Rook crossed the room and took her hands in his. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, lingering a quarter of a second longer than was strictly friendly. “You can stay. You don’t have to go.”
“I—”
“Yeah, Mom, you should stay!” Ricky called over, bouncing a ping pong ball on her paddle.
“Yeah, Mom,” Moreau added, batting his eyelashes and grinning at May, guessing that she most likely didn’t need too much encouragement to get her to stay. After all, she’d gotten all dressed up for a reason, hadn’t she?
May, Ricky, and Rook grabbed a deck of cards and started playing some game that the three of them knew. Moreau and Geo gave them space on the other side of the room. Geo was flopped next to him on the couch. Her ankles crossed on top of the coffee table. “So, you’d never met Ricky before? That’s so weird.”
Moreau shrugged. “I’d never met Brooke before today either.”
“Wow. That’s such an oversight.”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s not like there would have been a time for me to meet them. They barely ever come to the bunker.”
Geo eyed him for a minute. “You’re not gonna do that self-pity thing again, are you? You know that you’re more than just a client to us, Moreau.”
He gave her an arch look. “When do I get to meet your father?”
It hadn’t escaped him that she’d deftly avoided giving details on her father. She sucked her teeth and gave a humorless laugh. “Never, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Is he going to beat me up? Let me guess, your father is a muscle-bound biker.” He put on a nasally old-timey gangster accent. “He doesn’t want some hollywood pretty-boy swapping spit with his girl.”
Geo rolled her eyes. “Not exactly.”
“Then why would he be bad for me?”
Geo let out a long breath and watched the card game at the other end of the room. “Look at that,” she whispered.
Moreau turned to look. Though their family was technically a “broken home,” it was obvious to see how much Rook, May, and Ricky were still bonded. They laughed over something and Rook and Ricky ganged up on something May was trying to argue her way out of.
Geo sighed. “I didn’t really know that dads like that existed until I met Rook.”
“He’s a good father,” Moreau agreed.
“Some people are lucky enough to have dads like that, I guess. But you and I, Moreau? We drew the short end of the stick.”
“Your father is absent like mine?”
“No,” she said with a small, sad shake of her hand. “Actually, he’s way too present. And every time I see him, he’s got his hands out for more money.”
“Ah.” Sadness swamped Moreau. He knew exactly what that felt like and it pained him greatly that Geo had had to endure that from a parent as well. It also concerned him. Because he had money to burn. Geo probably did not.
Suddenly something she’d said to him a long time ago tracked through his head. That her life was in transition right now. Or something like that. That was why she was living full time at the bunker.
He blinked. Had her father’s need for money made her lose her living accommodations?
Rage and worry warred within him. He knew it would be a very bad move, tactically, to get overprotective. She didn’t view the two of them as a team yet. She would, but she didn’t. He took a deep breath.
“He wants hand-outs?”
“It’s worse than that, really,” she said in a dead sort of voice. “He doesn’t ask, but if I don’t give it to him, he’ll just end up further and further in the gutter. And he doesn’t care. I’m the only one who cares if he ends up beaten to death by some angry bookie. So I’m the one who pays to get him out of whatever shit he’s gotten himself into.”
“He’s a gambler?”
She gave a terse nod. “And a thief and a con artist and a pathological liar. You name it.”
Moreau could tell from the tension on her beautiful face that he’d pushed the questions as far as they could go. He could ask more later but she was on the verge of snapping. So, he pushed her in another direction instead.
“The next time you go to see him, I’ll go with you.”
“What?” she laughed in surprise. “Didn’t I just explain to you all the reasons you should never, ever meet him?”
“No,” Moreau responded calmly. “You just explained all the reasons why you shouldn’t be going to see him alone. Not because he’s dangerous to you physically, but because he’s obviously dangerous to your happiness. Your well-being. I don’t want you to go alone and get caught up in all that negativity. If I go, I’ll be able to deflect all that away from you.” His face lit up. “I’ll be able to be your bodyguard for once!”
She was eyeing him like he’d lost his damn marbles. “I’ll tell you exactly what would happen if you went with me. First of all, Loretta at the front desk would propose marriage. Second, my father would have you investing in a pyramid scheme about thirty seconds after that. You’d leave there broke and with hickeys all over your neck.”
Moreau laughed. “How about this, I’ll come with you, but I’ll leave my wallet in the car. That way, my money will be safe from your father. And Loretta can do her worst. I have had many, many fans attempt to coerce me into marriage. I have yet to walk down the aisle.”
“That’s true.” Geo turned and eyed him, a strange gleam in her eye. “You’ve never been married before. That’s kind of strange for Hollywood, isn’t it? Why haven’t you jumped the broom with some airbrushed costar yet?”
It was a fair question, he guessed, but it still irritated him. “Because I have no wish to be divorced, that’s why. I’m not as much of an idiot as you think I am, Savannah.”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot. It’s not idiotic to get married, you know. I’ve been married.”
He turned to her, certain that a battleship could have docked in his wide-open mouth. “You are kidding me.”
“No. I’m not kidding.”
“You’ve been married? I thought there were no serious men in your past.”
“There haven’t been. I tied the knot with some guy in Vegas. We got it annulled like three days later. Cost me an arm and a leg.”
“I cannot believe this.” Moreau conked his head back onto the couch. “I’ve been beaten to the altar by some guy in Vegas.”
Geo frowned at him. “Don’t pretend you’re trying to get me to the altar.”
“I’m not pretending. I’m not saying we’re ready for it, obviously. But when you ask someone to be your girlfriend, you are generally not opposed to one day marrying her, right?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I would never marry such a prude.”
He gaped at her. “Are you calling me a prude?” A slideshow of his very active sex life scrolled through his head. But he knew better than to bring that up right now. Geo might be goading him, but the only evidence she might actually respond to was first-person-anecdotal evidence. He was gonna have to put his money where his mouth was. And he’d have to keep it in his pants. He was going to have to walk a very fine line of proving to Geo that he could blow her mind without actually giving up the milk for free, so to speak.
She raised her eyebrows. “You’re the one who won’t even go to second base.”
He jumped to his feet, grabbed his crutches, and limped out of the room, knowing that she would have to follow.
“Everything all right?” Rook called.
Moreau tossed him a thumbs up and kept crutching all the way toward the employee quarters.
He paused, sighing, when the moans and thumping down the hall indicated that Atlas and Bex had found their way to some privacy as well. This was not the atmosphere he was going for.
“Where are you going?” Geo called in exasperation as she turned and followed after him again.
He ignored her and instead crutched across the bunker. He went straight for the SUV in the atrium. He opened the backseat, tossed his cr
utches into it and hoisted himself in.
Geo crawled in after him. “What the hell is going on?” she demanded.
Moreau didn’t bother answering her. He simply grabbed her by the hips and sat her right on his lap. He slammed their lips together in a savage and unforgiving kiss.
She moaned into his mouth. “Davy, I’m on duty. We can’t—oh, Jesus.”
He started kissing down her neck, licking and sucking.
“Davy—”
“Moreau!” he demanded, unbuttoning her shirt.
“Moreau,” she moaned, no longer protesting. She leaned back and stared down at him as he didn’t waste a second of time. He shoved her unbuttoned shirt off her shoulders and bunched it around her wrists, using it to pinion her hands behind her back. With his free hand he shoved down the cups of her simple, tan-colored bra, finally freeing her breasts to him.
“Up until now, Savannah,” he panted, lowering his forehead to her sternum and breathing hard. “I have been determined to show you how sweet and soft I can be. But I realize that was a miscalculation. Because it means that I have left out a major piece of information.”
“What’s that?” she panted, her eyes dilated and her chest heaving.
He looked up into her eyes. “That I am a fucking animal in bed.”
He sucked one of her nipples into his mouth in a brutally passionate way. He tugged and sucked on her breast, using his teeth and tongue, molding her breast with his large hand.
She groaned and wriggled against the restraints.
“Be a good girl,” he told her, dropping his mouth back to her breasts.
Though he was very confident that she could have broken his hold and dropped him on his ass if she’d wanted, she stopped fighting his grip the second he used those words.
She was moaning his name as he started to trace his hands down the smooth hourglass of her waist.
“Do you want my hands on you?” he asked her.
“Yes. God, yes.”
“And my fingers, do you want them inside you?”
She froze, looking down at him. “Is that an option right now?”
He nodded, trying not to smile at how cute and sexually frustrated she looked right at that moment, tousled and gyrating on his lap.
“Then hell yes I want your fingers inside me.”
He wasted no more time. If he was actually going to have sex with her, he would have taken hours, the whole day if he had to. But this wasn’t about making love. This was about proving to Geo that she had many things to look forward to if and when she decided to give him what he really wanted.
He undid the button and zipper on her pants, but couldn’t make his peace with lifting her weight off of him, so the pants stayed on. He just slid his hand in there as well, it was a tight fit, but somehow that made the whole thing even hotter.
They both groaned when he cupped her with the flat of his hand, her desire for him painfully obvious.
“Are you going to come for me, Savannah?” he asked, slowly starting to move his hand back and forth.
“Good luck,” she smirked, getting some of her bravado back. “I’m a notoriously hard nut to crack.”
She seemed almost proud of it, but Moreau couldn’t feel anything but disdain for the men who’d failed to get her off in the past.
He took his time, letting his fingers trace her body, getting familiar with the lay of the land without diving right in. By the time he tugged her underwear to one side, her thighs were trembling as she worked her hips over his lap. She wasn’t giving him enough of her weight. He solved that problem by using his free hand to grip the back of her head to bring her mouth to his.
She fell forward and the movement thrust his two middlemost fingers deep inside of her.
They said each other’s names against the other’s lips. “You’re so tight, baby,” he whispered.
“It’s b-been awhile,” she conceded, her pleasured breath stuttering her voice.
Moreau worked his fingers into her, stroking from the inside, using the pads of his fingers to find that elusive spot that he hoped would drive her crazy. She didn’t disappoint.
Geo’s eyes went wide as he worked her from the inside out. He hadn’t even touched her clit yet and she was already stuttering out her breath, moaning and rocking.
He pushed their mouths together again and sucked her tongue. It was then and only then that he allowed his thumb to make quick little pets across her clit. She jolted as if she’d been electrified and he wondered, for a moment, if he’d pressed too hard, if she was insanely sensitive. But no, she was pushing toward him, into his hand, using her body to ask for more. Her mouth, biting at his lip, was otherwise occupied.
So he obliged her. He stroked her from the inside and pet-pet-petted on the outside until suddenly she tore her mouth away from him. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, exhaling harshly, curse words and gibberish grinding into his skin as her body clamped down on his fingers. She squeezed the life out of his hand, then rhythmically pressed as the aftershocks overwhelmed her.
He rode out her orgasm, lightening his touch but keeping it present, insistent. It wasn’t until her teeth clamped down on his neck that he jolted, laughed, and finally took his hand away from her.
Geo leaned back from him, her body lazy and sated and… happy. She looked genuinely happy as she swung herself off of his lap. Where was she going?
Oh boy. Then, as she knelt on the seat beside him, her hands were at his pants, tugging them down. He grabbed her by the wrists.
“Savannah…”
She looked up at him and it was with great chagrin that he watched all that happiness melt right away. “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“What?”
“You’re not going to let me return the favor?”
“It’s not necessary, Savannah. I want you to be confident in my skills, so that you know what you are getting into. But I have no doubts whatsoever that being with you is going to destroy my world. I cannot risk it. Not until I have your promise to be with me.”
She shoved away from him. “This is so fucked up, Davy.”
He frowned as he watched her button up her pants and then start on her shirt. Every movement was terse and angry.
“Don’t be like this, Geo. I’m not trying to be unfair.”
“You’re freaking extorting me, Moreau. I’d say that’s pretty far into the unfair column.”
“I’m not trying to do that. I’m trying to keep boundaries for my own well-being.”
She scoffed at him. “Yeah. Whatever. But you don’t give a shit about my boundaries, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re so dead-set on getting things your way that you won’t even consider trying things my way.”
“You mean sex without commitment.”
She shrugged. “It works for lots of people, Moreau.” She kicked the door open and slid out of the car.
He slowly followed her, his brain working a mile a minute. His crutches got stuck on the door and she helped him free them, holding his elbow while he got his footing on the ground. “What do you mean that it works for lots of people. You mean indefinitely?”
She glanced around, making sure that there was no one around. “I mean that why can’t we just let this be whatever it’s gonna be? Maybe we have casual sex for like three months and decide we’re not that into each other. Or maybe it helps us get to know one another.”
“You want to get to know me by having casual sex with me?”
“Right now? No. Right now I kind of want to smash an apple pie in your face, but in theory? Sure.”
“Can I think about it?”
She paused, turning around and facing him fully, her eyebrows pulled low over her eyes. “Think about what?”
“What you’re saying to me. I don’t want to be rigid on principle. I don’t enjoy withholding from you. If I’m capable of giving it, I will. But I’ll have to think about it first.”
His rea
sonable response was obviously deflating to her, because she just kind of glared at him for a second and threw her hands up in the air. “You drive me insane, Davy.”
“Would you like me to kiss it better?” he asked, hoping to get a rise out of her.
“Do I get to kiss it better in return?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
He shook his head.
“Then let’s go freaking play cards. Or watch a movie. Or do homework, since we’re apparently back in high school.”
Geo stomped away, and he didn’t mind the view one bit.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Apparently, Davy needed to think about it for a few days. Which annoyed Geo because she had an impatient soul and she wanted her answer now. But it was also a relief to her, to get a bit of distance from him. She was still working, obviously, but the flirting wasn’t quite as constant and neither was visiting one another’s rooms after hours.
He seemed to be giving both of them a bit of room to breathe.
A few days after family day, Rook gave Geo the day off and practically booted her out of the bunker. He was thinking he was doing her a favor, but Geo dreaded going to visit her father, which was the only thing she really had to do on a day off.
But she went. And spent the afternoon with her dad. Who she found out was on probation with the center because he had been running a scam with the store tokens. One more screw up and Geo was going to have to find him another center. And she already knew this was the only one within the city limits that she could afford. Which meant that if he got kicked out, he was going to be beyond the city limits.
She had no idea how to feel about that, but she was in an all-around foul mood when she returned to the bunker.
She bypassed the kitchen, where she knew everyone would be eating dinner and went straight up to her room. She showered, pulled on sweats, a bra, and a tank top and threw her hair into a wet knot at the top of her head.
She grabbed her laptop and proceeded to search other centers like the Ferndale Center. Slim pickings.
She frowned at her door when someone knocked.
“What?” she called.
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