Ten Thousand Words (35 page)

Bianca walked around the store, looking gorgeously enchanted and maybe a little lost. She was glamorously dressed up in a knee-length black skirt, black knee-high heeled boots, a tailored gray jacket, and a bright green scarf.

I felt particularly drab in my holey jeans and long-sleeved shirt.

Oliver snuck up behind me, slipping his arm around my waist, pulling me into his body. “You’re my goddess, Xanthe,” he whispered into my hair. “There’s only you.”

Ollie

“The dumpy author. Really, Ollie?”

Gabriella hadn’t said a damn thing to me since Trey and I picked her up from her apartment. She’d said nothing while I’d waited for her to check her luggage—a large suitcase stuffed for only three days—or while going through security. She had sat next to me in the waiting area at our gate, frigid and silent.

The second the plane had taken off, she’d decided to make it as uncomfortable of a flight as she could. It was bad enough I had to sit next to her, but to hear her call my woman
dumpy
…

“Shut your mouth, Gabriella.”

“I deserve some sort of explanation!” she hissed at me.

I turned my head to face her, my anger burning fiercely. “I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

“Is it because you want to make sure you’re on all the future covers? Is that it? Do you get paid more—”

“Last warning, Gabby.”

“Or what? I deserve to know why, after years of being with you, you dropped me for that…
woman
!”

“You and I were never
together
. We fucked when we needed to, and that was it. I don’t know what put it in your head that there would ever be more between us, but there
never
will be! Why I adore Xanthe so fucking much is because she showed me what’s between her ears before she spread her fucking legs! She makes me laugh. She makes me think. She shows me so much of the world I never noticed before—none of which you do for me.”

Gabriella blanched beneath her tan skin, and I felt a twinge of guilt. I hadn’t meant to be so cruel, even with the shit she had called my woman. But she needed to understand that, while
I
knew Xanthe was the most beautiful woman in the world, my woman’s looks really weren’t what had made me fall for her.

Gabriella faced forward, struggling not to cry.

“Please,” I said softly, “I’ve always cared about you. You know that. But it was never more than that, and if I can’t give that to you, then…why waste your time with me? There is a whole world full of men who would kill to be your love.”

“I don’t want a world full of men! I love
you
!” she said, her voice breaking.

Hearing those words changed nothing, but I felt heartbroken for Gabriella all the same. If she felt about me the way I felt for Xanthe, then it was indeed tragic.

“I’m truly sorry, Gabriella. I never meant to hurt you.”

“I hope she tears your heart out,” she snarled, undoing her seat belt and getting to her feet. “I hope she destroys you, Ollie. Then, you’ll know what it is I feel!”

Stunned, I watched her stomp off to the restrooms. While I truly hoped Xanthe wouldn’t tear my heart out and destroy me, hearing Gabriella wish that on me made me fully aware that my woman had the power to do so. Hell, I’d already done it to myself when I left her two weeks ago.

I thought back to
Ten Thousand Words for Xanthe
, how I had been utterly destroyed when taking those photographs. The project was complete now. I’d be posting it on my photography website when I got back Sunday evening and sharing it on my media sites as well. My labor of love would be made public soon.

Gabriella came back a good twenty minutes later, her makeup in place, even if her eyes looked a little red. Gracefully, she sat next to me, and I had to admire her poise. She was ever the public figure.

“Do you wish to remain friends, Gabby?”

She sucked in a sharp breath through her nose but nodded. “Yes. Even though I can’t believe you would choose that woman—”

“Her name is Xanthe.”

Her face snapped around to mine. “I thought her name was Elaine.”

“Elaine is just a pen name. Her real name is Xanthe.”

“Fine. I don’t see it, Ollie. It doesn’t make sense. She’s weird, dresses like a…a…
hobo
, and she hangs around riffraff with no manners—”

“I don’t expect you to see or understand it,” I told her. “It has nothing to do with you. So…just leave it. If you wish to remain friends, then you have to accept that I’m with her.”

Gabriella’s jaw clenched, and her nostrils flared, but she nodded.

The last leg of the hour-and-a-half flight went as smoothly as could be expected. We didn’t say more to each other, but the stillness was a blessing. I was still fired up and trying to hold back from exploding all over Gabriella and her judgmental attitude toward Xanthe and her friends.

The thought of Ricki busting a pilfered crab claw out of his beard had me fighting not to laugh.

We made it to our hotel in one piece, our rooms across the hall from each other.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Gabriella told me softly before entering her room.

“Tomorrow then.”

After having the luxury of sleeping next to and waking up with my woman, entering the cold hotel room was just depressing. I couldn’t hear her laughter, smell her scent, feel her anywhere near me.

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I flopped back onto the king-size bed and called Xanthe.

“Hello?” she answered after the second ring.

There was a hell of a lot of noise and laughter going on in the background.

“Hey, love.”

“Hey,” she replied.

“What are you up to?”

“Um…”

I could hear her moving around until the noise dimmed. I suspected she’d walked outside.

“We’re at Wurther’s. Trey and Bianca are with us—well, me and Jaime and Ricki. Rex is working the late shift tonight.”

“Cool,” I replied.

“How was the flight?”

“With the exception of the company, it was all right.”

“Is she being terrible?”

“Yes, and no. She, ah…”
Shit, should I tell her something like that? Would I want to know? Fuck yes, I would!
“She said that she loved me.”

Xanthe gasped. “Oh. How…how did that make you feel?”

“Sad,” I replied truthfully. “I never knew she felt that way.”

“And now that you do?” Her voice had gotten very soft, breathless.

“I just feel sorry for her.”

“You don’t…”

“I don’t, what?”

“You don’t regret not having something with her?”

“No.”

“If you had known before we met, do you think that maybe—”

“No, love. I’ve never had any feelings for her like that.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Are you having fun with Bianca and Trey?”

“Yeah, Bianca’s a trip. I think Trey keeps eye-fucking Rex behind the bar.”

“You know they used to see each other, right?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I did.”

There was a short silence, and then I just dropped it on her. “I’m dying to be deep inside you, Xanthe.”

She gasped. “You can’t just say that sort of shit!”

“What sort of shit?” I grinned.

“Any of it! Not while I’m standing on the sidewalk—”

“Xanthe Love, I will speak to you any way I see fit to make you all hot and bothered for me.”

“It’s not like you actually
need
to…”

“No? So, you don’t want to know that I’ve been dreaming every night of shoving my face between your legs and making you come all over my tongue?”

“Oliver!”

“Mmhmm. Been dying to taste you. I imagine you taste like raspberries and cinnamon.”

“You’re mean.”

“Because I can’t be there to make you come on my face?”

She was quiet for a few heartbeats. Then, she said, “Yes.”

“I’m going to love the way you taste, Xanthe.” Just the thought had me hard and aching. Reaching down with my right hand, I squeezed myself through my jeans. “And the things your mouth did to me last night…” I moaned. “Fuck, I need more of that.”

“I…I thought you tasted pretty awesome.”

“Yeah?”
Fuck this shit.
Pinching my phone between my shoulder and ear, I undid my belt and fly, pulling out my rock-hard cock. Shit, I was even oozing.

“Yeah,” she sighed.

The sound of her so happy while she was thinking about sucking my cock nearly did me in.

“I loved it,” I told her. “I’ve never had a better fucking blow job in my life.” I slowly worked my hand up and down. “God, Xanthe, the things you do to me…”

“Are you—” She breathed in deep. Then, she continued in a whisper, “Are you having a wank?”

“Fuck yes.”

“Oh.”

I wanted to laugh, but I wanted her to keep talking her smut. “Don’t stop, love. Tell me what you want to do to me.”

“I’m in public!” she hissed.

“So?”

I heard her stomping, the background noise growing more distant. I couldn’t help the grin. She was too adorable.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I don’t think anyone can hear me…”

“Tell me, love. If I were to wake up with you tomorrow, would you let me fuck you?”

“Yes.”

“How would you want it?”

“Um…I really like the way we did it last time.”

“Refresh my memory.”

“I’m so bad at this!”

“How? You’ve written the best porn I’ve ever read.”

She needed encouragement, not berating.

“You’re doing great, love. Tell me.”

“I loved when you held me down—you know, after I came and you pushed me flat. That…that felt amazing. And when you pulled my hair. I love it when you bite my nipples.”

“Fucking love those piercings,” I said, growing even harder. “I love playing with them. Your tits are the most perfect pair I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

Pressure built swiftly. My spine shivered, and just like every time I was with her intimately—in my head or actually with her—my neck and back arched to the breaking point. I dropped the phone as my hand dug through my hair, pulling, and I moaned, as though my woman had just sucked the life force out of me.

“Oh, wow…” I heard her say through the phone.

I laughed. So fucking filled with joy, love, and lust for this woman, I couldn’t help it. The orgasm merely intensified everything I’d already felt. I grabbed the phone. I didn’t care about anything at that moment but the sound of her happiness filling me.

“You’re a freak!” She laughed.

“You’ve made me one,” I accused lightheartedly. “I used to be normal. Then, I met you.”

“Pfft. There you go, blaming me for your mental hang-ups again,” she said. “Besides, normal is boring.”

“Yeah. You’ve shown me that, too.”

The next day, the shoot went really well, considering how irritated I was. Dressed up and glamorous, Gabriella and I were toted around Geneva in the frosty morning air. Bright and sunny, the light was perfect for some great shots.

Gabriella was in a decent mood. We even went out to lunch together afterward. When our food was brought to the table, I was starving and ready to dig in.

“Whitney is coming for the shoot tomorrow. She’s flying in tonight,” Gabriella told me in an offhanded sort of way.

My gut clenched, effectively silencing my hunger. “Oh, yeah?”