Page 68 of Resist
He doesn’t put me down when Michael follows us into the elevator, nor does he stop fingering me, so every ounce of my energy goes into biting down on my bottom lip and not making a sound. As much as I loathe Michael these days, he’s a bystander, and I’d really rather he didn’t have images of Sterling finger fucking me in an elevator.
Sterling doesn’t put me down when Michael gets out of the elevator on the floor below ours.
He doesn’t put me down when we get to the honeymoonsuite. He kicks off his shiny black shoes and walks us into the bedroom when he finally stands me upright, holding his hands out to me to steady me from falling over.
I shove his shoulder playfully. “That was quite a walk. You need a nap?” I round on him, he’s barely flushed. He doesn’t look shaky and half-dead like I would, had I just carried another human being as far as he has.
It’s hot as hell.
Maybe it’s because he already stoked the raging fire between my thighs as he took me upstairs.
“I knew you weren’t going to leave any time soon. You could have been face down in that cocktail and still have stayed to entertain our friends.”
My body heats at how well he’s reading me over the tiniest detail. He’s not wrong. “When I was little, Mom was a great hostess. We always had holiday parties, birthday parties, and as you’ll soon find out as the newest Mr. Blackwell, our publishing house often has events we need to go to. Mom hosted. Always the last to leave. If she wasn’t hosting, she stayed to help those who were.”
I shrug. “I guess part of that filtered into me. Not the social part, obviously. I got Dad’s introverted tendencies. Mom on the other hand? She was the life and soul of every party, didn’t leave a room without making a new friend.” I point at him. “A little like you actually.”
He pulls a bottle of champagne from a free standing, metal ice bucket and pops the cork. “I don’t have a hell of a lot of friends, but I love the ones I do have hard as fuck.” He pours us both a glass, hands me one.
“To the new Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery.” He clinks his glass against mine, and we each take a sip, then he pulls the lid off a box that’s sitting on the table right next to the bucket.
Hearing a new last name attached to mine makes me clench. I hadn’t thought about the fact that I may change myname. I assumed I’d be a Blackwell forever. Sterling will undoubtedly understand that I want to keep my name for the sake of our business. But it’s not the time to bring it up. I’ll let him have his moment before I shatter his Mrs. Montgomery dreams. Even if it is a fake marriage. Our wedding day isn’t that time to bring up those kinds of things.
The room is huge. There’s a couch facing a TV, a kitchenette space, and a dining table that we’re standing by. There are wooden double doors to our right that I’m guessing lead into the bedroom space.
It obviously wouldn’t make any sense for the honeymoon suite to have two beds, so either one of us takes the couch, or we get cozy sharing one bed.
“Strawberry?” He offers me the red box from the table. There are a dozen chocolate-dipped strawberries. Some are dipped in milk chocolate, some white, some dark.
The fruity scent in the air makes my mouth water as I reach for one. Before I get there, he plucks the strawberry I was intent on from the box and moves closer to me to offer it to my lips.
Tiny beads of condensation coat the chocolate, warning me that the fruit is cold, likely refrigerated before the hotel staff dropped it off to our room.
When I take a bite, an explosion of exquisite flavor on my tongue makes me moan, and Sterling smiles at me.
“What?”
He gestures his glass at me. “I like seeing you relax and making noises like that.” He shrugs. “Even though our nuptials were fake, there’s something nice about knowing you can be yourself with me.”
The words fall so casually from his mouth like they don’t mean anything, but they slam into my chest with the force of solid stone. He’s right, though. It’s only been a couple weekssince we met but already he’s snaking his way behind my defences.
I’m not sure what to think about that.
He offers me the rest of my strawberry, and I wash it down with another mouthful of cool, bubbly champagne. The combination of chocolate, strawberry, and fizzy liquid is one of my favorites.
The carbonation tickles my nose but I don’t object when he refills my glass. “Want to check out the rest of the place?” He’s already putting down his glass and tugging the door handles until they open.
The sight steals my breath. The four-poster bed is enormous, there’s a trail of red rose petals to the bed, and a towel twisted into a love heart on the corner of the mattress. There’s a long, sleek black box on the edge of the bed.
Sterling points his thumb at the box. “Think that’s Mackenzie’s gift?”
I purse my lips. “You want to take a peek?”
He grins like it’s Christmas. Is it possible that my fake husband’s love language is gifting?
He inches up a corner of the box and leans forward to look. He rolls his eyes, a low groan escaping as he slaps his palm to his face. He snaps the lid back on the box, and picks it up. “It’s nothing.” His face is beet-red, and now Ireallywant to know what it is.
I hold my hands out and make grabby motions.