‘I don’t know. You naked beneath an apron is pretty decent to me.’
‘I’m not naked!’ I retort with a blush spreading to my cheeks.
‘Then let me in.’
I grit my teeth. ‘Two minutes.’
He wants to argue with me. I can see it in every line of his body, and the tight way he’s holding his jaw. But he doesn’t. His eyes meet mine and he nods.
I walk down the hallway and into my bedroom—which is a complete tip. I squawk, and make a mental note that we cannot end up in here, no matter what happens. I am not the neatest person in the world. I make an effort to maintain the lounge area of the flat in case my family pop in uninvited, but the bedroom and bathroom are always kind of disgraceful.
I pull a sweater on over my singlet and squeeze my cheeks between my fingers until they’ve got some colour back in them, then move quickly downstairs. I unhook the chain and pull the door inwards without stepping aside.
‘What are you doing here?’ A smile tickles the side of my lips even though I’m surprised by his appearance at my home. ‘And how do you know where I live?’
He narrows his gaze. ‘You said I could come in if I let you get changed.’
I roll my eyes. ‘So I did, sir.’ I step back and he moves into my home, casting his eyes over it with undisguised interest.
‘You’re cooking?’ His eyes land on the little lines of gnocchi and the bowl beside them. ‘And listening to a lecture?’ He grins when he looks at me.
I shrug. ‘So?’
‘Nothing. Just...you surprise me.’ He pushes the door shut behind him and it closes with a resounding thud, as if to underscore that we are alone.
I force myself to remain unaffected, but the butterflies in my tummy are fluttering wildly. ‘Would you like something to drink?’
‘Whatever you’re having,’ he says as though it’s not important.
What is Connor Hughes doing in my kitchen? In my tiny flat in Putney, being all huge and overpowering, strong and distractingly masculine? I pause the lecture and turn my back on him in the hope that I can catch my breath, reaching into the fridge and pulling out the bottle of wine, pouring him a glass which I slide over the bench without meeting his eyes.
‘Thank you.’ The murmured gratitude is unexpected and it slicks my insides with awareness. I lift my eyes to him then and almost wish I hadn’t when my knees, already so weakened, threaten to buckle.
‘What are you making?’ He asks the question softly, and I wonder—absurdly—if he’s nervous. Connor Hughes doesn’t get nervous. And not because of me.
‘Gnocchi.’ I lift my wine to my lips and sip it, then wish I hadn’t when I am instantly reminded of the way he dribbled champagne into my mouth last night.
‘For dinner?’
‘No.’ I lift the bowl and show him the quantity of dough. ‘For lunch tomorrow.’
He doesn’t say anything and now I’m the nervous one, so I explain. ‘We always have family lunch at my parents’ place on a Sunday. It’s a lot of people for my mum to cater for so I like to bring a dish.’
He nods, and I have the strangest sense that he’s filing this information away.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask after a moment, pressing my hands into the flour and then reaching into the bowl and lifting a walnut-sized piece out and forming a small circle in my hands.
‘I wanted to...’ He clears his throat. ‘You were gone this morning. When I woke up.’
My forehead crinkles. ‘I know.’
He reaches across, his touch on my cheek light and surprising. ‘I wanted to make sure you were okay.’
My eyes are wide when they lift to his face. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Relief is palpable. My genuine confusion seems to warm him and he smiles. ‘Jesus. I thought I might have scared the shit out of you with all the tying up and blindfolding...’
‘The makeshift nipple clamps,’ I remind him with a teasing smile.
‘Yeah.’ Regret is back in his voice. ‘All that.’
‘No.’ I bite down on my lip, knowing I need to be honest with him. ‘You didn’t scare me.’ My reaction did, though. The depth of my desire for him. The way I needed him. The way I really didn’t want to leave him.
‘Jesus, Olivia. Why’d you run out, then?’
I shrug. ‘I didn’t run out. I just woke up and thought it would be easier if I came home.’
His laugh is a beautiful sound. Neither of us speak for a moment, but the silence is filled with the ebb and flow of thoughts and wants. He sips his wine, his eyes trained on my hands as they work, expertly shaping the gnocchi, one by one.
‘But you’ve never done that before.’
I bite down on my lip as I grab another piece of dough. He reaches across and pads his thumb over my lip, reminding me forcefully of how he did that last night.
‘No.’ I answer directly, with no need to dissemble. ‘I’ve never done anything like that.’
I don’t return the question. He was too confident with the belt, the blindfold, for it to have been his first time with that kind of kinky shit. An image of his vibrant sex life with other women is the last thing I want in my head so I smile brightly in the hope of dismissing it.
‘And did you like it?’ he prompts, his expression inscrutable.
My insides heat. I nod, almost incapable of speech.
‘What did you like?’ he asks.
I am embarrassed. Not by what we did, but at the discussion, in my kitchen, over gnocchi I will tomorrow serve to my parents.
‘All of it,’ I say, stumbling over the words a bit. He laughs.
‘And you’d like to do it again?’
Is he asking to make me admit the fact? Or because he needs to hear it? He’s not an insecure man. I know that to be true. He is the definition of confidence and, if anything, he goes beyond that, to blinding arrogance.
And yet he is asking me for something and I know he needs to hear my answer. ‘Yes.’
He simultaneously expels a breath and smiles—a smile that completely changes his face.
My heart races.
‘Would you like to stay for dinner?’
The question surprises us both. He stands up then, sipping his wine before moving around the bench and placing his hands on either side of me. His body presses into my back and his lips drop to my neck, nipping my flesh with his teeth, buzzing my skin with his stubble. I moan and drop a piece of gnocchi into the flour, so that a little cloud of white erupts from the benchtop. I don’t care.
My fingertips are numb.
His hands slide under the front of the apron, finding the hem of my shirt. He lifts it up, running his palms across my stomach and higher, to the swell of my breasts. He is gentle with them today, cupping them reverently as his tongue moves along my shoulder. I shiver against him and feel the hardness of his cock, just behind me.
He runs his hands lower, one hand pushing inside the elasticised waistband of my yoga pants. His fingertips brush against me, teasing my clit, teasing me, and I moan as pleasure radiates through me, all fiercely hot and burningly commanding.
I