Page 113 of How to Bang a Billionaire

Cringe.

“Just remember it’s a small cottage,” Hazel warned us. “Don’t debauch each other too loudly.”

Double cringe.

“And make sure Caspian has a towel and a toothbrush,” Rabbie added.

Just…kill me now.

Chapter 28

By the time I’d dealt with everything and shown him how to find the bathroom, alone with Caspian felt incredibly significant somehow. Almost too much.

I’d always loved Mum’s room. It’d been storage space when we first arrived but she’d done it up. It was right at the back of the house in—for lack of the correct architectural term—the pointy bit. The bed was tucked under the eaves and Mum had strung up a bunch of fairy lights so it felt like lying under a canopy of electric stars. It was my favorite place to read, tucked under this handmade quilt and propped up on these jewel-colored throw pillows, the sea whispering to me just on the edge of hearing.

It had seemed pretty magical at the time but with Caspian standing there—hunching a little to avoid banging his head on the ceiling and looking as if he’d been airbrushed in from an issue of GQ—it seemed more kind of…shabby. Quaint, if you were feeling generous.

And then he pulled his jumper over his head and I stopping worrying about the furnishings.

“God,” I mumbled, “you’re beautiful.”

Because he really was. And he’d previously given me so little opportunity to look at him. He wasn’t built, but he was what you might call nicely defined. Elegance and strength and this refined masculinity. Made me want to lick down the groove between his abs and press my mouth to the hollows behind his collarbones. Trace the long veins in his arms with the tip of my tongue. And I couldn’t tell if he was exquisitely manscaped or if nature had just somehow imbued him with the most attractive configuration of body hair imaginable: a sleekly delicious treasure trail, like a beckoning finger to his crotch, and a silky scattering across his pectorals, from which his nipples peaked rosily and—to my eager eyes—somewhat coquettishly.

He shifted—embarrassed, maybe. Or perhaps fearing for his life beneath my ravenous stare. “Come on, Arden. I haven’t shared a bed with anyone for a long time but I’m moderately certain it involves being in the bed.”

“Um, yeah. Right.”

It was such a small room that it only took him about a step and a half to close the distance between us. He caught my T-shirt and slowly peeled it off me. There was an interesting moment in the middle when I was blind and entangled and helpless…and then I was shiveringly half naked.

Just me, pale and scrawny. Nothing he hadn’t seen before but it felt different. Like my skin was thinner.

He flicked the delicate, stainless steel feather hanging from my CBR and smiled. “You’re very decorative. It always drives me a little wild, wondering what’s under your clothes.”

“You really think about that?” I was impressed by how casual I managed to sound. Even though my nipples were all “hello, boys” and my cock about a touch from going the same way.

“Oh yes. I sit in my office, thinking about your body jewelry, and the billions just slip away.”

It was enough to banish some of my awkward at least. I laughed and wriggled out of the rest of my clothes. Pulled back the quilt and crept into bed, tucking my knees up to my chin while I waited for him. “Did you have the worst evening?” I asked anxiously.

“I had a lovely evening.”

Oh God, he was taking off his jeans. Not that the phrase “taking off” did anything even approaching justice to the austere poetry of Caspian Hart getting naked. Well, almost naked. And I was glad for another opportunity to appreciate his taste in boxer briefs. They were just as good as I remembered. Clinging to all the places where I quite fancied clinging myself.

He sat down on the edge of the bed.

Don’t stare at his cock…don’t stare at his cock.

His legs were good too. I could imagine them doing all sorts of lewd things. Spreading, clinging, dragging me to him—

And now I was hard. Good going, Arden.

Thankfully, Caspian didn’t seem to notice my, err, struggles. “Well,” he said briskly, “how are we doing this?”

I flapped the corner of the quilt invitingly. “I know you said it had been a while, but, well, enter bed, commence snuggling?”

“Truthfully…” He was staring distractedly at a patch of wallpaper. We hadn’t been able to afford enough to actually do the room, so Mum had made a collage of samples, which looked less rubbish than you might imagine. “I’m a light and rather restless sleeper. I’m afraid I’ll make you uncomfortable.”

At this rate, we’d still be discussing sleeping arrangements come morning. “Um, we could go top to toe?”

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