Stealing Rose (The Fowler Sisters #2)(68)

Sex, sex, sex.

I wouldn’t trade these days for the world, but I need to get back to reality. Rose has slowly but surely been acting like an actual grown-up already. Now it’s my turn.

But that means I have to leave.

“Oh!” I turn at Rose’s startled gasp to find her standing in the bathroom doorway, holding a thick white towel in front of her. “I didn’t realize you came back.”

“Sorry.” The towel isn’t actually wrapped around her, offering me a glimpse of her waist and hips and upper thighs. All those wondrous curves I’ve run my hands over again and again. I tear my gaze away from her and turn back to my duffel, zipping it back open so I can shove everything I grabbed back inside. “You going in to Fleur this afternoon?”

“I am.” She approaches me and I step away from the bag, not wanting her near it. What if she saw the velvet box? I can smell her as she draws near, clean and fresh, and my hands literally ache to touch her. But I don’t. I won’t. Touching her makes me lose brain cells, I swear to God. Until all I can do is focus on her. “What are you doing?”

“Ah …” How can I broach this subject lightly? “Cleaning up around here, putting away my stuff. I’m sure the maids hate us.”

“I’m sure,” she agrees wryly, her arms sneaking around me from behind. She presses her body to mine, her hands slipping beneath my shirt to rest lightly against my stomach. I can feel every naked, damp inch of her. She must have ditched the towel. I close my eyes, inhaling deep. She’s trying to kill me, I swear. “I have a little time before I have to get ready,” she murmurs.

Her voice, her words, are pure temptation. Temptation I must avoid. “Yeah? Well, I uh, gotta go in a little bit.”

She releases her hold and steps away from me. The loss of her touch hits me like a punch to the gut. “Where are you going?” Her voice is wary. Unsure. I never leave. She’s the one who has a life. I’m the one who’s been so completely focused on her and nothing else.

Behaving like this can’t be good for me. She has the upper hand and I never give anyone that power. Rose makes me vulnerable.

And I don’t like it.

I turn to face her again, my expression impassive. Trying my best to throw up the wall I used to be so damn good at erecting around myself so no one can penetrate it. “Going to my friend Mitchell’s. I’ve mentioned him before, the guy with the jet? He wanted me to come over for a bit, so I thought I’d see him while you’re at work.”

Rose tilts her head, contemplating me. “When is he supposed to leave for New York?”

She’s not stupid; she knows why I’m talking to Mitchell. We’ve talked about me heading back, though I haven’t mentioned to her that I don’t really have a true home there. That I just stay at Cash’s apartment because he lets me. She doesn’t even know Cash exists. She doesn’t know much about my private life at all and for once, I’m ready to tell her everything.

But she’s also naked and my gaze is trying to stay firmly fixed on her face. It’s so damn hard. I’ve had her every which way. We’ve had so much sex I’m surprised my dick hasn’t given out on me yet, I’ve worked it so hard.

Yet I take one look at her, naked and still flushed from her warm shower, and I want to jump her. Push her onto the bed and slide inside of her. There is nowhere else I’d rather be than with Rose.

Everything inside of me goes cold. That is about the scariest revelation I’ve ever had. Because I don’t do commitment, I don’t do relationships, and I definitely don’t do love. I don’t even think I know how to love.

I could learn, though. For Rose.

Fuck no, you can’t. You’re a worthless piece of shit who doesn’t deserve a woman like Rose. When she finds out the truth, she’ll kick your ass to the curb.

That’s an even scarier revelation.

“I’m not sure when he’s leaving yet,” I lie. “It’ll be soon, though.” Damn it. If I want to actually love this girl I need to tell her the truth. It’s just so hard to come out and say, I’m leaving you in two days. Sorry to take off like this, but hey. It’s been real.

I don’t know how to end this. Or continue it, either. She should be going back to New York soon too, but I don’t think she wants to go. Late at night, when we’re both exhausted and drifting off to sleep, she talks of staying in London. Or maybe even Paris. Not that she wants to continue working at Fleur; it sounds more that she wants to explore Europe and be on her own for a while. I think she’s trying to find herself.

And I can’t help her do that. How can I when I don’t even know who I really am?

“You could go with me,” she suggested a few nights ago, and I was thankful for the dark. So she wouldn’t see the mixture of hope and horror that surely crossed my face.

I never did answer her. Like a wimp, I pretended I was asleep. But there’s no pretending now. Yet I still lie like the hustler I am.

“Oh. Okay.” Her face falls and seeing that … hell, it wrecks me. I start to say something reassuring, start to reach for her, but she turns away and I drop my arm, feeling like an ass.

Feeling like I somehow just ruined everything.

“I should go back too. Eventually,” she says as she slips on a pair of skimpy black lace panties. Her back is still to me and I watch in fascination as she goes about her preparations. She pulls a black lace bra from the drawer and hooks it on. I could spend a lifetime watching her get dressed and never get bored. “I have to face my father sometime.”