by Anna Durand
"Yeah, I guess I am."
She smiled. "I'd love to go on a date with you, Damian."
The urge to fist-pump was strong, but I ignored it. "I'll pick you up at eight, at your room. Okay?"
"I'll be ready." She eyed my work uniform. "Are you going to, like, wear a suit or something? Should I dress up?"
I hadn't even considered how we might dress, but nudity was pretty much off the table. The authorities frowned on naked people strolling into a restaurant. I did own a suit, for special occasions. For years, I'd worn a prison-guard uniform, and now I wore the resort uniform. To wear a nice suit again might feel weird, but I looked forward to it. And I couldn't wait to see Heidi in whatever fancy dress she decided to wear.
"Yes, we're dressing up," I said. "The only restaurant in town is the steak house, but I hear it's nice."
"It is. And they usually have live music. A string quartet or something like that."
"Sounds perfect. Have you been to the steak house before?"
Heidi bit her lip again and swerved her gaze away from mine. "Um, once. Back when I was trying to steal Ollie away from Mara. Her ex-husband showed up, and he took me on a date strictly to make Mara jealous. It didn't work. I thought it was a real date, though. Stupid, right?"
"No, that's not stupid. Ollie told me about Nico the Numbskull, and I'm sure he did a bang-up job of sweet-talking you into going out with him."
"He did that all right."
I moved my hands up to her back and tugged her closer. "You're a smart cookie, but everybody gets duped once in a while. Now, let's stop talking about other people and focus on tonight." I bent my head to murmur in her ear, "No underwear, please."
"Not even a bra?"
"Wear one if you'll feel more comfortable that way, but definitely no panties."
"Yes, sir." She caught my earlobe between her teeth, tickling it with her tongue. "No underwear for you either."
"I never bother with those, you know that."
"Just making double sure."
Since I still had my mouth almost touching her ear, I flicked my tongue out to tease the skin under the lobe, loving the way she sucked in a breath. "I never got to use that silk scarf I bought for you. Tonight, I'm going to strip you naked and drag that silk over you so slowly, skimming it across your skin over and over until you beg me to fuck you."
"Oh God, I can't wait for that. I want to go down on you in the restaurant."
I froze as the meaning of what she'd said filtered through my lust-drunk brain. "Are you just saying that, or would you actually do that sometime? Have you done something like it before?"
"No, never. But yes, I want to do that to you." She skated her tongue up my throat. "Tonight."
Damn, and I thought I was the master of dirty talk. My dick jerked the second she spoke the word "tonight" in her sultry voice.
"I, uh, better get back to work," I said, taking a step backward. "But we're on for tonight, and I'm game for anything you want to try."
Mara emerged from the guest house, heading this way. She waved to Heidi.
"See you tonight," I said.
Heidi lunged forward to kiss me. "I'll put my mouth on a different part of you at dinner."
She grinned and trotted toward Mara.
I watched the two girls get into Mara's car, then I waved as they drove off. I went back to work, but it took all my willpower to focus on my job instead of fantasizing about tonight with Heidi. Still, I behaved like a diligent employee and got things done. Sure, I might've locked the office door for five minutes while I jerked off to a fantasy of Heidi going down on me in the restaurant, but that happened during my lunch break. No shirking of duties involved.
At precisely eight o'clock, I approached the door to Heidi's room and knocked.
The door swung open half a second later.
She started to smile, froze, and then went slack-jawed. "Holy cow, Damian, you look like James Bond. You own that color, like the universe invented black just for you."
I'd worn a black suit with a pale-blue shirt and a black tie. I even had shiny black shoes. But I couldn't have guessed she would love my outfit this much. I loved hers too. Like, jaw-droppingly loved it. "You look absolutely incredible, Heidi."
Fuckable, actually, but I was trying to be a gentleman.
Heidi wore a cherry-red dress that clung to her body like a second skin. It featured a halter top that tied behind her neck and a peekaboo cutout that let me glimpse the slopes of her gorgeous breasts. When she twirled so I could see all of her, I discovered the dress was backless. Her red stilettos gave her ankles a sexy curve and made me want to fall to my knees at her feet so I could unhook the slender straps with my teeth and lick my way up her calf.
"Glad you like it," she said. "I bought this dress today for our date. Didn't want to wear something any of those jerks I used to date had seen."
She bought a dress for me. A hot dress.
"I didn't buy this suit for you," I said, "but none of the girls I've dated ever saw it."
Heidi fingered the lapels of my suit jacket. "I like being the first one to see you looking like James Bond."
I offered her my hand. "Shall we go? I made a reservation, so we'd get the perfect table."
"You think of everything." She slipped her hand into mine. "Sweep me off my feet, Damian."
"Anything for you." I swept her into my arms. "I'll carry you to the car like those guys in movies do."
And I did exactly that.
She giggled the entire time.
We walked into the restaurant arm in arm, and every man in the place stopped to stare at Heidi, even the ones who looked like they were ninety. I couldn't blame them. She was stunning.
A waiter took us to our table. The booth nestled in the corner farthest from the entrance, in a shadowy area, behind a brick planter full of small palm trees. That seemed like a weird choice for a steak house in Oregon, but whatever. When I'd made the reservation, I'd asked for a secluded table. This was it, for sure.
Once we ordered, I turned halfway toward Heidi and draped an arm across the back of the booth behind her. "Time for an appetizer."
"The waiter said it would take ten minutes."
"Not talking about that kind of appetizer." I slid closer to her, laying my hand on her thigh. "I need to taste you."
"A gentleman lets the lady go first."
I pushed my fingers under the hem of her dress, gliding them up her skin. "A real gentleman knows the lady always comes first."
"Oh, I see."
"Pull your dress up for me, please, and spread your legs."
Elsewhere in the restaurant, people laughed and chattered. Through the branches of those baby palm trees, I could see the movements of people at another table.
Heidi shimmied her hips, hiking up her dress until she'd exposed herself from the waist down. She parted her legs.
I caressed her inner thigh. "When you come, I'll swallow your scream with my mouth over yours."
Her breathing had grown heavier, making her breasts rise and fall. She gripped my thigh with one hand, curling her fingers over the seat's edge with the other.
"Watch what I'm doing to you," I said. "Watch me fuck you with my fingers."
She lowered her head, her gaze trained on my hand.
I slid my hand higher up her thigh and stretched out one finger to tease her mound. When she gasped, I covered those curly hairs with my hand.
Heidi spread her legs even more.
The scent of her cream inundated my senses, and my dick jumped like it couldn't wait to get inside her. Not yet, bro, not yet. I sucked in a deep breath through my nostrils, reveling in the aroma of her lust. Fuck, I wanted to shove my head down there and devour her. But I reined in the impulse and kept to the plan, thrusting one finger between her slick lips to massage her clit. She gripped my thigh harder while I skated my finger down one side of her folds and back up the other, coating my finger with her cream.
&n
bsp; I lifted that finger to my mouth and licked it clean.
She choked back a moan.
God, I loved the way her cheeks had turned slightly pink and her eyes had gone hooded. There was nothing more beautiful in the world than Heidi Mackenzie at full arousal. I shoved two fingers between her folds, pushing them down until the heel of my hand rested on her taut nub. I rubbed it with my hand while I brushed my fingers up and down, up and down, slowly at first but speeding up little by little as she got more turned on. Her breaths became rhythmic gasps as her nails dug into my thigh.
"How badly do you need to come?" I whispered.
"So damn bad," she said between panting breaths.
I drove my middle finger into her channel as far as it would go, still massaging her clit with my palm and stroking her with my other fingers.
"Oh—God," she hissed under her breath, her gaze riveted to my hand.
Blood was rushing to my cock, but I couldn't focus on anything except the look on her face, a cross between intense pleasure and pain. I ground my hand into her nub, moving my fingers faster and faster and faster. Her body tensed, and her mouth fell open. The second I felt the first hint of a spasm inside her, I sealed my mouth over hers and thrust my tongue deep, swallowing the cry that erupted from her throat. Her body gripped my finger again and again while I kept working her flesh until she was done.
I broke the kiss, breathing almost as hard as she was.
"Wow," she said, her voice breathy. "That was…wow."
"I love it when a woman comes so hard she can't manage a complete sentence." I pulled my hand away from her body and raised my fingers to my mouth, licking them one by one with deliberate slowness, groaning at the flavor of her. "Not sure I need food. The taste of you could sustain me for days."
"But you promised me dinner." She didn't sound breathless anymore, though her cheeks were still pink. "And for the record, I spoke a whole sentence. I said, 'that was wow.' I wasn't incapable of speech."
"I don't think 'wow' counts as part of a sentence, but I'll be a gentleman and give you that one."
"Thank you." She laid a hand on my cheek. "And I mean thank you for the orgasm too."
"My pleasure."
"No, that's what comes next." She cupped my dick through my pants. "I did promise."
"Better fix your dress first."
She wriggled until she had her dress back in position, then she took hold of the zipper on my pants.
The waiter marched up to our table carrying the actual appetizers we had ordered. While he set the food down, another waiter ushered a party of four to the table beside ours. Though a partial wall separated the booths, the two guys sitting right behind me were tall enough to see us if they looked this way.
I leaned close to Heidi and murmured, "Think we better hold off on that thing you wanted to do."
She feigned a pout.
The waiter left, and we stuck to talking and eating.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Heidi
Rats. I had so wanted to give Damian head in the restaurant, especially after what he did to me. But fate intervened in the form of four obnoxious men who got seated right beside our booth and who kept laughing too loudly and glancing in our direction. Well, glancing at me. At my breasts.
Damian and I ignored them as much as possible. He even gave me his jacket so I could cover up my breasts in hopes that would make those twerps give up on leering at me. The tactic worked, thank goodness. We enjoyed our steak dinners and talked, then ordered a yummy, gooey dessert that we fed to each other. I'd never had a more perfect date in my life, despite the loud twerps in the next booth.
Between dinner and dessert, we danced. A jazz quartet played a lazy, sensual song while we shuffled around like two people who had no idea how to dance and didn't care. Damian held me in his arms while I rested my cheek on his shoulder. It was so romantic, and I wanted to commit this entire night to memory so I could relive it in my mind.
I kept Damian's jacket on until we walked out of the restaurant, not because I worried about men leering at me, No, I'd only thought about that for a few minutes, when those jerks were at their most obnoxious. I kept his jacket because I loved having the scent of him around me and the fabric that had touched him touching me. Once we walked out the doors, I gave it back to him.
"You can keep it," he said. "Looks better on you."
"But I want the whole Ludar James Bond experience on the drive home."
"How can I say no to that?" He took the jacket and slipped it on. "Sorry I don't have an Aston Martin to take you home in style."
"Your Ford Explorer is sexy enough for me."
As we headed into the parking lot, he pushed the button on his key fob to unlock the SUV. "If I'd known all I needed to get you in bed was a Ford Explorer and a suit, I would've given you that the first time we met."
"I wasn't ready for you yet. Now I am."
He opened the passenger door for me. "You were worth the wait."
I settled onto the seat, gazing up at him. "It wasn't the car or the suit that made me want you. It was the palm reading."
"Ludar seduction at its finest."
He shut the door and hustled around to the driver's side, climbing in. When he shoved the key into the ignition, I leaned over to place my hand over his, stopping him from turning the key.
"Not yet," I said. "Got a promise to keep."
"You don't have to—"
I sealed his lips with two fingers. "I want you, Damian. Right now. So I'm adjusting the plan. Got a condom?"
"When I'm with you, always." He dug a packet out of his pants.
"You're the best." I crawled onto his lap, straddling him. "And I do mean that in every way."
Smirking, he reached for the lever under the seat and pulled it. The seat back tipped down at a forty-five-degree angle. "Now we're ready."
I undid his belt and unzipped his pants, freeing his stiff cock.
He lunged forward, wrapped his arms around me, and dragged me down onto the seat with him. Grasping the back of my head, he pulled me in for a deep kiss. While our tongues tangled, he ran his hands up and down my back, and I shoved a hand between our bodies to fondle his cock. Oh wow, he was so hard. When he closed a hand over my breast and kneaded it, I moaned and writhed on top of him, desperate for more of everything—more kissing, more fondling, more of him.
A bright light flared on. Knuckles rapped on the window.
I sprang upright, bashing my head on the ceiling, and cursed under my breath. Squinting at the bright light, I struggled to understand what I was seeing. "Oh shit, Damian, it's a cop."
He sprang upright too, one arm around me, and fumbled with the button that lowered the window. "Hey, officer, what's up?"
The young cop eyed us with narrowed eyes, his flashlight aimed at us, but his mouth twitched into a faint smirk. He nodded toward Damian's lap where his dick was still visible. "You got a permit for that loaded weapon?"
Damian stared at the cop, his mouth open.
I suddenly realized Damian had pulled my tit out of my dress. Tucking it back inside the halter, I cleared my throat. "Are we breaking some kind of law, officer?"
"Yeah, you are. It's called public indecency."
Damian laughed nervously. "Sorry, man, we didn't think. Won't happen again."
"Uh-huh. I'll let you two off with a warning this time." The cop gave us a hard look. "Behave yourselves, kids."
"Will do," Damian said.
The cop ambled away.
I scrambled off Damian's lap. "Guess we better wait till we get home."
"Home?" Damian was just zipping up his pants. "I thought you were a guest."
Why had I called the resort home? The truth hit me, and I had to tell him. "Not anymore. The resort is my home, and I want to work there with you, Ollie, Mara, Eve, and Val. This is where I belong, with the kind of family that loves me no matter what."
"Everybody loves you, He
idi. Your parents are the only dicks in the room."
I leaned over the center console to kiss him. "You're so sweet. Thank you for tonight, and for everything else."
"You're welcome." He turned the key in the ignition, and the vehicle grumbled to life. "Now let's get home so I can make love to you the right way, without any risk of us getting arrested."
"Guess you better obey the speed limit in case that cop keeps tabs on us. We are degenerate criminals, after all."
"We haven't been arrested, so we're not criminals. Unless there's something you haven't told me."
I buckled up my seatbelt. "Nope. What you see is what you get."
Maybe that hadn't been true for the past few months, but it was now. I'd stopped hiding my natural tendencies and gotten back to being my truest self, the woman who took work seriously but loved life and knew how to cut loose. Damian had helped me get there. On the ride home, I couldn't think about anything else except how much this man I'd known for only a short time had changed my life. He meant more to me than any of the other guys I'd dated. Suddenly, I needed to tell him that.
But we had just pulled up in front of the guest house, and he was just getting out of the car, coming around to my side. When he opened the door for me, Damian offered me his hand to help me out. He was such a wonderful man and a gentleman to the core.
I clasped both his hands before he could even close the car door.
His brows crinkled. "Is something wrong?"
"No, everything is just right." I gazed into his eyes, my throat thickening. "I love you, Damian."
For a few seconds, his expression stayed frozen in that crinkled-brows look of worried confusion. Then the corners of his mouth kicked up, and his lips eased into a smile that gradually broadened into a grin. "I love you too, Heidi."
I grinned too.
He pulled me into his arms and kissed me. It was a long, slow, deliciously hot kiss, but it was also more than that. We imbued into it everything we felt for each other and so much more.
Once we finally forced ourselves to stop making out in the driveway, we headed into the gypsy wagon and made love for a long, long time. I fell asleep in Damian's arms.
In the morning, I woke up first and lay there luxuriating in the bliss of having his body entangled with mine. I listened to him breathing in a shallow, steady rhythm and combed my fingers through his hair while I reminisced about all the incredible times I'd had with him. Our relationship had barely begun. We had a lifetime to enjoy even better times. Life would bring bad days too, but for the first time in my life, I knew the good times would outweigh the bad ones from here on.
