Page 64 of Naked Coffee Guy

“The Cartier brooch,” I murmur.

“Yes, that and a few other things. Anyone who lived in Benji’s apartments over the past five years will receive a portion of this fund once we’ve finished the paperwork. You should be hearing from my lawyer soon, who will present you with a check.”

I’m not sure what to say. I came in here ready to rip him a new one, and now all the fight is out of me. Still, accepting the money feels wrong. Even more, I can’t help but feel like there’s another motive here.

“What’s the catch?”

He leans back, crossing his arms in front of him. “No fooling you, huh?”

I cross my own arms, waiting for his answer.

“Yes, it comes with the stipulation that no lawsuit can come of this. My lawyer was very thorough. But we also ensured every former tenant would be compensated generously.”

I eye him carefully. “How generously.”

“Unofficially?”

I nod.

“You’re receiving back everything you paid into rent over the past five years. I wanted to offer more, but this was the best I could do.”

I do quick math in my head, and my heart races at the number. It’s more than a hundred grand.

“Everyone gets that?”

He nods.

“You understand that I still hate that man,” I say, even though I’m having a hard time staying angry right now. A hundred grand feels life changing to me.

He takes my hand back, and I let him. “You have every right,” he says, “Benji had his good qualities, but he sure fucked over a lot of people. Including me.” He squeezes my hand. “And including you. If I could change anything, I would have gone back to the day I met you the first time, that day in your apartment. I would have told you to move. I would have opened my eyes to see that Benji wasn’t in his right mind and needed me to take over. But then none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have met you again.”

I look at our hands. How perfectly they fit together. How safe I feel with him touching me, despite everything.

“It’s taking everything in me not to show you how sorry I am,” he whispers, and he starts to pull me toward him. I place my hand over his, not to stop him, but also not to start anything. I don’t know what I want.

The truth is, I miss him. I haven’t stopped missing him. Even though I’ve spent the past few months questioning everything I knew about him, I can’t deny the fact that my life has been missing something since the day I walked away from him. He makes me feel things I’ve never felt before. He drives me crazy. He makes me so mad. But right now, our hands clasped, our bodies turned toward each other, I realize I’m done fighting this. I’m done being mad.

What is there to even be mad about, anyway?

The whole situation is shitty. But when it comes down to it, where my life is now, I can’t complain. If I hadn’t lost my home, I’d still be working at Insomniacs. I wouldn’t have started giving music lessons. I probably would have burnt out on my dream of making it as a musician. Maybe I would have stopped making music. I don’t know. All I know is that now, my life looks a lot closer to what I want it to look like, and I know a big part of that is because I was forced out of my comfort zone.

“Show me?” I ask. The corner of his mouth twitches as he stands, and this time when he pulls me toward him, I don’t stop him. Our mouths meet in a tentative kiss, gentle at first, then all-consuming as he wraps his arms around me and picks me up in one swoop. He places me on the desk so that I’m sitting, and he rests his body between my spread legs, straining the tight skirt I put on this morning. But then he stops, pulling away from me.

“Do you want to take control?” he asks. It brings me back to the hotel room, when he turned the tables and dominated me. It had left me feeling raw and exposed. It also was the most intense thing I’d ever experienced.

I love being in control, but with Mac, I feel free with him calling the shots—in bed, that is. Out of bed, he has another thing coming.

“Take me,” I say, “Do what you will with me. Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. Maybe then, I’ll think about forgiving you.”

If I were an artist, I would paint the look that crosses his face so that I’d never forget. It’s somewhere between cunning and famished, and I cannot stop squirming as he crosses the office to lock the door.

“What’s your safe word?” he asks, turning to face me. The way he slowly rolls up his sleeves makes me breathless, knowing he’s about to get down to business. His thick forearms are marked with rigid muscle and black and white tattoos, and I lick my lips in anticipation.

“Safe word?” I ask, a small smile teasing my lips.

“Don’t play, Maren. I have so little restraint, it’s not even funny. If you don’t have a way to put the brakes on, I’ll obliterate you.”

I bite my lip. My skin is on fire at the mere suggestion of his punishment. I want all of it.