extravagances. Babs occasionally wears a fox stole in the winter. Made out of an actual fox, no joke.

The widow in 808 has a spiritual healer who comes at noon three times a week. I've never met the healer, but I'm aware of everyone's appointments. But a spiritual healer? What even is that?

"You'd be surprised how many people read the society pages," Olivier argues.

"Just because they read them doesn't mean they'd shun you for getting a DUI."

"And resisting arrest."

"Still." I stand by my point.

"So, you'd have no problem introducing me to your friends," he says, testing the theory.

I laugh, shaking my head as I scroll through my nearby dining options. "That's not what I said."

"Right." He pushes off the bed and walks to a dresser that looks like it came straight from Louis the XVI's boudoir. Opening a drawer, he pulls out a clean black t-shirt and puts it on. It distracts me momentarily, watching him move, realizing I enjoy watching him move. I already had mixed feelings about my two days off coming up, but now there's a slight creeping dread moving in along with the thought of...

Missing him isn't the way I'd put it. That implies feelings, and I'm not sure I have many feelings for him beyond physical urges. It implies longing, and there's no longing here.

It's more like FOMO. Knowing where he is and who he's with is a habit of mine. Lately, it's become more of a hobby, something I enjoy keeping track of. One of the few things in life that entertains me.

"I won't be here Saturday or Sunday," I say, aware no one asked what my plans were.

He turns to face me, rearranging his hair now that his shirt is on. "Why not? Where will you be?"

"Off. I'll be home."

"Home downtown or home in New Hampshire?"

I frown at him. "How do you know I'm from New Hampshire?"

"Instagram."

"You looked me up?" I ask.

"You're gonna tell me you haven't looked me up?"

We face off a moment, my future meal forgotten as I let the hand holding my phone dangle at my side. "Why would I look you up?"

He doesn't answer, giving me a long, assessing look. "You're pretty good at making me feel like shit, you know? Are you like this with everyone?"

I scowl. "No. But you've made me feel like shit more times than I can count, so you'll have to excuse me if I'm constantly wondering what the hell I'm doing here."

"What are you doing here, Drew?"

That's the million-dollar question, isn't it? "You really want me to answer that?"

He nods.

"I'm not sure I have a good reason yet." He managed to totally dodge the fish hook I sent down to him—letting him know I wouldn't be around for two days and implying—at least I thought I'd implied—I was interested in what his plans were. Maybe I need to be more direct, but the idea of that makes my insides clench. "Anyway, it's nicer here than my place. It's hard to sleep with three—two roommates."

"What about your girlfriend? Does she not live with you?" he asks.

"No," I say, choosing this time to refocus on my phone and not the sharply curved outline of his lips.

"How long have you been together?"

"About three years."

"Huh."

I arch a brow without looking at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That's a long time. Have you ever cheated on her before?"

I nearly choke on my own spit. "No."

"Hm. I take it you don't see each other that much."

"Why would you assume that?"

"She doesn't live with you. You work nights. You've spent a lot of days here recently…not that big of a stretch," he says with a smirk.

"Guess you're right. I see her about once or twice a week," I mumble. Although, now that I think about it, we're going on two weeks.

"You planning on keeping that up?"

I listen for an edge of jealousy or anxiety in his voice but find none. "I think if there's one thing you and I can both agree on is that this—whatever it is—surprised us both." I have yet to stop reeling from all the new developments. "I haven't figured out how I'm going to approach it with Jericho yet."

"Jericho, huh? Cool name."

"Yeah. She's a cool lady. Deserves way better than me," I say quietly, settling on a chicken parm and placing an order under Olivier's name.

Olivier tuts. "You're not that bad."

I eye the bruises on his neck. His face flushes darkly as he notices me doing it. "You sure about that?"