Free Crushing On The Billionaire (Part 3) by Lola Silverman Page B

putting his arm back down by his side, firm. I looked at him, longing. I wanted that arm around me, the hand smoothing down my back.
     I wanted him back in my life. I wanted us. I didn’t know how to say it. He was holding himself back, and it hurt me.
    “I came here to buy some art, and that’s what I’m doing,” he said finally, his voice strained.
    “Is that really all you’re doing?” There were art galleries all across the city, and none in this neighborhood—except for the one we were standing in. It hadn’t been happenstance that he was here. He knew, somehow, that my show was today. He was here because of me.
    He inhaled deeply and wrapped his hand around my elbow, guiding me through the people milling around the gallery, until we were in the alley behind the building, alone in the deepening evening.
      “Why can’t I stay away from you?” Patrick almost demanded. “We’ve had this discussion so many times that I know the words by heart. We shouldn’t be together, and yet I drift after you helplessly. I go places I know you’re going to be just to see you, to make sure you’re still okay. To pine away after you.”
    I knew then that I had actually seen him at the senior projects exhibition. It hadn’t been my imagination. We had both been so uncertain, clinging to something we knew was real, and somehow, crystal clear certainty surfaced inside of me because of it.
    “Is the love still there?” I asked, lifting my gaze to meet his. His green eyes were luminous, wide.
    “It has never left.”
    “Then maybe it’s time to stop fighting it and get on with our lives together.”
    I slipped my fingers around his neck and kissed him deeply, and it was suddenly just as simple as that. I had a brick wall at my back and the man I loved in front of me, both of us entwined, certain of each other.
    “Let’s go somewhere,” I suggested, smiling, feeling naughty. I wanted what I hadn’t gotten previously because I wasn’t sure of myself, of my feelings for Patrick. Now that I was sure, I was overeager.
    “We’re not going to have sex in an alley, Loren,” Patrick told me, amused. “We’re going to do this the right way. There’s no hurry. We have all the time we need.”
    “The right way” consisted of me attending the rest of my gallery show, painfully aware of my arousal, Patrick lingering in the periphery, as I tried to pretend everything was normal, talking with strangers, answering questions about my photos.
    Mere slipped a piece of paper in my hand at the end of the night, the contents of which made my eyes bug out. It was the total sales of my photography, including Patrick’s purchase of the Golden Gate Bridge centerpiece, as well as an interesting proposition. I secured it in my wallet before dropping it in my bag. It was a paper I didn’t want to lose.
    When I walked out of the gallery, I was on top of the world and on Patrick’s arm. The two had a lot to do with each other, but I was also thrilled with the success of the show, and Mere’s special news to me.
    Patrick walked me to his car, holding the door open for me.
    “Please tell me you’re taking me to a nearby hotel,” I said, leering at him. “I don’t think I can wait much longer.”
    “Nope.” He closed my door and took his sweet time sauntering over to the driver’s side, plopping into the seat, and making a series of what I was sure were unnecessary adjustments. After what seemed like an eternity, he turned the key in the ignition.
    “Where, then, are we going to go?”
    “Home.”
    “That’s a long way from here.”
    “Yep.”
    I pressed my knees together in frustration, anticipation, a host of emotions, but he slipped his hand between them, prying them apart, trailing his fingers up the inside of my thigh until I shivered, sighed, and spread my legs even farther apart.
    He took off from his parking spot, one hand on the wheel, one hand slipping my panties aside to allow his fingers access to the part of me