Bound to Her: Three Dates With a Billionaire Read Free Page B

show her I wasn’t offended. But I was. Generally I didn’t give a fuck what those things said, only that they left me alone. But I was good copy. “They follow me around. Ever since I fucked up the first time, they decided I was prime meat, and they’ve been tracking everything I do until I got paranoid. That’s the nearest I can get to an explanation.”
    Unable to resist a moment longer, terrified she’d get out of bed and walk away, I kissed her. I needed that kiss.
    Her hands stayed by her side, but she responded, lifted her face to kiss me back, let me slide my hand under her head, thread my fingers into her hair and kiss her senseless. I tilted my head and enjoyed the hell out of it. Even when she tentatively touched my side, I didn’t stop kissing her. The touch was barely there, a gentle nudge, then gone, but I felt it like an angel’s breath.
    She’d guessed.
    I finished the kiss and smiled down at her, feeling easier than I had in a long, long time. “Stay,” I said. “Stay the night.”
    “What about—” The touch came again, fleeting and then gone.
    “I have clothes on. And I can trust you, can’t I?”
    She nodded. “You don’t like to be touched.”
    “Only during sex.” I frowned. No, that was wrong. “You were right the first time. I don’t like being touched. I have to do the touching.”
    “You have a phobia?”
    “Yes, and if you tell anyone, that will screw me over completely.” I paused. “Just in case you were looking for revenge.”
    “I wasn’t,” she assured me, and leaned up, snatching a kiss.
    That small gesture made me choke up. That was the first time she’d initiated something, taken something she wanted, instead of responding to what I did. “I’ve been fucked up recently, and I took it out on you. Let me make it up to you.”
    “How?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps you could stay a while? We’re a couple of blocks away from the museum. You could walk to work in ten minutes.”
    She gazed at me. I loved when her eyes widened. “You mean you want me to stay tonight?”
    “Yes.” I was going too fast for her. What I wanted I took, but I had to take care with this one. “How did you ever work for Madame? You flinch when anybody gets too close.”
    She glanced away, but returned to me, honesty in her eyes. “Witley was my first date. I was desperate. My student loan came in, and I—” I waited until she was ready to carry on. “I was doing everything I could, but I got a demand from the bank. My room mate works for Madame, and she put me in touch.”
    “I hate her already.”
    A mischievous smile wreathed her lips. “Cindy’s amazing. She lent me that dress.” She waved vaguely toward the bandage. “And the blue one.”
    “Ah.” I remembered that one. “Then I’ll forgive her a little. Not much, though. What the fuck did she think she was doing?”
    “I was desperate ,” she repeated, as if I didn’t understand. Perhaps I didn’t. I’d had money all my life, never knew what it was like to go without. It sounded shameful, listening to her now. “I don’t have money, and neither does my family. I’d die rather than ask them for help. I’d run up those debts.”
    “By studying,” I reminded her. “It’s not as if you threw it away on whiskey and beer.”
    She grinned. “But it’s my loan, not theirs, and I’ll get the benefit of it, in time. I won’t go to them. I was doing okay.”
    I remembered something. “You’re an intern at the museum, aren’t you? You’re not paid for that.”
    “No, but it’s what I want to do. You have to work your way toward a paid job. There aren’t many jobs around, but I’ll get to hear first when one comes up. I’ll have a reference, too.”
    “So what will you do if you get work somewhere else?”
    “I’ll move on,” she said, raising her brows and giving me a ‘What are you, stupid?’ look.
    Yes, I was. I understood that all right, going where the work was, but there was a world of