Page 32 of Tempt Her

More than his kiss and touch have awakened me. I enjoy Luke’s company. How he asks me questions. How he surprises me with lunch. Yesterday, he introduced me to empanadas, and I’m obsessed. I hear Luke humming down the hallway while he works. Seems he’s an Ed Sheeran fan, and finally, I like having a man in the house with me, just not the man who owns it.

After last night with Luke, I feel daring. Ready to roll the dice because I feel like a badass Katniss—the odds are finally in my favor.

“I understand,” I answer Gentry. “And there’s no sense in both of us suffering during Christmas. You work hard enough as it is.” Cooing with the pacifying voice Gentry’s mom uses, he thrives on being infantile. “Go to the yacht and relax. I’ll stay here and keep getting ready for our party. I’ll make itallokay.”

He squints. “What about your birthday tomorrow?”

Like he’s ever given a shit. Everything he gives me is actually for him. Usually… it’s pearls.

“Freshening up the house is my present this year.”

It narrows his eyes more, not knowing which carrot to bite first. A Christmas away from me? Or a chance to fuck around more?

“Three days,” he warns. “They better be done, and so help me, god, if they get paint on my kitchen cabinets.”

After Gentry leaves, I pop a cork of the cheap stuff. Sipping champagne, I crank up the holiday tunes while on camera; it looks like I’m fussing over our Christmas tree and decorations in the parlor.

Really? I’m sliding the tree one foot over to where it’s blocking the camera.

The fresh white walls look good in here where Gentry meets with his “distinguished guests,” aka “Men obsessed with measuring their cocks and cash.” Sparing no expense, he paid a designer to select two matching black leather settees sitting across from one another with a tufted ivory leather oversized ottoman in between.

But I roll my eyes at the screen print of old white men playing golf.

It hangs like framed hairy testicles in the room.

Thankfully, during the holidays, the professionally decorated tree blocks it and the front windows to the gated neighborhood outside.

The taste of champagne and temporary freedom is intoxicating. Darting upstairs, I hear Luke ripping painter’s tape and prepping the kitchen. I rip off my yoga attire in the bathroom and quickly shower, keeping my hair dry. Wrapped in a towel, I disappear into the closet and put on a dark red velvet, long-sleeved babydoll dress. Its top is smocked, and its hem is very short. I’ve had it for years and usually wear it for my birthday. But I’m celebrating early this year by not wearing panties or a bra.

When I return downstairs, Luke has half of the kitchen covered in plastic.

“How’s it going?” I casually ask him as I open the refrigerator, pulling out the open bottle of Champagne.

“Good.” His tone is curious. “How’s it going withyou?”

“Very good. I’m home alone for the next three days.”

“For Christmas?” He sounds shocked.

“And my birthday. It’s tomorrow.”

His silence makes me turn to him. His handsome face has fallen. “You’re going to be alone for your birthdayandChristmas?”

“Yep. I’d rather have an empty hand than a hand full of shit.”

His eyes dart up to the camera in the corner. Then he looks down, pulling a strip of tape. “I wish I could spend them with you.”

“Me too. But don’t you have a family?”

“My sister’s with her husband’s family in Kansas, and my mom is traveling with her best friend. She’s earned the vacation. I told her to do it.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Acting like he’s busy securing plastic sheeting over a base cabinet, his tone drops seductively. “Work overtime for you.”

It’s instant, the heat between my bare thighs, my pussy tingling, inches from being exposed to him. “Then use the back hallway, stay low, and join me in the parlor.”

If Luke enters the parlor through the foyer, the camera will catch him. But the side hallway connecting the kitchen, parlor, and Gentry’s office has no camera. Gentry focused that one toward his office desk in case I go snooping one day.

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