Charming Like Us (Like Us Series: Billionaires & Bodyguards Book 7)

by Krista Ritchie

  My heart is beating out of my fucking ribcage. A scorch swallows me whole like he just set the library on fire. His jaw. It tightens. Clenches down. I crave to feel the sharp angle against my palm.

  I crave so much with him that I never thought I would or could.

  “Are you going to move?” he growls.

  I don’t move, except for my fingers that weave through my hair. And my hand stays rooted on my head.

  “Jack.” His eyes redden, almost glass with emotion and frustration that I’m causing. He tries to reach around me to the doorknob.

  I sidestep and block him, and Oscar stops and shakes his head, looking as torn up as I feel. “Jack. Did you hear what I said? I can’t do this anymor—”

  “Stop!” My two hands are on my head.

  “I can’t stop!” His voice is anguished. “I need out!”

  “I like you!” I yell from my gut, from my heart. “I like you, Oscar!”

  He careens back like I shoved him.

  I’m combusting into a million little pieces, but I push forward from the door. “You’re right, I’m not upset by the set-up. Because I like you.” I speak from the core of my being that I never reached until recently. Until I was twenty-seven and fell for him. Maybe I’ve been falling for even longer. I just couldn’t piece it all together.

  He shakes his head slowly.

  I take another step forward. “I like you so fucking much that the idea of losing what we have makes me sick. I don’t want to shut the door on possibly the greatest opportunity of my life, and it’s right here—it’s you.”

  I never considered being in love, falling in love, finding love a sky-high opportunity that I should chase. But I guess I just never found someone worth chasing.

  I extend my arms and let them drop hard at my sides. I’m breathing like I’m running marathons around the library.

  And Oscar is hardly breathing at all. “You said you’re straight.”

  “I did say that,” I inhale, exhale. “But I don’t really know….I don’t know what I am other than really, really attracted to you.” My eyes well up with emotion that stings. “I can’t fight or change what I feel.” I add, “I think about you all the time—I think about what it’d be like to kiss you. I’ve imagined kissing you, and more—way further.”

  My body blazes, but I stand my ground. So he knows I’m serious and not just stringing him along.

  He keeps walking backwards until his ass hits the reading table. Leaning against the edge, he clutches the sides with a tight grip. His eyes plant on the floor.

  I shift my weight. God, what I’d give to be in his head right now. “Oscar, I’m sorry,” I tell him, breath caught short. “I’m sorry about Anacapri—”

  “Stop,” he says roughly.

  It almost pummels me.

  And then he says, “You don’t have anything to apologize for.” His gaze lifts to mine.

  I swallow down a rock, trying to muster a smile but it’s weak. “I’ve been less than fair to you, dude.” I run my hand back and forth across my head, then down my jaw. “It’s my fault for not explaining this sooner. So many times, I could’ve told you I was confused, and I didn’t.”

  He rubs his mouth, looking me over like he’s seeing me clearer. “No, you didn’t owe me that, Highland. You have a right to sort through things on your own and on your own time.”

  I nod slowly, more to myself. “I’m actually still trying to sort through some shit.” I focus on his brown eyes, and with a small warm smile, I throw out a life raft, “You want to help me?”

  “Help you…?”

  I’m drowning here. “I just—I don’t have anyone to talk to about this. I don’t know if I’m gay or bi or pansexual or something else or nothing at all, and then on top of the labels, I’ve never been physically intimate with a guy before.”

  Oscar processes. “You don’t have any friends that could help?”

  I run my tongue over my teeth as I shake my head. “No. No one I’d want to confide in other than you.” I find myself beginning to smile at him.

  His eyes trace my lips, his clutch loosening on the table. He starts to grin, and he shakes his head, a groan caught between his teeth. “Highland.”

  I think he needs a stronger pitch, so I keep going, “My friends aren’t like yours. I don’t have one that can shit on my lawn and we laugh about it a whole ten-years later. Not even my fraternity brothers—”

  “You were in a frat,” he realizes with wide eyes.

  “Yeah. All four years at Penn.” I study his reaction. Shit. My chest caves. “You hate frats, I take it.”

  “I’ve just never been into a frat bro before…” He nods to me. “Sorry I cut you off.”

  Lungs on fire, I speak up. “I was just saying that none of my friendships were deep. The ones now are I-scratch-your-back, you-scratch-mine. People call me up because they need something from me down the road: a connection to a producer, a director. All I am is a useful contact, and I’m just as guilty of forming surface-friendships.” I take a breath. “And I think Akara is one of the few genuine friendships I do have, but even then, there’s topics we won’t touch because he’s security, I’m production.”

  Sulli.

  She’s off-limits, and I understand he’s protective of her.

  “I’m security,” Oscar reminds me.

  I’m fumbling left and right around him. “You’re the only one I want to talk to about this, Oscar. I don’t even know how’d I go about telling Akara. Do I say the truth? That there’s this extraordinarily hot guy who I’ve pictured sucking me off until my eyes roll back—who I’d drop to my knees for, and I’d love to find out what it’s like to take him in my mouth today, tomorrow, weeks from now.”

  Oscar shifts at my words. His hand drops, splaying over his lap like he’s hiding a semi. But he’s so confident and casual about the arousal that it literally stirs my own dick into action.

  Successful pitch.

  “Eyes up here.” Oscar points to his face, and I follow the guidance with a smile. Damp pieces of his hair fall to his lashes, and he shoves them back. “You haven’t been attracted to any other guy besides me?”

  I shake my head, contemplating. “I think I was so set on being with a woman that I didn’t even consider I could be attracted to a man. And then you came along. So are you the first guy I’ve been attracted to and acknowledged it? Yeah.”

  He lets out a noise.

  My pulse jackhammers. “Is that bad?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just…” He pushes aside a worn hardback on the table. “Jack, you’re like a literal wet dream. Do you know how many motherfuckers wish the straight guy they’re crushing on could say what you’re saying to me?”

  I skim him, up and down, smiling. “So it’s good?”

  “It’s complicated,” he rephrases. “You and I are complicated. You’re still figuring things out, and that’s fair. But I don’t want you to get hurt. And I don’t want to get hurt.”

  “I won’t hurt you,” I say, adamant. Even thinking I could starts churning my stomach. “I genuinely like you, and I just want to see where this goes.”

  Oscar stands off the table. “I’ll help you.” My smile brightens, and he explains, “I’ve been where you are. It’s confusing, and I didn’t really have anyone to talk to until college. I wish those people were there sooner.”

  I nod and walk closer. At first, I plan to touch him, but as soon as we’re in distance, I bail and pick up the thick, worn hardback next to his phone. War and Peace.

  Tension stretches at our closeness. I examine the spine of the book, and his voice sounds huskier as he tells me, “You can ask me questions, and if you want, I can ask you questions too.”

  I slip a smile over to him. “You can ask me anything.”

  His grin edges. “Don’t tempt me, Long Beach. I have a laundry list when it comes to you.”

  So close, the warmth of his skin radiates off the swelter of mine. I’m radiating heat because of him
, and the more strides we’re making, the faster I want to run towards Oscar. Even if a lot is new to me, he’s experienced. He’ll show me, and Jesus, I want him to. The thought alone sends shockwaves.

  “I’d want to go through your laundry list,” I tell Oscar. “Consider yourself tempted.”

  Our grins are matched.

  “Alright,” he says. “Before we go there, we should agree to something.”

  I rest part of my ass on the table and hold my camera. “What is it?”

  “We shouldn’t fuck each other.” He drops the gavel. “No sex.”

  Sex.

  I’m over here willing to explore new territories that I’ve never seen. I’m wanting to, and I crack a dying, disappointed smile.

  I wanted to fuck Oscar—or for Oscar to fuck me? FYI: I know physically where a dick goes, but would he be on top…or would I? The exploration with him is just as enticing as the actual act, and he’s saying, no.

  “Why?” I ask him, my eyes flashing to another hardback on the table. Brave New World. I wonder if he pulled out these books before I arrived.

  “Because sex is complicated, and this is already on another level of complicated. We don’t need to be fucking.” His resoluteness is sexy, even when this decision feels a lot like the Grinch coming down and stealing a bunch of toys.

  It also feels like he’s Velcroing elbow-pads and kneepads in case of a fall. “You know,” I say gently, “that I wouldn’t just fuck you and chuck you.”

  His face hardens, and his throat bobs as he says, “I don’t know that yet. And I can get sex anywhere, Highland. That’s not what I’m looking for. So if you need to date around to figure shit out, then I’ll help you out with a Grindr profile or go with you to a gay bar. Maybe if I’m still single in a few years, you can come hit me up then.”

  That stings.

  It shouldn’t, because he’s being incredibly nice right now. Generally, when I’m into someone, I’ve never eliminated sex. Not since I was a teenager and a virgin.

  But why would I play the field when I’ve already found the guy who’s captured my entire interest?

  I only want him.

  Oscar isn’t the hypothesis in an experiment where if I dislike the result after I test it out, I’ll trash the whole thing. But I can understand him thinking I might. He doesn’t want to be used, and I don’t want to use him like he’s just a hard dick.

  “We don’t have to have sex,” I agree to the stipulation, and in a pause, I add, “I hope after a while you’ll realize you can trust me.”

  Oscar brushes his hand over his unshaven jaw, his gaze drawing hot tracks down my body. “I might be open to other things.”

  Other things. “Are you talking hand jobs? Blow jobs?”

  He’s about to answer when his phone lets out an angry buzz beside me. I stand off the table, and my eyes peel to Oscar as he grabs the cell and clicks into a text.

  “Charlie?” I ask.

  He nods. “He’s leaving for New York, and I need to pick him up before he takes off in an Uber.”

  “He told you where he’s going?” I say, surprised.

  “He does that sometimes.” Oscar gathers a couple books. Those were his hardbacks. “Charlie likes to be inconsistent.” His eyes fall to my camera still strapped around my body. “You coming?”

  “Yeah.” I smile. “It is my job to come.”

  His nose flares, latching onto the innuendo, and then he laughs while fitting a comms earpiece in his ear. “This is gonna be fun. Just try not to come too hard on me, Long Beach. I’ve still got a Cobalt to protect.”

  “What a coincidence, I’ve got a Cobalt to film.” I lift up my camera.

  He opens his mouth, but his phone buzzes again. “Fuck,” he curses at the text, seriousness overtaking him. “We’ve got to go.”

  I animate fast and follow him out of the penthouse and to the elevator. The unanswered question about “other things” hangs in the air.

  Bad timing—I have a feeling Oscar and I might be magnetically attached to it.

  15

  OSCAR OLIVEIRA

  We wait in the foyer for the elevator, and I could laugh at myself.

  First off, Grindr. I offered to make Jack a dating profile, and immediately, I thought about how I’d need to upload the absolute ugliest ass photos of Jack Highland so no one would tap on him. But let’s be honest, an unattractive pic of this guy doesn’t exist.

  And he’s not straight.

  He’s been questioning his sexuality.

  He’s been thinking about kissing me. Blowing me. Me blowing him. He likes me.

  Holy shit.

  I smother a smile. Not going to lie, I feel vindicated. I’ve been going out of my mind thinking Jack’s been coming onto me, and every time I confronted it, the door would slam in my face. It’s nice to know that I was right all along.

  While we’re waiting, I grip my two hardbacks in one hand, and I reclip my radio to the waistband of my gym shorts with the other. I check him out on my left.

  Jack keeps running his fingers through his dark, dark brown hair. Six-four and ripped, he’s breathing like he’s winded, like we’ve already fucked on the floor.

  Take it easy with this one, Oliveira.

  I grin more.

  Jack catches sight of my curving mouth. “What’d I miss?”

  “Just thinking about how excited you are.” I adjust the volume on comms.

  His smile grows, eyes flitting to the ticking numbers outside the elevator as it comes to pick us up for a descent. Still in the foyer. Still lingering with a swarm of quickly amassing fervor and warmth. Jack stares back at me with a hotter look. “How excited are you?”

  “I’m a solid 12.” I hold his gaze. “You?”

  “Rock-hard 12.” He coasts into the innuendo but breathes a shallow breath, then shifts, and an aroused knot rises in my throat.

  I could give myself fifteen gold medals for just laying down groundwork for no sex. I feel my age. Thirty-fucking-two. I realize he’s younger than me, and for the first time, I’m in this responsible position that I’ve never been in before. Maybe this is why I’ve always dated people older than me.

  The elevator finally reaches us. We saunter into the empty space that suffocates with our body heat, and I stand against the wall. He stands right next to me, and we stare ahead at the elevator doors, watching them slowly, slowly glide closed.

  Even with thick tension and confession of feelings, I expect nothing to happen.

  Jack glances over at me. I lock eyes with the pretty boy, and he leaves his spot, shortening the space between us. Oxygen is imprisoned in my lungs.

  Nothing is going to happen.

  Jack faces me.

  Nothing is happening.

  He braces a forearm to the elevator wall beside my jawline. His chest lifts and lowers in coveting breath against my taut body.

  Nothing…is…

  Our mouths are achingly close, his knee edges near my groin as he leans in, and our eyes peruse each other so fucking quickly, I can hardly keep up with Highland.

  He’s in pursuit of me with rapt fervor. “Ask me again.”

  Nothing is happening?

  Damn am I wrong.

  Heart rate spiked, my gaze consumes him, seeing if this is real.

  Jack presses closer, uneasiness flashing in his eyes, like maybe I’ll reject him. “Oscar…”

  I hesitate to touch him, my muscles on fire. “Don’t fuck with me—”

  “I’m not,” he chokes out. “I’m not.” We’re not touching, but it feels like we’re already clinging to each other for dear fucking life. “I promise.”

  Our foreheads nearly brush, his lips ghosting over mine, and in a husky breath, I whisper, “Can I kiss—”

  His mouth presses to mine, the tension of this is happening, this is happening, this is happening stretches tendons in our necks and arms and bodies—and when it sinks in, we snap fully together. We collide into each other with breakneck desire, our lips crushin
g and teasing open.

  I drop my hardbacks.

  Barely hearing them clatter at our feet, my freed hand clutches the back of his skull, and he fists my Yale tee and claws at the hard edge of my face. Lip-locked, I feel his curiosity. His hand that strokes the roughness of my jaw. His waist that arches against my pelvis. The outline of his erection brushes against my hard length. Fully-clothed, he can feel me.

  I can feel him and the twitch of his dick as he craves more. I’m burning the fuck up, and his tongue slides against mine with effortless skill that welds me to him with molten steel. Fuck.

  I grind forward into him. He pushes back, still trapping me against the elevator wall. His breath hitches against my mouth, maybe overwhelmed at the newness of being with a man. Like he’s been starving for this his whole life and wants to drink his entire fill in one go.

  Thirty-three floors.

  We have to descend thirty-three floors together before the elevator reaches the ground.

  His hand curves around my neck, my traps, feeling my muscles. A groan is trapped in my throat. Holy fuck. Making out with Jack is like strapping into a carnival ride and whirling at high speeds. Dizzying, adrenaline-fueled.

  Muscles flexed, I thread my fingers through his hair and deepen a teasing, playful kiss, my grin against his mouth, his smile against mine.

  I squeeze his ass.

  “Fuck,” he groans roughly when our lips break, his forehead pressing to the wall beside my jaw with a staggered breath. His hand is still on my jaw. Our eyes are open, and I watch his head turn and his attention draw to our bodies. We’re two men pushed chest-to-chest, pelvis-to-pelvis, and it’s taking everything in me not to palm him. To feel him against my hand.

  And then Jack drags his hand back and forth over his length that bears hard against his jeans. “I’m so hard, dude,” he breathes. “It’s killing me.” His gaze lingers on my mouth.