Chapter 2

• "Hey"
• Megan jumped. He had moved closer without her realizing it. How long had she been staring down at her torn shirt while gripping the edges? Long enough for him to jerk on underwear—black-and-yellow panties that barely covered her. She averted her gaze and stared at the exposed brick wall.
• He spoke again. “I know you’re upset, but it’s okay. I’m not a stranger.”
• “Right. You’re David’s friend.”
• Could he even understand what she’d said? Her voice was barely audible. Strained. There was a lump in her throat where a clear passage should have been, and the words had trouble squeezing past. Rationally she knew she was overreacting. If she thought hard enough, she remembered enough to know he hadn’t lured her to his home. She’d begged for him. For it. For his dick. His come.
• Oliver hands settled on her, and she started again. Her gaze flew up to him, and she couldn’t imagine how frantic she must look for him to have sympathy and confusion in his eyes. She stood stock-still as he cupped her face, the heels of his hands resting against her jaw as his fingers massaged behind her ears.
• “Try to relax, okay?”
• She said nothing. She focused on his eyes. They were very blue and reminded her of the ocean in Saint Croix. She’d gone there with her parents the summer before their divorce. She’d been nine.
• “You, Megan Harrington, are not going out in the middle of the day to do the walk of shame back to your part of Lower Manhattan. That’s not you, and we both know it.”
• She nodded slowly.
• Oliver smiled. He kept massaging. “You’re going to dump these clothes, go into my bathroom, and spend an hour beneath my badass custom shower. Then you’ll calm down, and we’ll talk. How does that sound?”
• “I don’t know.”
• “Does it sound better than standing in the middle of Broadway and flagging down a cab while wearing jizz-stained pants?”
• Oh God.
• Oliver bit back a smile. “Sorry. Bad joke.”
• “Please stop touching me.”
• “Am I hurting you?”
• “Of course not.”
• “Then close your eyes, try to trust me, and give it a shot.”
• Trust him? She hardly knew him. She almost said it, nearly recoiled from his touch, but something about those deep blue eyes was calming. He had an easy confidence that she’d never and would never possess.
• Oliver quirked his lips in a tiny smile, as if to say, Don’t worry. I got you. She didn’t know if it was the comfort of being in the presence of someone so self-assured or a niggling desire to not reject a man kind enough to help her even after she’d insulted him, but she consented to his request and closed her eyes.
• Megan paid obscene amounts of money for massages in the past, but Olivia's cool, sure hands were just as talented as any professional masseuse. She found herself listing forward, allowing him to steady her, and then melting against him as he rubbed her neck and head. Megan was half-aroused from the sensation of his touch, but she tried to push the feeling aside, feeling embarrassed for her previous behavior.
• When she released a slow sigh and thanked him, Oli pulled away with a smile and showed her to his luxurious shower. Megan couldn't help but be impressed by the six body sprays and porcelain mosaic tiles. She quickly shed her torn, dirty clothing and stepped into the shower, feeling the water pounding into her skin at alternating rhythms and intensities. She closed her eyes, allowing the water to soothe her and wash away her embarrassment and mortification.
• As the water drenched her hair and dripped along her face and into her open mouth, Megan's mind was filled with flashes of memory from the previous night. She remembered Olivia manhandling her in a rough and athletic manner, leaving bruises on her body. She had begged him for more, but the memories were fragmented, and she couldn't remember everything that had happened. The possibility of having made a fool of herself while trying to be sexy and wild was enough to make her nausea return.
• Megan shut off the water and stepped out to find a thick towel laid out for her on the side table. Drying off slowly, she listened at the door and didn’t leave the bathroom until she was sure the hallway outside was empty. The shyness was absurd, given they’d apparently gone at it all night, but she couldn’t help it. She’d already exposed herself enough.
• Oliver had also set out a pair of soft cotton pants, a thin V-neck sweater, and a pair of underwear still in the wrapper. Of course. They were gray-and-pink and made her feel confident. She spent several moments examining her appearance in the full-length mirror before dressing in Oliver's clothes. Some of her calm returned once she was put back together, and she allowed herself to look around his room before exploring the rest of the apartment.
• He undoubtedly owned the place. There were far too many alterations for it to be a rental. Lots of exposed brick and metal fixtures gave it a deliberate unfinished quality, and the furniture was comprised primarily of edgy contemporary pieces. Megan hated edgy, but it suited Olivia. Or what she knew of him.
• They’d encountered each other a few times over the past couple of years, but Megan's initial impressions had been that he was at once extremely open about sex and dating, yet guarded about anything to do with other aspects of his personal life. Before this morning, she hadn’t even known what he did for a living or that he had a massive tattoo on his back.
• Megan found him in the kitchen. He was still shirtless and the tips of the black wings on his back disappeared into the band of low-hanging jeans.
• “Thank you,” Megan said.
• Oliver looked over his shoulder. He swept her with a once-over, but she couldn’t tell if it was admiring or just a quick check to make sure everything fit. His eyes paused on her outfit.
• “Feeling better?” he asked.
• “Somewhat.” Megan sat on one of the stools at the shining metal table. It had wheels and was awkward to sit on. She wondered where the hell he’d found such bizarre furniture. “I’m… really sorry for the way I spoke to you. I’ve never done this before, and I didn’t know how to handle it, so I lashed out.”
• “Hey, it’s fine.” Oliver moved from the kitchen counter while holding a mug in each hand. He set them on the table before sitting opposite her. “I know you don’t get down like that. You just threw me off by saying you didn’t remember any of it. I swear you weren’t incoherent or anything.”
• “I remember… some.”
• “Which parts?”
• “I’d rather not recount all the ways I made a fool of myself. Okay?”
• Oliver stared at her, so she looked down into the mug. Instead of coffee, it was full of a honey-colored liquid. She sniffed it.
• “What is this?”
• “Passionflower tea.”
• Megan raised an eyebrow.
• He smirked. “It’s not an aphrodisiac. It’s good for anxiety.”
• “According to whom? Dr. Oz?”
• Oliver's smirk widened. “Maybe. I got it from Whole Foods.”
• Megan laughed. “You crunchy-granola bastard. I would have never guessed.”
• “Shut up and drink your tea.”
• The tension bled out of Megan as she tried to find a comfortable position on the little stool. She yearned for the high-backed chairs in her own kitchen.
• “This is an interesting apartment. Not what I expected,” Megan remarked.
• Oli extended his legs beneath the table, and his bare feet brushed against Megan's own.
• “What did you expect?” Olivia asked.
• Megan sampled the tea and found it tasted vaguely of dirt. “I don’t know. Can programmers usually spend thousands of dollars installing custom showers?”
• “I moonlight as an escort,” Olivia replied with a teasing grin.
• Megan frowned when she saw him silently laughing. “You goofball. Be serious.”
• Oliver set down his cup before the liquid sloshed over the side. “You’re such a stiff, Megan.”
• “So I’ve heard, Oliver,” Megan replied.
• The smile faded from Oliver's generous mouth. “Oh, come on. I was kidding.”
• Megan shrugged and drank her dirt tea. Oliver nudged her foot again, this time on purpose.
• “To answer your question—no, I don’t get paid enough to own this apartment and have a custom shower. I work at a tech company that specializes in data mining—really invigorating stuff,” he said dryly. “I paid for this place with a small inheritance my grandparents left me. But… I do come from money. I thought you knew. My father is on the board of a major real estate corporation that owns half of Manhattan. Not that it matters to me anymore.”
• “Wow. I had no idea,” Megan said, surprised.
• “Most people don’t. I have no relationship with him and no access to his money, so I don’t rep the connection whenever Scott Thompson III comes up in the business section of the New York Times.”
• “Wow,” Megan repeated, processing the information. “He’s really famous.”
• “Maybe in the high-society circles.”
• “Exactly. My own family runs in those circles.”
• “I know. You’re a hedge-fund baby,” Oliver said, remembering Megan's background.