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I watched through a haze as he reached into his pocket and held something out to me.
“What is it?” I whispered.
There was a rustle in his fingers.
“Open,” he said.
I obeyed, unsure why it felt so reflexive. His fingers came so close to my lips I felt their heat and something slipped between my teeth. Hard, smooth, and spreading a sweet cherry taste over my tongue.
I smiled.
Hard candy.
He bent over the console and lifted my hand, brushing his lips over my knuckles.
“Happy birthday, Clara,” he said softly.
CHAPTER NINE
MERRICK
I wasn’t happy with how Osian had handled her birthday.
A few days after her party, I drove to the east side of Providence to one of Rhys Cardiff’s new hotels. It was a garish thing, towering over my beloved city. An eyesore that bothered me every time I laid eyes on it.
He was the type to build an ugly hotel on the river just so everyone had to look at his name over the front door. Rhys was the kind of wealthy that made me want to look down my nose at him like he was something stuck to my shoe.
He checked every box. Designer clothes, fast cars, pretty women who weren’t his wife. The problem was, he made a lot of money and he was a good businessman. His company was expanding into Providence whether I liked it or not so I was going to make sure the organization got a cut.
May as well get what I could out of him.
That morning I’d put on one of my custom suits and neatly slicked back my hair. Then I stared at myself in the mirror for several minutes before going to change into the kind of clothes Rhys Cardiff wore. A suit jacket over an open necked white shirt. Casual, a little douchey. Completed by the Rolex glittering on my wrist.
I looked like one of them—the kind of man I would make sure Clara never ended up marrying. Perhaps I was wrong, but Osian didn’t strike me as the same sort of person as his father.
Pulling into the hotel parking lot, I put the Audi in park. My gaze caught on my watch, glittering in the sun. Mocking me with the memory of what she’d done to me at the bar. My dick twitched in my pants and I tore my eyes away.
It was an accident. That was all.
I ran a hand over my jaw and pulled the car keys free. A long time ago, Caden had pulled me aside and given me a warning about letting Clara live with me and that memory was resurfacing in the front of my mind.
“I know you’re twenty-one years older,” he’d said. “But you’re still a man. And she’s young, but she’s still a woman.”
“It’s not like that,” I’d said swiftly.
He shrugged. “Living together is a risky thing. It means you’ll see her in the early morning…you’ll know what she smells like when she’s just out of the shower.”
Something stirred in me, even then, at the idea of seeing Clara freshly out of the shower. Face bare, hair wet, staining her t-shirt. Or maybe just dripping down her naked back to the towel wrapped around her body.
“I have impeccable self control,” I said firmly.
He raised a brow, unmoved. “Just make sure you set down boundaries and stick to them. Especially if you’re both single.”
“What do you mean?” I murmured, pretending it didn’t really matter.
“I mean, one thing leads to another. One night you decide to release a little tension with each other. Doesn’t mean anything, does it? Except then she’s in your bed the next night and the next. And where does that go? You can’t marry her, Merrick. So it ends in tears. Ugliness. Breaking her heart—”
“That’s a little over the line,” I’d said. “Especially for you.”
