by Christa Wick
Finished with the necklace, his hands smoothed down my arms and crisscrossed over my middle. His mouth trailed along the side of my throat that was bare, starting at its bottom curve and running along my sensitive jawline. “Because I do mean it.”
“Blake, we're all alone.”
“Remember, P.J. Both public and private.”
Right. How was he already so good at faking it this well?
His hips brushed against my bottom as his arms circled my waist fully. The tip of his tongue curled against my earlobe, causing a ripple of pleasure to race through me.
“The chef at Robuchon’s will be insanely jealous—all that food and all I want to eat is you, Pippa.” He gripped my hips, cinching me tight against him while his teeth scored the soft tendon that ran between my neck and shoulder. I reached for his hands, intent on removing them from my body.
“You have to start getting used to my touch.” A soft rumble followed. “Or no one will believe you’re madly in love with me, baby.”
I blinked back a sudden wash of tears. Hearing his words, feeling it hit me square in the chest, and knowing that by the end of the night, he’d be sliding a ring onto my finger, exposed the crush I'd thought I was nursing for what it really was—something much bigger.
I was madly in love with the man.
And whether he believed it or not, I soon wouldn’t be able to hide it.
“Shhh, Pippa. It’ll be okay; we’ll just take it a day at a time, one kiss at a time.” Blake turned me in his arms, his mouth covering mine in a patient, possessive kiss that drew me in. His fingers stroked the back of my shoulders through the silk wrap, taking up a soft and rhythmic pace that lured me deeper.
He was easy to get lost in—exactly what I was afraid of.
Breaking the kiss, he ran his cheek against mine. “Where are your keys?”
I pulled back. “My keys?”
He nodded. When I stared at him instead of immediately fetching them, he frowned. “I need your keys so I can lock the door when we leave.”
“That’s okay. I've got it.”
He blinked, his frown deepening. “Pippa, you’ve spent the last year molding me into the perfect gentleman in the public eye while allowing me to achieve that goal on my own terms, in my own way.” He pulled me to him, his grip on my ass and back unyielding. “The brand you’ve helped me build is an image of a very proprietary man who may not break as many rules anymore, but still always—always—safeguards the things that are important to him. By any means necessary. So I repeat, hand me your keys, baby. Your safety is in my hands now.”
I opened my mouth in protest; he wasn’t supposed to use my own hard work against me.
He stopped me with a shake of his head. “You know I'm right. You are mine now. The whole world has to see it that way. No doubt a Post reporter will interrogate your neighbors tomorrow, focusing on the smallest of details.”
How ironic that I’d warned him of that very thing in the past before.
I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, trying hard not to think about the fact that it was the largest, not smallest, detail I was worried about the Post reporter focusing on. Namely, the flesh of my overgenerous backside, which Blake was fondling at that moment.
“Look at me, Pippa.”
I obeyed, regretting my compliance immediately. His eyes were like darkened quicksilver, the irises swirling as his pupils pulsed. Mesmerized, I felt myself leaning into him.
“You know I’m right.” Quirking a brow, he smiled at me. “The limo is already attracting attention. The reporters will hear how I locked your door, how I kept you tucked in my arms as I escorted you to the limousine, how I protected you from prying eyes while being unable to stop staring at you the entire time.”
There was no arguing with his logic. We both knew how the tabloids—and New York—worked. Some “citizen journalist” had probably already recognized Blake and was on standby with his or her cellphone for a quick payday.
I nodded and he loosened his grip on me enough that I could reach into the clutch for my key. Strange how intimate this small gesture was.
That it was just a show for my neighbors would be the first thing I’d think about tomorrow when I read the detailed reports of how this night began.
“Trust me, P.J. I promised you I’d protect you, and I meant it. In every way possible.”
I handed him the key. My head bobbed in something that wasn’t quite acquiescence.
“Just breathe, baby. Here we go.” Placing his hand along the curve of my back, Blake led me outside.
Knowing it would look like a set-up if I scouted the street for anyone with a camera, I kept my gaze focused on Blake as my house key disappeared into his pocket while he walked me to the limo. Waving off his driver before he could do his normal job, Blake opened the limo door for me himself. Taking my hand in his, he held me steady as I slid into the back seat. Once Blake was sitting next to me, he directed Carson to take us to the restaurant and then asked for privacy.
The darkened interior window slid up immediately.
With the dark tint of the limo's glass cutting us off from the rest of the world, I let out the breath I’d been holding. Blake put his arm around my shoulder, shushing me when I tensed. His hand covered my exposed knee. “Relax, P.J., you can do this.”
When that same hand slipped further up my leg, I tensed again. But this time to stop him from discovering the effect he was having on my panties.
My body had been in a state of arousal from the first brush of his lips against my throat when he’d fastened the necklace. And now that his hand was clearly not going to stop until it reached its destination, I lifted my brows, my gaze and quivering mouth pleading with him to ease up on the act. “Blake...please...”
“Please?” He murmured the question, his thumb tracing light circles along the inside of my thigh. “Please, what, baby? If you’re not going to be specific,” he leaned in to brush his lips against mine, “then I’m just going to have to go with what’ll please me, love.”
He started at the corner of my mouth, his lips lightly gnawing at the edges until my head fell back against the seat cushion. His finger trailed across my cheek to gently pry my lips apart. He took a small lick center top before his teeth captured my bottom lip and sucked it into his mouth. Letting go, Blake allowed me a small moan, then suffocated me with another kiss that left me trembling and arching against him.
The hand on the fleshy part of my thigh tightened, his fingertips pressing into my flesh as he sought to control one or both of us. He pushed the bottom hem of the tube dress a little higher, his kiss sharpening to sucking bites. I brought my hands up between us, forcing myself not to clutch at the lapels of his exquisitely expensive dinner jacket.
My restraint lasted maybe five seconds and then his fingers drifted up to nearly the edge of my panties. Gasping, I fisted the fabric of his jacket in my hands. “Blake, what are you doing?”
“Relieving some of the tension vibrating through you, Pippa.”
My eyes feeling big as saucers, I shook my head. “That’s not what I call tension relief.”
“Then you’ve been dating amateurs, baby.” Chuckling, he slid his fingers higher, a wolfish grin splitting across his face before he buried his mouth between the upward thrust of my breasts. “A few minutes from now and you’ll be completely—”
The limo slowed to a stop in front of the restaurant.
Blake lifted his head, a growl rumbling low in his chest as Carson exited the car and came around to Blake's door.
He looked at me, his fat pupils slowly narrowing to normal. A final kiss, almost chaste, was followed by a quietly murmured promise as the driver opened the door, “We’ll be picking this up the very second I have you to myself again, love.”
Chest heaving just a bit, he added huskily, “And if you don’t stop looking at me like that, I can’t promise to wait until we’re alone before taking care of that…tension for you.”
FIVE
- Pippa -
Thankfully, Blake didn’t follow through with his sexy threat. He kept his hands off me all through dinner. Mostly.
Every few minutes, his fingers would brush against mine, caressing or capturing them for an instant. Where his hands couldn't venture, his gaze roamed freely. I would finish a sentence to find his attention focused on my mouth. He would look up, smile, and then his gaze would drift down to my shoulders before whispering across my breasts and the hard outline of my nipples as they tented both the sequined bodice and silk wrap.
The whole meal felt like one long sex act, his tongue darting out to capture a small morsel, his lips sliding over it. Trying to focus on the conversation while his mouth teased my imagination was pure torture.
Fortunately, major distractions or not, it wasn’t difficult to carry on a conversation with the man. Over the past year, Blake and I often found ourselves in lengthy chats lasting hours over meals or late at night after finishing up work. Now that I thought about it, next to Kevin, there wasn’t anyone else I felt this comfortable talking with.
Really, the only time our discussions turned awkward was when he’d bring up my parents.
…Like he was doing now.
“What's there to say?” I blinked, caught off guard. To the outside world, my parents looked perfectly respectable. “You already know my mother was a housewife, my father a school counselor. They owned a small two-bedroom ranch paid in full, at least it had been ten years ago when I'd last spoken to them. I told you, we don’t have a relationship, Blake. And it’s better for all of us that way.”
I wasn’t a whiner. I knew other people grew up with worse. For me, there’d been no boozing, no drugs, no broken bones. Just words that hurt me all the same. And awful memories that still stayed with me.
Though Blake waited me out, I didn’t offer any more of an answer than the one I gave him.
He didn’t need to know about how my mother made me weigh myself naked in front of her three times a day, every day—before and after school and before bedtime—from my tenth birthday forward.
He didn’t need to know how she would take a permanent marker and draw dotted lines around the awkward bulges of my flesh like she was a plastic surgeon.
He didn’t need to know about the weekly tape measure sessions, the tennis lessons, the nightly ritual of an hour on the exercise bike for school nights and two hours Friday and Saturday. The Saran Wrap suits.
He didn’t need to know he was getting engaged to damaged merchandise.
Shrugging at him, I blinked, surprised to find my lashes wet against my cheeks.
I then went from surprised to speechless when Blake slid to the floor and lifted the lid of a ring box, the giant rose-cut spinel tucked inside putting on a breathtaking light show of sparkling black glitter across the linen tablecloth.
He’d brought his grandmother’s ring.
I knew the ring's history, had crafted an entire advertising campaign around it that had tripled his stores' sales to women. That ring had become a symbol of the great love and romance of his grandmother Eliza Cross to a soldier who died before they married but not before Blake’s father had been conceived. As the story of the ring began circulating, it became linked to Blake’s own triumphant journey—from his broken childhood, to his close relationship with his grandmother, and finally to the building of his empire.
The hugely successful campaign had ended with Blake’s declaration that the ring would one day be worn by his future wife, and only by a woman worthy of the memory of Eliza Cross.
Magazine editors ran with the story, TV personalities gushed, and the general public swooned in masses. Pretty much anyone in New York with access to any form of media or social media knew the significance of that ring to him.
And that ring was the one he was about to put on my finger.
But only as part of an elaborate charade.
My eyelids fluttered, the tears now streaming freely down my face having nothing to do with my mother. Blake said something, his words drowned out by the thunder of blood rolling through my head.
He lifted my hand, his eyes slowly shutting as he pressed his lips against my fingers. “Pippa, love, I asked if you would marry me.”
He looked up, his emotional gaze so convincing I would have believed he loved me if I hadn't known better. Around us everyone stopped and stared.
My throat too tight to speak, I offered a slow nod of acceptance. Blake put the box on the table, took the ring and slid it onto my finger before kissing my hand once again. He surged up, his fingers threading through my hair as he kissed me.
The waiter came up, clearing his throat after a few seconds of being ignored while the kiss continued with no sign of stopping.
“Champagne, Mr. Cross?”
Another long second passed before Blake broke contact. Staring at me, he shook his head and smiled.
“Just the check. We're leaving now.”
As he signed for the dinner, Blake kept his gaze locked on mine, didn't turn his head to look at another person as we quickly exited the restaurant.
All the while, the whispers built to a buzzing drone as minutes passed like hours.
A voice cut through from the table beside ours, echoing the room’s confusion. “Did that really just happen?” the woman whispered, sounding like she was in utter disbelief.
“That has to be some kind of PR stunt, right?” Another voice, droller and older, asked a little more loudly.
“No way Blake Cross proposes to a woman like her…”
The whispers followed our departure, and the entire time, I pretended I was deaf to anything but the beating of Blake’s heart as he led me outside and tucked me into the limo’s back seat.
The instant the glass partition was up, I took in what felt like my first breath of air in a long while.
Then I punched him in the shoulder. Hard.
“You knew...” It was an angry accusation, edged with hurt. “You knew how I would react when you asked about my parents—”
He captured my hands before I could slug him again. “No, P.J. I had no idea the question would upset you that much. I probably should have, but I didn’t.”
I studied him suspiciously. “What do you mean by that?”
“Love, even with the people you care about, you hold everyone at arm’s length. That kind of guardedness takes a lifetime to hone.”
My emotions still a mess, I wasn’t able to let this go. “Well, if you didn’t know, then why'd you choose that moment to propose?”
Blake let go, wrapped his arms around me and held me tight, his voice a hot whisper in my ear. “Because I saw the hurt the question caused and thought I could make it go away. I'm sorry, Pippa. I didn't think proposing right at that moment would make it worse. I’m so sorry I didn’t know, that I ruined what should have been a night for us to remember in a better light.”
His words were just making it worse. I struggled but he wouldn't release me. When I started to tear up again, he cinched me tighter.
And when his mouth sought mine, I turned and buried my face against the seat cushion.
“Stop it, Pippa. Don’t do this. Don’t let your past torture you like this, and taint the start of our life together.” The warning rumbled low in his chest.
I brought my hands to my ears. I couldn’t bear to hear any more. He thought it was just my past tainting the proposal. It wasn’t. And it wasn’t just those awful people whispering in the restaurant either. It was all of this, the entire ‘arrangement.’
“Blake, I don’t think I can do this.”
“Pippa, calm down and be reasonable.”
I knew it wasn’t fair to lay my hurt feelings entirely at his feet, but he was the only one in the limo with me besides poor Carson. I stared at him and simply shook my head, even as I clutched at him like a life preserver.
He spun me in my seat, my back tucked up against his broad chest as he pulled the hem of the tube dress up. His hand slid along my thigh, lifting the dress with it, unti
l he came to a stop at the edge of my panties again.
I froze, not even breathing.
“Are you done freaking out?” he asked. “Or do you need me to help you get your mind off everything making you have this meltdown?” Though his tone was still filled with worry, he was using his tough love voice now.
I had the urge to jab him with my elbow.
He tightened his arms around me before I could.
“Are you. Done?” he repeated, sounding even grittier after I squirmed to try and put some distance between us. Unsuccessfully.
When I didn't answer, he brushed a finger against the edge of the flimsy panties he’d dressed me in, lifting the fabric half a centimeter. “I hate seeing you hurting, P.J. Tell me the storm has passed.”
This time, his quiet, gruffly sweet words worked. “Yes,” I answered as calmly as I could. “So you can let me go now.”
“No chance in hell, love.” He lowered the fabric, his fingertips brushing across my covered mound. “Now that you’re no longer upset, we can pick up where we left off earlier.”
Every thought in my head scattered as he cupped my pussy and squeezed.
His chin brushed the hair along my throat to the side, his lips fastening on the flesh just below my ear. Beneath my panties, my clit jerked upward, my stomach clenching as he squeezed my pussy a second time.
“Are you as tight as you are wet, baby?” Blake licked behind my earlobe, his voice a hard moan of need. His hand dipped lower, one finger pulling the gusset of my panties to the side while another finger stroked the entrance to my core.
“Blake, we shouldn’t—”
He didn't wait for me to finish. His finger parted my lower lips, ran a hard line along my clit that had my hips thrusting.
“Shhh, Pippa. Let me show you how sorry I am for botching that proposal, and how it's more than just my help and money you're getting out of this deal.”
I tried to shake my head, I didn’t need him to try and prove anything to me.
My resolve melted beneath the feather light touch of his finger as it traced the hood of my clit. Finding the pearl tucked inside, he made short lifting strokes against it, his warm voice subduing me.
