HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 124

Chapter one hundred and twenty four

Bianca

Dinner was supposed to be a simple thing, but my mind kept drifting while I stood over the pot, stirring without really paying attention. My phone rang about forty minutes in, buzzing against the counter loud enough to startle me, and I nearly knocked the spoon into the pot reaching for it. Adrian’s name flashed on the screen and I picked up immediately, wiping my free hand on a kitchen towel.

“Sorry, I was in the middle of an impromptu meeting earlier, I didn’t know you were going to call,” he said, sounding slightly out of breath.

“So you want me to tell you in advance before I call you from now on?” I said, trying to fake an angry voice, though I was already smiling at the pot in front of me like an idiot.

“No way Bianca, no way you are placing it like that,” he said quickly, and I could picture him exactly, running a handhrough his hair the way he did whenever he thought he was in trouble.

“Well, that’s what it sounds like.”

“No, no, it was just a wrong timing, that’s all.”

1 let the silence stretch just long enough to make him uncomfortable, turning the heat down under the pot with my shoulder pressed against my ear to keep the phone in place.

“Okay, so how are you?” he asked eventually, his voice softening.

“Skip that,” I said, setting the spoon down properly this time. “About what you said. I paused, my heart doing something strange and fast in my chest. “I will do it.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end, long enough that I almost asked if he was still there.

“Oh, I…” he fumbled on his words which was rare for a man who always seemed to have the right words ready. “You know what, I’m not actually far from your house. I will have one of my trusted house help come over as usual to stay with Emma. I’m coming over to pick you, don’t argue.” He hung up before I could say anything at all, and I stood there for a second staring at the phone in my hand.

I turned the stove off completely, abandoning the stew Halfway, and rushed to my room. There wasn’t much time to think about what to wear, so I threw on the first thing my hand landed on, a short skirt and a small top that barely covered my chest, leaving my stomach bare underneath the cool evening air already blowing in through my window.

About twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door, guessing it was Adrian before opened it and found him standing there in a dark shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms, looking like he left wherever he was without bothering to check

a mirror first.

“You don’t have to take anything,” he said, reaching for my hands before I even fully stepped outside.

“Hold on, my phone,” I said, slipping back in to grab it along with the small bag I had already packed earlier a day before, mostly things I needed for work the next morning.

Emma was curled up on the couch when I passed through the sitting room, barely glancing up from whatever she was watching. “Bye,” she said, waving a hand without much interest, already comfortable enough with the nanny’s presence that my leaving didn’t seem to register as anything unusual anymore.

The drive to Adrian’s house happened faster than usual, he took corners a little too quickly for my liking. I didn’t say anything about his speed though, mostly because his right hand had found my thigh somewhere along the way and stayed there warmly, and it was hard to focus on anything else with that kind of distraction sitting so close to me.

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་་ས མ་ ་པ

HIS STRIPPER. HIS WIFE

B

His gate opened the second we pulled up, one of his staff already waiting, and he drove straight in without slowing down much. He came around to open my door before I could do it myself and we walked in together.

“Now that you didn’t let me have my dinner at home, I hope you’ve got something for me to eat here,” I said the moment the door shut behind us, my stomach was already reminding me that I abandoned a perfectly good pot of food for this man.

“You can have me, I’m on the menu,” he said without missing a beat, and I laughed, the sound coming out louder than I intended.

“Come here,” he said, tugging me gently toward the couch, and I let myself be pulled down beside him.

“You’ve agreed to do it?” he asked in a very calm tone. I nodded, and for a second neither of us said anything. He stood up without another word, walked over to a side table, and came back with a single sheet of paper and a pen./

“That’s the contract,” he said, holding it out to me. I took it, and I was meant to read it properly, I really did, but my eyes only skimmed the first few lines before I signed at the bottom, handing it back to him like it was nothing.

“You still don’t own me though. Outside, I could do whatever I want, right?” I said, trying to sound firmer than I felt.

He nodded slowly. “Maybe like fifty percent,” he added, and I smacked his arm, though the laugh that followed gave away exactly how unbothered I actually was.

“Hold on,” he said, standing and heading toward the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with shredded chicken and a box of pizza that I was fairly certain hadn’t been there when we walked in, which meant he probably had someone deliver it while we were driving over. “You can have this. I’ll be right back, I’ll take some time, it’s a meeting.” I nodded, already reaching for a slice.

“Text me if you get bored,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of my head before disappearing up the stairs, and I sat there for a moment just smiling at nothing in particular.

I called Amanda not long after, mostly to fill the silence, and told her everything, the signing, the contract, all of it. She reminded me that newly planned yearly mini vacation was coming up, nothing extravagant, just somewhere outside the city for a few days, and mentioned that she’d be covering costs this time since her dad had sent her some money and she knew how tight things were with Emma’s treatment.

“That would be next weekend,” she said, and somewhere in the middle of planning logistics she confessed, almost shyly, that she was starting to like someone, though she wasn’t ready to be too forward about it yet.

By the time we hung up, almost two hours had passed. I scrolled through my phone for a while after that, then gave up and put on a movie instead, one with far too much romance for my current state of mind, the wine I had poured myself somewhere along the way wasn’t helping either.

Eventually I got restless enough to go looking for him, I climbed the stairs slowly, checking room after room since I didn’t actually know which one his meeting was happening in, until I finally found him just as voices inside were wrapping up, the door slightly opened. He turned the moment he sensed me there, standing in the doorway.

“Hey, you sneaking on me?” he said, a smile spreading across his face.

I shook my head, laughing softly as I stepped further into the room, closing the distance between. His eyes moved over my face first, then dropped, lingering on my chest a little longer than necessary. I had taken the bra off the moment he left earlier and the thin fabric of my tank top did nothing to hide it under the light.

The wine had made me bolder than usual, and honestly I didn’t care. Adrian had been careful with me the past few days, deliberately careful and I was tired of it. I moved closer, his tall frame swallowing up the space around me, and rested my hands on his waist, feeling the material of his shirt bunch slightly under my fingers.

I could already feel him reacting, hardening slightly against me even through that small amount of contact, and I let my body shift slowly, rubbing against him just enough to watch his body react more.

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