But if talking to Helen had been like opening a tap for inspiration in my head, it was nothing compared to how it felt to kiss her. All of a sudden, my head filled with more images than I could track, all of them focusing on her. Kissing her, taking her into a bedroom, carefully unwrapping her like the most delicate of presents. Taking her, the way that a man takes a woman, working until she cried out in pleasure, so that I could thank her for giving me the gift of inspiration. Worshipping my muse.
She eventually separated, and I started to remark that I'd crossed a line, that I ought to let her get back to the party – but then, instead, she begged me to take her home.
It clicked once she explained that someone else had driven her to the party – she just needed a ride. But given that she was in my head, giving me such a hard-on that I worried my brain might run out of blood, could you blame me for taking that request in a different way?
I led her down to the parking garage, bypassing the party. She probably didn't want to be seen getting a ride home from one of the help, I considered. It made sense, and I didn't hold it against her. Hell, if our roles were reversed, I'd probably be wanting the same thing.
Although if my help looked anything like her... I certainly would be spending a lot more nights in, being waited on hand and foot, that much was for certain!
In the car, I tried not to show any signs of my self-consciousness at the, well, the shittiness of my ride. This woman was probably used to being chauffeured around in limos, in Rolls Royces and Maseratis and other cars that cost more than I made in half a decade! My crappy little beat-up Chevy couldn't compete with those. It didn't even have automatic door locks, much less any of the fancy leather seats and seat warmers and hand-stitched leather and other decorations that I'd seen in Sebastian Stone's cars.
Helen didn't say anything, at least, for which I was grateful. I stuck the key into the ignition and prayed that the engine wouldn't seize up on me again, as it had been doing over the last couple of weeks. I'd tried replacing the spark plugs, but it hadn't seemed to completely fix the issue.
Thankfully, the engine turned over on the second crank of the key. I gave Helen my best shrug, and she smiled back at me. She was probably so grateful to be getting a ride home without anyone spotting her, she didn't care about the unreliability of the car. I put the Chevy into drive, wincing again at the grinding of the gears before they gave in and shifted, and pulled out of the parking space at the rear of the underground garage.
"So, how did Richard rope you into helping him out with this charity function?" Helen asked, as we drove down the long drive that separated the Stone mansion from the rest of the world. "Bribe you with a case of champagne?"
I opened my mouth to answer – but then, like a lightbulb finally clicking on above my head, I realized why Helen was being so nice to me.
She thought that I was wealthy! It made sense, in a strange and twisted sort of way! The charity ball encouraged all the guests to dress in cheap and crappy clothes, and she assumed that I was another billionaire slumming it in Goodwill clothes with the rest of the high society!
I started to tell her the truth, that I was just a regular Joe, that I lived rent-free with Richard in the house in exchange for fighting a battle against dust, a battle that I was losing – but I couldn't get the words out.
Don't say it, a tempting little voice whispered inside my head. This woman is the most attractive chick you've ever seen, and she's your muse! You might actually have a shot with her if you keep on pretending that you're wealthy!
Isn't that awful? I felt immediately worse for even thinking it inside my head. It was totally inappropriate, and I didn't want to lie to Helen. But when I glanced over at her, pale and beautiful and ephemeral on the passenger seat, a creature from a totally different world than my own, I couldn't bring myself to prick the soap bubble of happiness that surrounded this night.
"Actually, Richard only met me through his brother, Teddy," I answered her question, trying to simultaneously carefully choose my words while keeping the truck driving somewhat straight on the road. It didn't help that the wheels weren't properly aligned, so it kept on listing off to the right, risking veering into the incoming traffic lane. "I kept on bumping into Teddy while he was chasing his wife, and ended up encouraging the two of them to work out their problems and stay together."
"So you're like Cupid, is that it?" I glanced over at Helen and saw her eyes sparkling, a Puckish little smile on her face.
It looked good when she smiled. I wanted to make her do it some more. "Yes, but please don't picture me as a chubby baby," I answered. "Totally ruins my street cred, and that diaper chafes like a mother."
She laughed out loud from that, a bright, clear sound like the ringing of silver bells. Good god, she really was like an angel. "Funny as well as handsome. You should be happy that Callie didn't choose you instead of Teddy!"
I raised my eyebrows. "You know Callie?" I didn't think that Teddy Stone's wife spent much time with high society; she seemed far too energetic to get dragged off to high tea or mimosas over brunch.
"Only met her once," Helen confessed. "But she seemed delightful."
"She is." I pulled up to an intersection. "Where do I go from here?"
Helen relayed the next set of driving instructions, and I pulled away once the light changed to green. I considered intentionally taking a couple of wrong turns, trying to delay the moment when I'd need to drop her off at home and then leave – alone – to go back to the Stone mansion. Would probably have to help with cleanup once I got back, just adding more insult to injury. Cleaning up, bending over, would be especially difficult with the throbbing hard-on in my pants.
Still, I couldn't be upset at how the night had gone. My brain burned with the story that suddenly demanded that I write it down, capture its beauty on paper. It was so simple, so elegant, and yet so layered and complex at the same time! How had I been looking right past it for so long without seeing it?
"Is anyone going to miss you at the Poverty Ball?" Helen asked, after a moment of silence.
"Probably," I confessed, thinking of Richard and Linda demanding that I earn my room and board by helping them clean up the chaos from having a hundred high-class guests ruining their mansion's interior. "But it's nothing that I can't handle tomorrow. I'm sure I can find a way to get Richard to forgive me." Maybe get around to some more vacuuming, I thought with a touch of guilt.
"You sound like a good friend," Helen said softly. I felt the soft touch of her fingers brush against my thigh, and nearly floored the Chevy through a stop sign. She needed to be careful with that loaded weapon of her touch! It sent a tingle rushing through me, one that centered on my crotch and briefly made it very hard to think.
A good friend probably wouldn't take off from a party where he was supposed to be working, so that he could lie to a guest about being rich with the wild pipe dream of getting to kiss her again, I thought privately. Still, best to not say anything out loud. Keep up the air of mysteriousness.
"I don't know if I told you before, but you look amazing." The words came out in a rush, blurted without thought. If I'd had a free hand, I would have smacked myself in the face for how I delivered that ham-fisted line. Helen's hand on my thigh was making it very hard to think!
But what did that touch mean? Was it just her way of thanking me for being willing to duck out of a party where she thought I was a guest, so that she could get a free ride home? Or did it mean something more? I remembered the way she kissed me on the balcony, so hungry and vibrant and alive, before she pulled away. Had that been real, or did she already consider it to be a mistake?
She didn't say anything, and I couldn't quite make out the expression on her face as we drove past irregular streetlights. Was she wincing, already thinking of how she'd let me down easily, tell me that there wasn't going to be anything between us? Her fingers drew back from my thigh, back to her own lap.
"Right here," she said softly.
"What?" I j
erked back to the present, away from mentally flogging myself over screwing things up with this muse.
"The turn for my house. It's right..." Helen turned in her seat. "Well, we just passed it."
"Ah. Shit. Hold on for a sec." I braked, spun the wheel. The Chevy's tires crunched as it rolled over gravel and grass off the edge of the road, but it pulled off the U turn. "Hah! Can't do that in a Lamborghini!"
Now that Helen had pointed out the turn, I pulled into what I'd first thought was a street... and then kept driving. At first, I thought that I was heading into an entire residential division – but as we climbed a hill to a massive mansion, I realized that this was all for just one house.
This was where Helen lived? Trying to keep my jaw from dropping open, I mentally added a couple of zeroes onto her net worth. This place had to be worth eight figures just on its own, even if the interior as a total wreck. It looked bigger even than the Stone mansion, which until how had been the biggest mansion I'd ever seen.
"You can park over there... or anywhere, really," Helen said softly, jarring me out of my amazement. "I don't have anyone else coming over."
Was... was that an invitation? Hope, wild and unbidden, once again sprang up in my chest. I brought the Chevy to a rumbling halt outside the front door, turned it off. I quickly hopped out and rushed around to open the passenger door for Helen. She'd probably see it as chivalrous, and I wouldn't need to explain that the handle sometimes got stuck, that it was a problem I kept meaning to fix when I got around to it.
Helen climbed out, accepting my offer of a helping hand. Her fingers felt warm and soft against my palm. She took a couple steps towards the front door, not letting go of me.
"Would you..." she began, but then stopped. She took a deep breath, visibly pulling herself together, before starting again. "Would you like to come inside for a drink?"
I couldn't hold back the beaming smile that bloomed across my own features. "I'd love to," I answered, following her towards the huge, intimidating front door of the massive mansion.
Chapter Nine
HELEN
*
Inside my house, Tanner kept on pausing to look around, and I caught him struggling to keep his mouth shut. He looked suitably impressed with the interior – actually, I wondered if he was just putting on a show for me.
"This place is amazing!" he said at length, furthering my suspicions.
"Thank you," I answered politely, although the place had definitely seen better days. Even though it had been my home for years, I had to acknowledge the dust gathering on the furniture and the gilt picture frames, the cobwebs in the upper corners of the hallways, the little bits of dust and dirt that jumped up from the carpets when I scuffed my feet on them. My live-in butler, Julius, did his best, but he also served as my cook and just about every other staff position, and I knew that he was getting older. He couldn't be expected to have the time and energy to keep the whole mansion clean.
Julius never said a word of complaint to me, but now, walking through the dirty hallways of my home, I felt a pang of guilt. I'd dismissed the other servants, the maids and the chef's assistant, even though I had more than enough money to pay them. I just couldn't bear the idea of all of them looking at me with pity, the poor widow whose husband was taken from her far too soon.
I led Tanner through the house to the main library, where I knew that the bar would still be well stocked. Originally, Marcone planned on having bars scattered throughout the house – "You never know when a man needs a good, stiff drink!" he joked to me. He never got to build most of those bars, but Julius still faithfully kept the alcohol in the library's wet bar, although some of it might be expired by this point. Did alcohol ever really expire?
I realized that I was just sort of mentally babbling to myself. Maybe I also needed a drink, something to settle my nerves. I stepped behind the counter of the bar, looked around at the lines of bottles, and felt even more hopelessly lost than before.
"Need a hand?" Tanner moved around the bar, joining me behind it. He smiled at me, and a couple of the butterflies in my stomach slightly slowed their frantic flapping.
I gestured at the lines of bottles. "I don't usually make drinks," I said. To be honest, all I really drank were gin and tonics, and I trusted Julius to make those for me.
"Well, I know a little bit about blending booze." Tanner moved past me, running his eyes over the lines of bottles. He let out a low whistle. "Although this is an impressive liquor collection! A lot better than some of the bottom shelf stuff I used to work with at my earlier jobs."
"Earlier jobs?" I asked, not knowing anything about the quality of the liquor. Marcone bought it all, not me.
He nodded, reaching for one bottle made of smoked green glass. "Yeah, I did a stint as a bartender at a dive bar for a while. Most of the regulars didn't care how the booze tasted as long as the glass was filled up to the lip and it was poured strong, but I still wanted to experiment and learn different recipes." He laughed with a touch of ruefulness. "Hell, that ended up getting me fired, when the owner got tired of my requests to buy more mixers and garnishes."
I wondered briefly why Tanner might have put himself through such lowly sounding employment – but the answer came to me before I could ask the question aloud. It had to be for his writing career. After all, one couldn't write about the experiences of real Americans without putting himself in their shoes, right? Couldn't write about those strong emotions unless he'd lived them in his own life, so to speak. I couldn't imagine having the strength he did, the willingness to put aside a fortune and devote himself to such cheap and basal labor, but Tanner clearly possessed it.
"Let's see," he said now, grabbing two glasses from beneath the counter and standing them up on the bar. "What do you like to drink? Any particular flavors?"
"Surprise me," I said, for lack of a real answer. I leaned on the bar, watching how easily and smoothly Tanner handled the bottles. He picked up one long-necked bottle and, with a single little twist of his fingers, spun it around in the air before neatly snagging it out of empty space! A laugh burst out of me, spontaneously, and he grinned at me.
"You don't know how many bottles I broke before I mastered that," he said, his words self-deprecating – but his smile looked genuine, glad that he'd made me happy. That little fire inside of me reappeared, burning away some of my nervousness as it climbed a little higher in my chest.
He wanted to impress me. That was something, wasn't it?
Tanner upended two bottles over the two tall glasses, and then switched them, putting an equal amount from each bottle into each glass. He spun on one heel, putting the bottles back and grabbing another. He lifted it to his lips, took a little sip to taste it. It apparently met his expectations, as he grinned and added a healthy splash to each glass.
"And now, let's see..." he mused, bending down to peer under the bar's counter. "Ah, here we go!" He emerged with a large bottle of seltzer water. He twisted off the cap and used the bubbly, clear liquid to top off each glass, filling it up to the brim. He grabbed two straws from under the bar's counter and plopped them into each glass with a flourish, agitating them slightly to mix the ingredients.
I reached out and accepted the glass he pushed towards me. "What is it?" I asked.
"I call it a Dancing Queen," he replied, grinning. "Used to make them for some of the bar regulars. Go on, try it."
With another little flutter of nervousness inside my stomach, I took a little sip through the straw – and then, surprised but smiling, a bigger sip. "It's really good!" I exclaimed, looking down at the drink. It looked nearly clear, with just the slightest hint of green color – but it was all but bursting with flavor! It tasted like fruit, both sweet and tart, with a lingering little tingle that left a chill on my lips and throat.
Tanner's smile was even better than the taste of the drink. "I'm glad you like it," he said, taking a gulp from his own glass, foregoing the straw to instead lift the glass itself to his lips. "Mmm. Even better whe
n it's not made with bottom-shelf ingredients."
I took another long pull, loving the little tingle that followed each sip down. "How do you get it to tingle like that?"
"What, you want to know my deepest secret?" Tanner put on a shocked expression, one so exaggerated that I had to laugh at him. He quickly dropped it, returning to his usual grin. "Tell you what. You come over here to this side and ask me again, and I'll think about giving you an answer."
I took one last sip of the drink, feeling the bubbles dancing in my empty stomach as that cooling tingle swam down my throat, before setting it down on the bar counter. I sidled around to Tanner's side. The drink encouraged me to put a little swing in my hips as I stepped around, and I saw him immediately notice, his gaze sharpening a little! I stopped next to him, just close enough for him to reach me if he wanted.
"How do you get it to tingle?" I asked, a little softer, looking up at him.
Instead of answering, Tanner reached out and drew me up against him, his fingers light on the bones of my hips but still adding kindling to that fire inside of me. He leaned in and kissed me. This kiss was slower, and I felt the drink's tingle transfer from his lips over to mine, from his tongue to mine as I opened my mouth to receive him.
"Crème de menthe," he whispered to me when the kiss ended.
I blinked, unable to think of anything except how the drink's flavors tasted even better when they came from his tongue. "What?"
He smiled, even as the fingers on one hand wandered up to where the back of my dress dipped, burning as they pressed against my bare skin. "There's a little crème de menthe – mint liqueur – in the drink. You don't taste it at first, but the mint leaves a cooling sort of sensation in your mouth and throat afterwards."
For Love of Passion (Stone Brothers Book 4) Page 6
