She sighs, moving her hands to my shoulders. She seems to love grabbing my shoulders more than anything, and I savor the feeling of her fingernails gripping me through my suit jacket, the way she claws on as though she never wants to let go.
“Maybe I need to stop waiting for this to all blow up in my face,” she murmurs.
I chuckle, leaning close and kissing the edge of her mouth.
“You think?” I smirk.
I claim her lips fully, opening my mouth to taste her passion, feeling her tongue quiver and dance against mine. She moans through the kiss, leaning close and sliding her hands from my shoulders up my neck and through my hair.
I break it off when I feel my seed reaching boiling point, roaring, demanding that I take my woman right here, right now.
“I’m sorry,” she moans.
“No more sorrys, Sophia,” I growl. “You’re too damn sexy and vivacious and curvy for me to just kiss and not go any further.”
She stares at me with a thousand unsaid things trembling in her expression, and then a sassy smile touches her lips, lighting up my insides like a Christmas tree.
“So what you’re really saying – sir – is that I can burp as much as I like.”
I chuckle.
“You can burp the whole alphabet if you want,” I growl. “Just never doubt how badly I want you, how badly I need you. You’re a human being, not some airbrushed billboard. I want all of you. Everything that makes you who you are, warts and all …”
“Burps and all,” she murmurs, grinning.
“Exactly,” I say. “So be a good virgin and do what you’re told.”
She sits up straighter, snapping off a melodramatic salute.
“No more apologies, sir.”
I laugh and she giggles, and then I stand and return to my chair.
Kneeling down next to her like that sends my mind to the future, to the way I’ll kneel down one day when I change both of our lives forever.
“Do you think we should look at the menu sometime this evening?” she says, still with that sassy tone beneath her words.
I stare hard at her. “I’m already looking at what I want to eat, my little dreamer.”
Her cheeks flush a deeper shade of red, the blush spreading tantalizingly down over her chest and to her cleavage.
Fuck, the top of her cleavage is getting red, as though her flesh is needy and wants to be grabbed and bitten and kissed and used in all the steamy ways I can dream up.
“I meant the food,” she says. “There’s so much to choose from. I don’t know what to get.”
“I’m getting a steak, nice and bloody—”
“Like the animal you are,” she finishes for me, giggling.
“Damn, Sophia. You took the words right out of my mouth. I must be getting predictable in my old age.”
“Old age?” she laughs, shaking her head. “In what world are you old, Solomon? You’re stronger, fitter, manlier than any silly immature boy my age. You make them look like toddlers. I’d rather have you over any of them.”
“Good,” I say passionately. “Otherwise, I’d have to kick their ass.”
“And you could, too,” she says. “All those jerks in high school who thought they were tough, they’d get a rude awakening if they ever came face to face with you.”
“What jerks?” I ask, unable to hide the rage bubbling up in my voice.
Her tone wavered when she mentioned jerks, as though she had somebody specific in mind.
My whole body goes tight just thinking about somebody talking down to my woman like that, making her feel small, inferior.
“Just jerks,” she sighs. “Nobody in particular. Honestly, my time in high school wasn’t that bad. I have Caitlin to thank for that. She never let anybody give me too much crap.”
She stops abruptly as if just realizing she’s dropped Caitlin’s name, as though this is going to tear a hole in our dinner and ruin it for the rest of the evening.
“You can talk about how much Caitlin means to you,” I tell her. “She means a lot to me, too. It’s okay.”
“I know,” she sighs. “It’s just … What are we doing, Solomon?”
“What does it look like?” I smirk, turning to my menu. “We’re ordering dinner.”
I can’t let us stray into the tangled mess that is Caitlin and telling her, not tonight, not when everything is going so well.
I just pray that doesn’t make me a bad father.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sophia
I feel a multi-pronged rumbling in my stomach as the waiter carries our plates toward the tables.
No, not our plates.
Our silver platters.
How the heck did I get here again?
I can smell my burger beneath the platter lid as the waiter lowers it onto the table, my mouth watering at the tastiness of it.
Even though Solomon assured me I could order whatever I want, my stomach still twists at the thought of tucking into a burger in front of him.
Won’t he think I’m gross?
The waiter lifts the tray lid to reveal a gourmet burger with some delicious looking fries that get my mouth watering even more. I fight the desire to fall upon the food like some kind of starving beast as the waiter returns to the kitchen.
“Do you want to say grace first?” Solomon smirks, glancing over at me as he tucks a napkin into his shirt collar.
“No, it’s just …”
I trail off, my gaze flitting to the window, the night pitch-dark beyond. It’s easy to forget about the rest of the world when you’re sitting on top of the world, the city clouded in night-darkness, and yet I can’t forget.
I can’t forget about my insecurities.
They’re always there, a never-ending twisting swirling mess inside of me.
“Sophia,” Solomon says. “You know I love your figure, don’t you? You must know that.”
I gasp and return my gaze to him.
His jaw is tight and his eyes flare with something like rage.
“Yes,” I murmur. “I mean, we wouldn’t have done what we did … in the garage … if you didn’t.”
He chuckles darkly. “Such a shy little virgin, aren’t you? You mean I wouldn’t be driving myself fucking feral holding myself back from you if I wasn’t obsessed with that curvy body of yours.”
“Curvy,” I murmur. “That’s such a loaded word.”
“No, it’s not,” Solomon snaps fiercely, sitting up straighter, looking even more massive and fierce.
He’s wearing a darker suit tonight, a Nordic-sea blue, and tension floods into his face as he gazes hard at me.
“It means exactly what I say,” he goes on. “It means your curves, your body, everything about you drives me fucking insane. It means I hate that you think you need to live up to some bullshit ideal of what a woman is meant to look like. Because you’re not just a woman, Sophia. You’re my woman. And I wouldn’t change a single thing about you. So stop self-pitying and eat your damn burger.”
I giggle through a budding sob.
“I’m not sure whether to be flattered or offended,” I laugh. “It started off so well, but you sort of got a little angry at the end.”
He smirks. “What do you expect? I hate to see somebody as beautiful, kind, and talented as you talk about yourself in that way. You’re my woman, Sophia, so you better get some goddamn self-esteem. And soon.”
I grin, biting my lip. And then I realize that I’m biting my lip when his smirk shivers and becomes animalistic.
“Uh oh,” I laugh. “Am I making you all beastly again?”
“You know what you’re doing,” he growls, laughing deeply.
“Do I?” I say, full of faux-innocence.
He shakes his head, but his smirk never leaves his lips.
“I can’t believe nobody has ever swept you off your feet before,” he says. “Everything about you is perfect.”
“Now you’re going to give me a big head,” I laugh. “What if I took a b
ig disgusting bite of this burger, huh? Would that be perfect?”
“I don’t know,” he says, leaning forward with a wolfish grin. “Why don’t we find out?”
He stares a challenge at me. With the force of his words still swirling around my body, I find myself rising to it.
I pick up the burger and take a massive bite, tasting the juiciness of it, and then chew ostentatiously as he smirks and his eyes glitter brightly.
When I imagined a date with suave and serious Solomon Sky, I never expected to be doing this.
But it feels right, sinking into the fun back-and-forth banter with my man.
My man.
It feels so right already.
I don’t want to question how or why it feels like this.
I just know that we’re destined to be together, with a conviction that surges up from my womb, from my soul, from someplace I wasn’t even aware of before Solomon Sky declared that I belonged to him.
I swallow the burger and wash it down with some champagne, thankfully not burping this time.
“Okay, that might’ve been a little disgusting,” I laugh. “Shall we eat like normal people now?”
Solomon chuckles. “I was about to pick up my steak bare-handed and gnaw into it like a wild man. But sure, let’s do it your way.”
I feel a question rising up on my lips as we go on eating, maybe because of what Caitlin and I spoke about yesterday. She said that Solomon has never been close to anyone, not even her mother. The need to ask him about it flurries around inside of me, but at the same time, I don’t want to shatter the delicate atmosphere of our dinner together.
“What is it, my little dreamer?” Solomon says, holding his knife like a weapon like he’s ready to kill or hurt anyone that would harm me or our children.
“Who says I’m thinking about anything other than how tasty this burger is, huh?” I shoot back.
“You can never lie to me,” he says fiercely. “Do you really think I’m incapable of reading my woman? You’re itching to say something, Sophia. So say it. You don’t have to be nervous around me. Ever.”
I sigh, fiddling with my cutlery.
“It’s about Caitlin’s mom,” I murmur.
“Okay—what?”
“Are you sure you’re okay talking about another woman with me?” I say, surprised by how sharp my words are.
It’s not fair, allowing jealousy to swarm into me like this, but just the thought of Solomon with another woman gets my blood hot.
“Sophia,” Solomon says sternly. “I never cared about her. I know how that sounds. It’s fucked up. It’s a horrible thing to say. But it’s the truth. I stayed with her for Caitlin, nothing more. And when she walked out on us, part of me was glad.”
I wait, watching.
He’s talking in a faraway tone as if he’s never approached this topic intimately before.
He sighs, running a hand through his iron colored hair.
“We were both drunk when Caitlin was conceived,” he says. “After that, she came on heavy. She said all sorts of crazy things, about how we were soulmates and things like that. I didn’t believe her. I didn’t feel it. But I wasn’t about to abandon my daughter. And then I discovered what she’d been doing.”
“What?” I murmur.
He sighs again, glancing aside.
I reach across and touch his hand.
“Solomon, you can talk to me as much as I can talk to you.”
He squeezes my hand in return. The power in the touch ignites something primal in me, as though there are pieces of us communicating without us being aware of it.
My womb twinges and sizzles and screams in pure joy.
He’ll kill anybody who tries to harm our babies, a voice murmurs in my mind. So be there for him. Be patient. Try not to be jealous.
That’s easier said than done, but I hold those words close as I stare into his dreamy eyes and wait for him to speak.
Finally, he sighs and his grip on my hand tightens.
“She was stealing from me,” he says. “She’d gotten some dirt on one of my business associates and she was using it to make him siphon some of my company’s funds to her. They started in small amounts, but they gradually got larger until she’d accumulated a nice little nest egg for herself.”
“Oh, Solomon,” I murmur. “I’m so sorry.”
He grimaces darkly. “Do you know what the fucked-up thing is? I’m not mad about it. I’m glad she did that. I’m glad she showed her true colors. I’m glad she gave me an excuse not to have to be with her anymore. Because, otherwise, I never would’ve found you.”
My heart beats so powerfully I feel like a river of love is seeping into every part of me, my nerves, my bones, and my soul. I ache at the word love, wondering if it’s possible. If this pulsating warmth inside of me can really be branded with such a lofty label.
“Is that why she’s not in Caitlin’s life anymore?” I murmur.
“Has she never talked about this?”
I shake my head.
“A little, but not really. She’s still really torn up about it.”
He sighs and his jaw twitches, his eyes narrowing as though he’s looking at something long past.
“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. No, Sophia. I didn’t stop her mother from seeing her. Her mother—she chose it. She chose not to see her own daughter. She’d rather live in Paris as a socialite. Caitlin has tried writing to her over the years, but the truth is, she never wanted to be a mother.”
Rage unfurls inside of me as though it’s been waiting a long time to make itself known. I grip the edge of the table with my free hand and fight the urge to flip it.
“Abandoning a child like that is disgusting,” I hiss.
Solomon’s smirk twitches, his eyes dancing with playfulness now instead of pain.
“What?” I ask, smiling despite myself.
“It’s just good to see how much value you place in motherhood,” he says, a gravelly conviction to his voice. “It makes me even more certain you’re going to be an incredible mother.”
We stare into each other’s eyes for a long time, getting lost in the private universe we’ve created. Despite the rage that just flooded into me like water into a balloon – making me want to burst – I can’t stop my smile from getting wider and wider.
I end up grinning like a loon.
Solomon chuckles and withdraws his hand.
“Come on, my little dreamer. Our food will get cold.”
I giggle and gesture at him.
“You almost smiled then.”
“I smile all the time,” he says.
“Nah uh,” I laugh. “You smirk all the time. Or you sort of bare your teeth, like an animal. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen you actually smile. Not now and not when I was younger.”
“What about this?” he says, baring his teeth and contorting his cheeks into a caricature of a real smile.
I laugh, throwing my head back, unable to stop the sound just as much as I couldn’t stop myself from screaming when he had me on the hood of his car.
His body, his neck, his features, everything about him goes tight as he watches me, as though lava is pressing against him trying to explode.
“What?” I ask, settling down. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to eat me,” I say, my voice wavering.
“Well, I always want to eat you,” he growls. “But it’s just that … Sophia, making you laugh feels so damn perfect. It feels like heaven.”
I smile so wide my cheeks ache. I have to blink to fight off hot tears from my eyes, the force of his words thundering into me.
“Eat your food,” he smirks. “Otherwise, I’ll eat it for you.”
We go on eating in silence for a few minutes, exchanging looks every so often as if to confirm we don’t need to talk.
We have all the sparkling electricity of a first date, but it’s underpinned by the intimacy that normally only comes
after years of being together. It flares between us, this new state, this impossible way of being.
“What about you?” he asks after a while. “Where’s your father? I’d like to meet him and introduce myself.”
I shake my head, circling my finger around my champagne flute.
“I...never met him,” I tell Solomon. “My mom, when she was younger, she was confused about her sexuality. She had a one night stand with a man and she got pregnant. And presto, here I am. She reached out to him when she was pregnant, and that’s when she found out he was married and he wanted nothing to do with me. She’s given him several chances over the years, but—nothing, no interest.”
I cough back a sob, annoyed at myself for letting this old pain creep into my voice and make my words crack.
“We have each other now,” Solomon says, reaching over and stroking his thumb across my cheek, wiping away my tears before they have a chance to fall. “I’ll never abandon you, Sophia. I’d die before I did that. I’d kill before I did that. I’m never going to stop being here for you.”
I reach up and touch his hand, pressing it closer to my face. The more times we do this, the more certain I am that this is one of the best feelings in the world.
“Goddamn,” he snarls, withdrawing his hand slowly.
The animal glint returns to his eye, shimmering.
“What?” I murmur.
“It’s just you, Sophia. How can you be so damn sexy even when you’re crying?”
The question blazes in his eyes.
Do I want this?
Am I ready?
I want to tell him, yes, but something rises up inside of me and blocks the answer, a many-headed beast made of Caitlin and insecurity and fear of disappointing him.
“I don’t think I can tonight,” I say quietly. “I’ll try if you want me to, but—”
“No,” he says, a fire beneath his voice. “Not until you’re ready. You’re going to remember your first time for the rest of your life. I want it to be …”
“Special?” I offer when he trails off.
“Yeah, that,” he says. “But perfect, too. I want it to be perfect. And if that means taming the beast inside of me for a little longer, then I will. But I should warn you. The longer I wait, the harder I’m going to take you. I’m going to ravage that sweet tight pussy until you’re gasping for me to take you again—and again. I’m going to make you addicted to my dick, Sophia.”
Intern For My Best Friend's Dad: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance Page 7
