31. Drew

Olivier falls asleep fast, and I slide out of bed to take another shower. Not only because I'm covered in my own sweat and cum, but I need the space. After washing up, I can't stand any longer. I sink into the tub, drop my head between my arms, and let all the emotions I've been holding in come tumbling out as the water pours over my head.

My chest aches like it's ripping apart. Every sharp, desperate breath is laced with razor blades, and my body feels battered and heavy. Why the fuck would he want me to stay? He shouldn't give a shit. I have nothing to offer. I don't even have dreams anymore. My entire life is wasted and worthless. I'm pointless.

The shower runs cold too soon, and I try to get myself together in case he wakes up when I get back in bed. But it takes a few more minutes under the ice-cold stream to stop the heavy sobs from wrenching themselves from my chest.

The weight of melancholy is still on me as I push to my feet. I shiver as I dry off, and a glance in the mirror reveals lips as blue as Olivier's get when I'm choking him. I can no longer resist the lure of the bed—his warm body skin-to-skin.

"Fuck, why are you so cold?" he asks, wrapping what feels like his entire being around me and tugging the covers in close.

"Hot water ran out." My voice sounds as raw as I worried it might.

His leg around my waist tightens until there's not a sliver of space between us. I press my blue lips into his neck. They practically melt against his heat. He strokes my hair in a repetitive, soothing motion until I stop shivering and drift off to sleep.

When I wake, it's because Olivier is on the phone beside me, and he raised his voice. I check the time before I get annoyed with him for cutting my sleep short, but it's five, and I need to get moving anyway.

"It's ridiculous, though," he's saying. "No engagement moves this fast."

He scowls, listening, and then, "I thought this was supposed to be convincing… Fine. Whatever." He ends the call with a petulant punch of his thumb and tosses the phone to the foot of the bed where it bounces once and thunks onto the floor.

"Who was that?" I ask cautiously.

"My mother. I have an engagement party to go to on Saturday. Are you free?"

I huff. "No. Thank Christ."

"If you're worried you won't have anything to wear, I could get you something." He runs a hand up my chest, eyes locked on mine. "Dress you up…"

My dick slowly rises. "I'm working."

"I can invite friends, though. Even special friends."

I stop his hand from running over my very vulnerable, very exposed nipple. "I don't want to go to your engagement party, Peach." Even I can hear my pouty tone. Jesus.

"Very important people will be there…"

"Olivier," I say, my weak attempt at a warning.

"Use me, Jack. Use me for my money and my connections the way you use me for my cock."

Some miracle of a smile breaks through along with a full, throbbing erection. "You gonna be my sugar daddy?"

"Mmm…say more," he says, climbing on top of me and perfectly aligning my dick with his crack, sliding forward so I get the full effect.

I go temporarily blind, grasping for his thighs so I don't accidentally punch myself up into him.

I'm about to flip him over and tempt him the same way, but the bedroom door opens with no warning and Chris pokes his head in. "I—oh—shit—I'm sorry—wait—Shit."

Olivier sighs the most annoyed, put upon sigh in the world and dismounts with a harsh glare for my roommate.

"Christian, Ollie, Ollie, my roommate Chris," I say.

Chris gapes a moment longer then says quickly, "Just making sure you were up. Sorry to bust in, I thought—" He shuts the door on us before he can finish his sentence.

Olivier turns his pretty head my way. "Worst cockblock ever."

I don't disagree. "He and Jericho are friends."

"Oh."

"He won't say anything without talking to me, though," I say, thinking out loud.

"Would you mind if he did?"

"Should come from me, don't you think?"

"I hope I didn't just buy you four more weeks of stringing Jericho along."

He's giving me an opportunity here I can't pass up. "Who says I'd be stringing her along?"

His blue eyes flare in the lamplight.

"Am I not allowed to have special friends, too?"

I've rendered him speechless, and I make a grab for him, satisfied, wrestling him onto his back and hovering over him. "I'm kidding."

"You're horrible."

"You knew that already."

He pulls my face down in a quick movement and kisses me fiercely, his tongue lashing through my mouth and gone too soon. "Come to the party with me."

"I can't."

"You can. Someone can cover you for a few hours, surely. Or people can open the door all by themselves. I promise we all know how to work the elevator. We do it from our floors every day."

"But who'll sign for the passive-aggressive packages?"

He smiles up at me, and I find myself smiling back again. He really is something. "Okay," I give in.

"And you'll accept the suit as a thank you gift without bitching at me about it being charity?"

"I can't promise that."

"Well, can you meet me at my tailor tomorrow afternoon at three? Or sleep at my place and we'll go together?"

"Sure. One of those."

"Do you wanna sit on my dick?" he asks.

"Not exactly, but I'll happily lie down and let you rail me real quick."

"Yeah?"

"Fuck yeah."

He grins. "Can I be loud?"

I think about Chris and the way he's bailing on me. "As loud as you want."

Olivier's tailorhas nothing but great things to say about my body. "Perfect specimen" is one of the terms he uses while Olivier stalks in a circle around us while I stand on the pedestal and have a Tom Ford suit fitted.

"He's a model," Olivier says, a note of pride in his voice.

"I'm not surprised," the tailor says with a tug on the hem of one of pant leg. "Underwear, I hope."

I actually blush.

Olivier gives me a salacious wink I tell myself not to read into. He already blew me in the dressing room when he saw me in a black Armani tux, and my dick has had just enough time to recover. If he keeps looking at me like that, I'll really embarrass myself when the tailor gets to the waistline.

"He stuns in everything," Olivier says.

I shoot him a warning look, but he only smirks, and I have to look away.

It's hard to be too sad with him around. He breaks all the rules I've learned about depression over the years, but I can't argue with results. I am, however, struggling more than ever to keep my hands off him.

Last night, before my shift, I'd gone so far as to ride the service elevator up all twelve floors with him so I could make out with him until the last possible second. And since I wasn't quite done with him by the time we got there he rode back down with me, and I started my shift with a raging hard on.

He went out with Elodie, and she came home with him, too, but I didn't let that stop me from heading up to the penthouse this morning with the bag of food he got delivered.

They were both awake, although Elodie looked like she'd just rolled out of bed, and Olivier looked like he'd been waiting up all night doing cartwheels again.

She gave me a polite kiss on the cheek, said she'd see me at the party, and then I'd dragged her fiancé upstairs to fuck me to sleep again. This time, it worked. I came so hard, I don't even remember what happened between spilling on his sheets and him shaking my shoulder to wake me up. I do remember wanting him again, but he said he let me sleep late and we needed to get going.

"Have you ever considered modeling?" I ask him now, while the tailor keeps sticking pins in the suit.

He snorts.

"Just because you've never had to work a day in your life doesn't mean you can't," I say.

"I don't know if you've figured this out about me yet, but I'm not very good with someone being the boss of me."

"So, it's the concept of employment you object to?"

"That and the imposition on my personal time."

"Ah."

"However," he says, like he thinks I've stopped paying attention to him and he needs it back. "If I had to pick a job I'd be decent at, I could walk a few runways and probably not hate it."

"So, if you ever found yourself destitute, or cut off or something."

He and I share a long look. "You'd help me with my walk?" he asks.

"If you liked."

He swallows, and he's the one who turns away this time.

I can't say where exactly the question came from. This whole thing I've got with him should feel more like an experiment. I've never really connected sex with feelings before, and from what I know about him, he doesn't either. But sometimes I can't help but think of all the times he taunted or mocked me before I tried to kill him. They seem a hell of a lot like foreplay now. I fucking hated him.

I have yet to ask what his issue was with me, but there was always something there. A feeling. He's definitely under my skin. I'm sure even the tailor can tell that much.

It wasn't as hard for me to take him up on his offer to pay my rent for a month as I thought it would be. I'm not saying I expected the offer, but I did suspect that when I told him I was leaving he'd try something to keep me around. And I hoped he would, too.

Granted—we're not destined for forever. We'd both be putting a lot on the line neither of us are willing to risk…yet.

The whispered yet in my thoughts makes my breath catch, and I have to clear my throat to breathe right again. Is that why I wanted him to buy us more time? Why I would have been completely crushed if he hadn't? Was it fear or sadness, or was it relief that had me wracked with sobs in the shower yesterday morning? Was it all of the above?

Damn.

I lift a brow his way, but he's still not looking at me. He's pacing his circle, seemingly deep in thought.

A few minutes later, the tailor deems me finished and helps me out of the suit. In my undershirt and briefs, I head back to the dressing room, wondering if Olivier will follow. He doesn't.

When I come back into the shop, dressed, he's waiting by the door, ready to open it for me. "He'll have it ready by tomorrow night," Olivier says. "I'll pick it up for you."

"Thanks."

On the street, we walk shoulder to shoulder, and I ask, "What are you thinking about so hard?"

"What you said. About me being cut off."

"I wasn't trying to pick a scab," I say.

"No, I know. It was weird because it was like for the first time ever, I thought to myself—would that be so bad?"

"Do me a favor. Don't go there."

"Why?"

"Because we don't have enough time before my shift to dissect why you're not suited for the real world."

He elbows me in the side. "Jackass."

I want to pull him to me and plant a huge kiss on his cheek, but we're in his neighborhood, and it's not dark out yet. So I keep my hands in my pockets, my mouth to myself, and my feet moving. "Don't be moody, Peach. That's my job."

"I can be moody if I want. I can do anything I want, whenever I want, except marry the right person and work at a job apparently."

"So, you do want to get married one day, just not to Elodie?"

"I don't know," he says, grumpier than ever. "Honestly, marrying Elodie makes a lot of sense. Probably more than most marriages do."

"I've always heard that about arranged marriages."

"Why does it seem like it sucks so bad then?" he asks.

"Because it wasn't your choice," I say.

He stops walking. I turn to find him facing me. "Drew?"

I nod for him to go on.

"I need a hug."

I frown. "We've got two more blocks."

"I know you can't hug me right now, but maybe talk me through one."

"You're serious."

"Please."

I move to stand in front of him, not a hundred percent sure what he needs or how to go about giving it to him. If I actually tried to hug him it would definitely look like we're fucking because I don't think I'm capable of touching him in a way that wouldn't showcase how intimately familiar I am with his body.

"Okay, so I have my hands on your back. Your nose is right underneath my ear, and I smell like wool and snow… I'm breathing on your neck, and I give you a tight squeeze and I say…uh…it's gonna be okay."

"That feels really good," he says.

"Oh, yeah, it's really good." And it's so fucking hard not to touch him right now. "But now I'm letting go of you so we can get back to your place before my shift starts."

"Thank you, Drew," he says, and we start walking again.

"Anytime."