Page 22 of Chic Steel

“You expect me to believe that?” His thumb drifts to my eye and swipes away liquid.

I sniff and blink rapidly to clear the blurriness. “I’m fine. I don’t know why I’m upset.”

He wraps his arms around me and tucks my head to his chest. Surrounded by Oliver, I sigh and breathe easier.

“You do know. Tell me, please.” His hand strokes my back.

“I don’t think I belong in your world.” I loop my arms around his hips and press myself flush against him. “I’m a piercer. I don’t do whatever this is.” My hand flings out behind him and he senses the movement because he tenses, but ducks his head so our temples press together. It’s easier talking about this without facing him. “I know we have different jobs, achieve different things, and I love what I do. But it’s so different. And him saying that brought it all forward again.”

“Ella, I don’t give a fuck about what you do.”

I snort a laugh and pull back to see his face. “Really?”

“Nope. I got piercings to see you.”

My heart jolts. “You made me pierce your dick to see me? And went through the healing process as well?”

“Yep. And I’d do it again and again if it meant seeing you. If you worked at a restaurant, I would have eaten there, or if you worked at a hardware store, I’d take up gardening. I don’t give a fuck about what you do as long as you’re happy.” He gesturesoutside. “All that? Is luck and being in the right place at the right time with the company. It’s not needed, and it sure as shit doesn’t give people the opportunity to express themselves like you do. Or what Maddy does. It’s art. This stuff makes people’s lives easier, sure, but it doesn’t give them confidence in themselves. Not like you do.” His hands cup my cheeks. “I don’t care what other people say. So we’re in different industries? Who isn’t in a different industry to their girlfriend?”

I swallow harshly. “Girlfriend?”

His thumbs sweep distractingly across my cheeks. “If you want to be. If you’ll have me.”

“You don’t care about what people say?” I ask. My heart beats hard against my chest, and hope builds in my throat.

“All I care about is that you’re happy.”

Relief rushes through me, turning my limbs weak. “Can I kiss you?”

“If you don’t, I’ll keep talking at you until you do.”

“You don’t care that lipstick will go all over you?” I put a fresh coat on when I fled the balcony to kill time.

In answer, he sweeps me onto the vanity, pushes my knees apart, steps between them and kisses me. A hard, demanding kiss, pushing me back against the mirror with his hand behind my head to soften the surface. I grasp the lapels of his jacket and yank him to me, licking into his mouth and thrusting a hand through his hair. My legs wrap around his waist as he sucks and nips at my lips. I pant and pull away to catch my breath and kiss down his throat, leaving red outlines of my lips all over him.

Marking him. Claiming him. Making himmine.

“Take your jacket off,” I demand.

He yanks it off and throws it out of the way, and my hands dart back to his shoulders. The heat from his body warms my hands through the crisp shirt, but my hands have a mind of their own. They rub up and down his back, around to his chest andback again. I urge him forward and our lips meet, our tongues brush together, stealing my breath and sending liquid heat to pool between my legs.

He sucks my bottom lip and releases it with a pop while his hand inches to my thighs. My eyes flick past his shoulder, and I realise I can see myself in the mirror beside the door. There’s lipstick smudged across my face, but it’s worn off my lips.

A smirk spreads across my face when an idea weaves its way into my mind, and I lean away from Oliver.

I reach over and grab my bag to dig out the lipstick.

“What are you doing?” His chest heaves.

“My lipstick’s rubbed off. I need to touch it up.” I swivel on the vanity and uncap the lipstick. I swipe it on my lips while he watches behind me, chest moving up and down, his hands bracketing me on the vanity beside my thighs. I finish touching up the lipstick and rub my lips together, swollen from his mouth, and wipe away some of the red near my chin.

Turning back to him, I say, “Now, where were we?”

I unbutton his shirt, rip it off his shoulders, and push it down his arms where it gets caught at his wrists from his cufflinks. The image of him restrained by his cufflinks sends a pulse between my legs.

His chest dusted in hair is bare to me, and I brush the first piercing I did for him, now holding my idea to make him laugh. My idea to make him smile. This CEO in his corporate suite toilet with a dinosaur barbell through his nipple.

I press deliberate kisses down his throat to his chest, the perfect imprint of my red lips trailing towards the jewellery. I want to see my lipstick on him. A physical reminder that he’smine.

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