Page 22 of The German's Guilty Pleasure
He stood and held his hand out for me to take. I grasped it, and he pulled me up off the couch and opened my front door, motioning me out. “We have to leave my apartment? Did you forget something in the office?”
He shook his head and put his hand to the small of my back, propelling me along with him until we came to a stop at the door of his penthouse. He swiped his card and held the door open for me. It wasn’t the first time I had been in his private space, but it still made my breath catch every time. In the office, he was all sleek cars and well-cut suits, but not here. His home was the traditional German country cottage. His furniture was simple, understated, and welcomed you like you’d been a friend forever. Sure, it was state of the art in its technology and appliances, not to mention an out of this world jacuzzi on his balcony, but it wasn’t what you would expect if you had met Lars in the boardroom. Personally, if I had a choice, I’d take the Lars who lived in that bedroom over the one in the boardroom any day. His bed filled the room nearly to capacity, but the look of it told me it would envelop you like the arms of a lover and never let you go.
I shook my head and rolled my eyes at myself. Good Lord, Serenity. You need to get a grip before the head boss lady gets here and notices the way you look at her son, who also happens to be your boss.
He closed the door behind him and motioned me toward his bedroom. I stayed put. I wasn’t standing by the soft bed wrapped in satin sheets and a gingham comforter. I wasn’t staring at the jacuzzi filled with bubbles and warm water, and I wasn’t thinking about the things he had hidden in the stand next to his bed. I diverted to the kitchen instead and leaned against the center island.
The kitchen was rustic meets modern with old-world style cabinets, a giant farmhouse sink, and tile counters. The appliances blended into the kitchen behind doors that matched the cabinetry, but you could tell it had very little use since he moved in. This kitchen felt sad from disuse. My heart broke a little bit to think he didn’t have the time, or the friends, to host the kind of parties Miami is famous for. Then again, he probably had friends, but they were still living their lives in Germany while he uprooted his life to come here. I hadn’t considered how difficult that must have been for him. For all I knew, he had a lot of friends and family in Germany, and he left it all to help his mother.
“Did you have a girlfriend in Germany?” I blurted out, surprising both of us.
His head tipped the way it does when he’s curious, and his hair relaxed across his forehead. “Why would you ask that?”
He braced a hand on each side of me, essentially holding me to the island. He was too close. Too virile. Too out of my league. I couldn’t look away.
“It just hit me that you probably left a lot of people you cared about in Germany when you came over here. Also, there was that kissing thing. I don’t want to be the whore on this side of the pond who tries to steal someone’s man.”
Instantly, his hand grasped my chin, and he used his hard, hot body to hold me against the island. “Use that word again about yourself and we’ll have problems.”
I stared into his icy blue eyes, mesmerized by their beauty and depth. This man was sex all night long. He was frantic, uncontrolled sex on the boardroom table. He was languid sex in the jacuzzi under the stars. He was everything. I was nothing compared to who and what he was.
“Note made,” I squeaked, his intensity sending a tremor through me.
He noticed and relented his grip, but didn’t drop his hand altogether. We were nose-to-nose when he spoke again. “I left Germany free and clear. I came here looking for a new life, Serenity. The only thing I left in Germany that I cared about was mymutter, everything else I was happy to leave behind. There is nothing left for me there. There is no girlfriend, family, or any friends to speak of. My life in Germany was nothing more than an empty shell of hopelessness. At the end of every day, I was still aching for a connection with someone who understood the past was sometimes painful, and moving on from it was always hard.”
“And you found that here?” My voice was barely audible in the cavernous room.
“I found that in you. You cannot deny the commonality we share, Serenity.”
I braced my hand on his chest, not to push him away, but to stop myself from falling into him and soaking in his heat. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“For what? Asking an honest question and getting an honest answer?” he asked, his hand coming up to brush a piece of hair off my cheek.
My head shook with sadness. “For the way you feel. I understand the ache of that kind of pain all the way to my core. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I wish you didn’t feel that way. It’s a burden I would rather you didn’t have to carry.”
“Maybe I carry it for a reason. It has taken me years to find anyone I could connect with the way I connect with you. I do not understand it. I know it complicates our situation in the boardroom. I know it puts me at risk for a lawsuit I cannot afford. Yet, I cannot stay away from you.”
His words made my heart pound, and I wanted a reason, any reason, to deny what he was saying was true. “Maybe that’s because I’m younger than you are, and you think you have to protect me.”
His head shook slowly, but his gaze never left mine. “Your age has nothing to do with it, Serenity. You are twenty-four going on forty-four. You are far wiser and more mature than I am at thirty. The only thing you need protection from is me.”
“Parts of me aren’t so mature,” I whispered. “Some parts of me are far younger than my twenty-four—”
His lips crushed mine and sliced my sentence off. He slid his hands up my shoulders and neck until they grasped my face, gently tipping my head to the left while his lips massaged mine into a soft sigh. My lips parted, he darted in, and his tongue took what it had wanted all along. All of me.
He took my pain and gave me his. He took my loneliness and made it disappear. I took his loneliness and stored it away, offering him a few moments of peace. All the while, his tongue stroked mine in a dance of hunger, desire, and passion I had never experienced before. My fingers fisted his shirt, and I sighed again, the sound more like a moan to my own ears. He broke the kiss slowly and with considerable hesitation. We stood panting in his kitchen, the lights low, and desire radiating from us.
An expletive fell from his lips. “Scheiβ! I hate this and love this all at the same time.” His hand went to his hair to grasp the locks while taking a much-needed step back.
I let his tie slide through my fingers. “I’m sorry. This is my fault. I should be more …” I motioned my hands around until I finally dropped them.
“Be more what? More sexy? More alluring? More incredible? You are already all of those things. There is nothing you need to be more of. That is the problem. You are more than I can ever be, and I know it.”
I tipped my head to the right in confusion. “I meant I should be more professional, but since you brought it up, what the hell, Lars? Look around you. You’re the reason I’m surviving in this world. You’ve handed me everything on a silver platter. Sure, I work for it, but to say I’m more than you can ever be is a bit of a stretch.”
He stood there in the darkness and shook his head slowly. The expression he wore was sad, but for the first time, I saw what he was in his soul. He was broken. I didn’t know why, but the word filled my head instantly. I smoothed my hand down his cheek and cupped it in mine. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what, why, or who, but I know. I’m sorry.”
He rested his hand over mine and let a smile lift his lips. “That, right there, is why I know you are more than I can ever be. You see emotions. You understand things the average person misses completely. All I want to do is offer you the same thing, but in a different way.”
