Gold Digger

Lottie

It took a couple of seconds for my brain to catch up with what my body was doing.

“I-I’m sorry,” I said as I tried to pull away. But then he gave a sharp tug to pull me towards his lap, and his other hand shot out to cup my jaw.

“God, you are so fucking beautiful,” he muttered, his mouth nearly touching mine as he searched my face. Then another sharp tug on my hand had me falling forward, his arm enclosing me completely. He proceeded to tilt my jaw just how he wanted it, brush his nose against mine once, twice before finally his lips met mine again.

I could feel the taut muscles of his chest under my hands, the soft, firm pressure of his lips, the roughness of his stubble and that trip-switch in my brain shorted again. I melted against him, my lips parting on a small moan and letting his tongue inside. After a few minutes, his mouth moved to my jaw, then my ear. As I panted and tried not to pass out with lust, he kissed down my neck, his fingers moving from my jaw into my hair, pulling out the hairband and then wrapping the cascade of hair around his fist to hold me where he wanted me.

His kiss was like everything else about him – bossy, demanding, utterly glorious.

“We need more space,” he said against the skin just below my ear, and I nodded vigorously. Yes, yes, we needed all the space right now. I squeaked as he surged up with me in his arms as if I weighed nothing; then, before I could tell which way was up, he’d lain me down on the sofa with his glorious weight settling on top of me. And he was kissing me again.

“Okay, okay,” he said between kisses. “I’ve got to slow this down. I know that.” What was he talking about? I pulled at his hair to register how not on board I was with going slow. I mean, I had this one chance with him. Clearly, he’d had a shit day and was in the mood to try it on with the cleaner. It was very unlikely there would be a repeat performance. I was tired of playing it safe, doing the proper thing, always sacrificing my needs. And cheese and rice, did I need him. My body was screaming for him. The hair-pulling elicited a low growl, and his chest vibrating against my hands was deeply sexy. “I’m trying to be good here,” he said in a hoarse, almost pained voice.

“Ollie, I need you,” I begged. Yup, I was reduced to begging now. My brain had officially left me to my own devices.

He groaned and moved against me, his hardness right at my centre where I needed it to be. “Okay, baby,” he said in a thick voice against my neck. “I’ve got you.” He licked up my neck, and then his teeth grazed my ear as I let out a moan so desperate, if I hadn’t been mindless with need I would have melted into the sofa with embarrassment. When he started kissing down my neck, my body was coiled so tight I felt like the tension could snap at any moment. He pulled back, and I made a sound of protest but was cut off by him whipping my t-shirt up and over my head, leaving me in just my bra.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he breathed as he scanned my body. Before I could let insecurity and the fact my bra was of the white cotton, utilitarian variety, the heat of his body was back against mine, and his tongue was tracing my collarbone.

“Please,” I moaned.

“That’s it, baby,” he said as his lips moved to my breast above my bra. When he pulled the cup down and his mouth fastened onto my nipple, I totally lost it, arching up and letting out a whimper as I moved against him. When he moved across to the other breast, his hand skirted down over my stomach, and I shivered in anticipation. I could feel the tension in his body, the muscles of his back bunching under his suit. And then his hand dipped into my leggings, past the waistband of my knickers. When the pads of his thick fingers zeroed in on my core in record time, I jolted like I’d been given an electric shock. Then he started slow circles as I ground against him.

“Good girl,” he said against my breast. “Such a good girl for me. Help me get you there, baby.” He slipped a finger inside me, his thumb moving to press where I needed it, and I felt it building. When I came, it was like fireworks going off behind my eyes as bursts of pleasure overwhelmed my entire body. It was the single most incredible experience of my life.

My eyes had been clenched shut, but as I came down from the high, I blinked them open, and reality started to invade my consciousness. I sucked in a shocked breath and stiffened underneath him. His hand withdrew from me slowly, and his head came up from my chest as he moved so that our faces were level, his weight still pressing me down onto the sofa.

“Feel better now?” he asked in a husky voice, and then I had the gorgeous view of his handsome face smiling just inches from mine. But, however handsome he was, I was incapable of returning that smile. I’d just let my boss make me come, very very hard. What was wrong with me?

“What am I doing?” I asked in a horrified whisper. “Shit… ake mushrooms, I totally lost it.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he said in a soft voice; his smile had dropped now, and his expression was clouded with concern. “Don’t shut down on me, baby. Not after that. There’s no going back after that.”

I shook my head in jerky movements as his hand came up to sweep the hair out of my face at my temple so gently that it almost made me cry.

“Ollie, I mean, Y-Your Grace,” I stammered. “I’m your forking cleaner. You’re my boss. I realise this is my fault. I s-shouldn’t have kissed you. I know that. I just…” I trailed off as true horror flooded my system. “Don’t fire me. I need this job, Your Grace. Please don’t fire me.”

“Lottie, calm down,” he said in his bossy tone. “ I held your hand before you kissed me.”

“But then I-I begged you to…”

He smiled again. “Yes, that was fun.”

I smacked his chest. “This is not funny, you—you butthead.”

He kissed me then, a soft brush of his lips against mine whilst he was still half smiling. “Okay, not funny.”

“Can we please have this conversation in an upright position without you kissing me? I-I can’t think when you?—”

“Nope,” he said against my mouth. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“What?” my voice was a breathless squeak now; the weight of his body and the feel of him was beginning to addle my mind again.

“I think this is exactly how we should have this conversation,” he told me. “If I let you up, you’ll start twisting things, and I can’t let that happen. You’re going to have to hear me out first.”

“You’re too heavy,” I snapped, but it was half-hearted as I felt myself begin to melt again.

“You’re hardly taking any of my weight, just enough to keep you still.”

I huffed, and he searched my face again. His expression looked almost reverent, like he couldn’t quite believe I was there underneath him.

“I’m going to start by saying that I really, really like you.”

I blinked up at him, and my mouth fell open in shock. That was not what I was expecting him to say. In all honesty, I was expecting him to demand I return the favour he’d just given me. What would be the point of fooling around with your cleaner if you weren’t going to get anything out of it?

“I’m not interested in just a casual thing with you,” he said firmly.

Great Scott! Was he reading my mind?

“You’re not?” My words were a little strangled, but I was having trouble believing that this was actually happening.

“I have feelings for you,” he declared.

“You do?”

“Yes,” he said. “Very strong feelings that I’ve had for a very long time. I know it’s not ideal with you working for me, which is why I haven’t made a move before now, but I can’t stay away from you any longer.”

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He smiled then and stroked my hair back from my temple again. “Have you got anything more to say than just two-word questions, darling?”

He called me darling. It was so posh and so sweet all at once. My throat felt tight, and I had to swallow before I could speak again. “You do realise that you’re a duke?”

He chuckled. “Yes, I’ve known that for a while,” he said in a dry tone.

“Your Gra?—”

“Call me Your Grace one more time, baby, and see what happens,” he said in a low, sexy voice as his hips pressed into mine. “Now, when I was kissing you and when I made you come, you called me Ollie.” His face fell closer to mine then so that our lips were almost touching. “Do we need to go back to that? Is that the only way to get you to use my first name?” My stomach tightened with need.

“I-I… no more kissing or, er, the other stuff,” I said, my voice pitched unnaturally high.

“Are you going to call me by my first name?” he said against my mouth.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, Ollie.”

He smiled and kissed me softly as if in reward, triggering my mind to scramble again. My mouth opened, and his tongue swept inside as I started moving against him, my hands reaching to pull his shirt out from his belt and feel the skin of his back. But then suddenly, his jaw clenched tight and he pulled back.

“Right, right, no more fooling around for now,” he said firmly. I suspected more to himself than to me. “We need to establish some stuff first.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed as humiliation washed over me. “You haven’t even taken off your jacket.” Here I was practically naked beneath him, and the man was fully dressed. His pocket square was even still neatly in place in his breast pocket. I felt at a complete disadvantage. As if sensing my extreme discomfort, Ollie muttered a curse and finally lifted away from me to let me sit up. I immediately missed his weight and his warmth, shivering slightly as I crossed my arms over my chest to pull my bra straps up. Ollie jumped up from the sofa and grabbed my t-shirt, putting it over my head and helping me into it like a child.

“Okay, sweetheart?” he said cautiously as he took the seat next to me on the sofa and laid his hand over mine. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think of that.” He shrugged his suit jacket off and threw it on the floor; his tie followed, and then he undid a few buttons on his shirt, giving me a delicious view of some chest hair, his corded throat and the tanned muscle of his upper chest. “Lottie?” he called, and I forced my eyes from his chest to his smiling ones. He gave my hand a squeeze. “Better?”

I let out a long breath and then bit my lip. “I think I’m just a bit confused.”

“Right,” he said, that firm tone back again. “I really don’t want any confusion, so I’ll spell it out again. I like you. I’m pretty much obsessed with you, actually. I think about you all the time. Your laugh, your dry sense of humour, your clumsiness, your eyes, your skin, the way I can tell if you think someone’s a dickhead without you ever having to say a word. How we can share a joke with just one raise of your eyebrow. That you’ve got a sweary rhyme to stop yourself punching people who annoy you and that you blushed when you sang it to me because you never swear. I just…” he smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “I just really like you.”

“Right, well, that’s nice,” I said weakly, and his sudden laughter made me flinch.

“Nice? Kill me now.”

“Ollie, I—” He gave my hand a squeeze at my use of his first name, and my chest tightened. “I’m just trying to get my head around this.” I pulled my hand from his and stood up to pace across the room. I needed some space between us to force my brain into a normal functioning state.

“I’m sorry, Lottie,” he said as he rose from the sofa, holding both his hands up in a calming gesture which did not have the desired effect. “I shouldn’t be rushing you. I mean, I’ve had a long while to come to terms with how I feel and what the possible repercussions could be. It’s all a shock to you. I’m sure you’ve not been thinking about me in the same?—”

“You think I don’t think about you?” I asked, my voice incredulous as I crossed my arms over my chest defensively. “Holy guacamole, Ollie, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there.” I let out a shaky laugh. “If you knew how much I…” I closed my eyes as embarrassment swept through me. But if Ollie could do this, then so could I. “Let’s just say I think obsession-wise I’d be giving you a run for your money. You’ve starred in all my fantasies for months.”

“I have?” he asked, a smug grin appearing as he took a few steps towards me. I held up my hand though, and he stopped with a frown.

“But you’re fantasy material, Ollie. You have to see that. You’re gorgeous and funny, and kind to your mum, sisters and niece; you do endless charity work and you actually care about it. The way you wear a suit is beyond drool-worthy. You’re like the dream man. Not to mention, you are an actual duke. I’d be a disgrace to the sisterhood if I didn’t have a raging crush on you, and you know it.”

“Well,” he said, stalking closer, his frown having melted away and a small smile playing on his lips. “We wouldn’t want you to disgrace the sisterhood, would we?” Then he was right there, his smell all around me again, and all I could see were his ice-blue eyes. When he took me in his arms and hugged me to him, I rested my hands on his chest, and I knew I was a goner. “I want to hear more about these fantasies I’ve been starring in,” he said with a raised eyebrow, and I let out a shaky laugh as I relaxed against him.

“Is that all you got from everything I just said?”

“I think my brain shut off after that comment, to be honest.” He was staring at my mouth, his pupils so dilated that there was just a thin rim of blue visible, but as he started lowering his head to mine, he froze and shut his eyes tightly. “Okay, no more kissing.”

“Okay,” I breathed, and his arms gave me a squeeze.

“I’m serious, Lottie. Serious about you. And I want to do this the right way. So, you’re going to go out on an official date with me before I let you have your way with me again.”

I laughed at that and rolled my eyes. “Ollie, I work for you. It’ll be weird.”

He shrugged. “Well, let’s see, shall we?”

“I need this job,” I said in a small voice.

“Don’t worry about it, Lottie. I’ll sort it.”

I didn’t know what Ollie “sorting it” involved, but I definitely should have asked. And I really should have taken the chance then and there to explain just how complicated my life actually was.