Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ROSIE

“ I want to try this with you.”

The words keep beating through my body as if they’re a pinball getting tossed back and forth, shuttled around by my heart, my lungs, my skin. Every nerve ending is lit up and glowing as Anthony leads me inside, his hand wrapped around mine like a promise.

Smith House is a gothic castle of a house—the kind of place someone would get lost in a cautionary fairytale if they weren’t careful. I mean, there’s a damn cupola, and the windows layered over the grand staircase are slanted, the way they are at the Biltmore.

Anthony gives me a sidelong look as I step inside.

“It’s impressive,” I offer.

“I hate this house.” His voice is heavy with truth.

“Why?” I ask, turning him to me in the doorway. “It’s so awesome.” And yet, we’ve only gone one step inside and I can already see the difference in him. I’m surprised I didn’t notice the first time we were in here. It’s like a shadow fell over his face the instant we stepped inside.

“It’s haunted,” he tells me with a half-smile, as if he thinks he’s joking but isn’t quite sure.

“Maybe it is. Places can be haunted, even if you don’t believe in ghosts.”

His father is his ghost.

My uncle, I guess, is mine.

I reach up and trace his eyebrows, his patrician nose, his generous mouth. “But a place doesn’t need to be haunted. Things only have feelings attached if you let them. It’s your mother’s house now. Hers and yours and your sister’s. It should feel that way.” Something flickers across his face, and I ask what I want to know. “Your father…what did he do?”

He doesn’t flinch, but he stares at me with heat and says, “He’s the last thing I want to talk about right now.”

“So don’t talk. Your hard dick was pressed against me for over an hour this morning, and if that’s not a tease, I don’t know what is.”

A storm passes over his face, and he tugs me the rest of the way inside and shuts the door. The next second he’s pressing me to the heavy wood, his head bowed over me like he’s about to utter words that are either sacred or profane. “You can feel it anytime you like.”

Profane, thank goodness.

“Right now would be a good start,” I say—or try to say, because before I finish, his lips are on me. The door is at my back, immovable, and Anthony is pressing me into it. I can already feel him, half-hard and big, and my pulse is beating hard in my neck as he hikes one of my thighs up around his waist and leans into me.

“Does that work for you, Princess Rosie?” he says, his voice a harsh, breathy whisper.

“It would work better if you kissed me.”

And he leans in and kisses me, long and hard. Every part of me is aware of the places our souls have started to connect as well as where our bodies are touching, his hand still wrapped around my thigh, pressing me to him.

I suck in his bottom lip and kiss the places where his dimples pop out. And I lean into his hardness, needing to feel how much he wants me. He covers me in kisses, too—kissing my face, my neck, and then the curve of my breasts in my sweater. I push his head in deeper because it feels so deliciously good, especially with my leg still hitched up around him and his dick pressed to me.

“Fuck,” he says raggedly, pressing closer, his hand wrapping around my ass as his hips pump against me. “I…need you, Rosie. I thought we should wait, but—”

“Yeah, that’s not happening. I’m going to need you to take me to your childhood bedroom and show it to me in detail . You weren’t lying about the extra-large condoms the other day, were you?”

I already know the answer—I’ve been feeling it all day—but my impulse is to challenge him. Especially since I already know he can rise to the occasion.

He lifts his eyebrows and pulses me against him again. “I told you I’d never lie to you.”

“Good,” I say, licking my lips. “Because I bought some, and it would have been pretty embarrassing for both of us if I got it wrong.”

He laughs, and then he’s swinging me up into his arms like I really am a princess. And I’m happy in an uncomplicated way that I don’t want to dig into or search for flaws. If he doesn’t really care about me, or just wants me because he needs me, I don’t want to know. Or, at least, I don’t want to know yet. I want to fall into the unexpected the way I used to—without fear of what awaits me.

He starts carrying me up the stairs, and now I'm the one who’s laughing. “Don’t, you’re nearly thirty-four. You’re going to put your back out.”

“I’ll buy some of that wrinkle cream,” he says with a smile and keeps carrying me up as if I weigh nothing. So apparently those workouts he does are effective for more than just horseback riding and paintball battles.

Every cell in my body is awake as he moves down a hallway lined with a red Persian carpet that would probably finance someone’s college education. This house is intimidating in a way I didn’t expect. It makes me remember that I was here as waitstaff just a couple of months ago. At Anthony’s engagement party.

As much as I hate to consider it, what if Nina is right?

What if he’s just another rich man slumming it?

A nearly married man having one last hoorah?

What if I give myself to him, and he turns around and chooses someone else?

My heart beats harder, need and nerves sending adrenaline through my veins, giving me a hell of a case of flight or fuck.

But then he steps into one of the rooms before turning with me still in his arms and kicking the door shut behind us. I barely have a moment to take in the details—the thick-looking, expensive rug, the queen-sized bed with curtains—curtains!—before he lowers me onto it and kisses me.

And I already know I’m going to give myself what I want for today, at least today.