by M. S. Parker
***
“This isn’t much to go on.” Kowalski had gone through everything I’d given him, studied his notes and then turned his attention to me.
We’d been speaking for an hour and he’d asked what felt like a thousand questions, each of which I’d answered the best I could. Now it came time for my questions.
“I know,” I said. “The question is, can you do it?”
He gave me a grin. It wasn’t smug, but it was confident. He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Mr. Snow, I’ve found much more based on much less. I can’t promise to find answers, but I can promise to do my best and if I can’t find your birth mother, I can pretty much guarantee that nobody can. I’m usually considered a last resort in cases like these.”
“Okay.” I gave him a slow nod. “How do we get you started?”
He named a fee that was surprisingly low.
“That’s the deposit. It’s non-refundable.”
He continued to watch me. No doubt he’d investigated the place, my name. Me. It’s what I would’ve done if I’d been him.
“Then there’s an hourly fee, including expenses. I’ll be sure to give you clear reports—”
I waved a hand, not needing to hear the details. “You do what you have to. I’ll get you my assistant’s information. She’ll go over the reports and check in with me. If you ever need to see me personally, you’ll go through her to set up an appointment.” I didn’t mention that I needed to tell her about him first.
“Very well.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a few papers. “There’s a contract you’ll have to sign. Legalities. You understand.”
“I do.” Then, because I wanted to take care of it before it became an issue, I added, “Please leave my adoptive family out of it unless you have no other choice. Especially my mother. She might have information, but try not to bring her into this unless there’s no other choice.”
“Of course.” The expression on his face said that he understood all too well why I was asking. He definitely had experience in this sort of thing.
***
I gave up working two hours later. I’d gotten basically nothing done and knew the rest of the day would be equally as unproductive. I had too much on my mind and too little ambition to fight through my lack of focus.
I called one of my drivers and had him bring the car around. I had Maxwell driving Aleena mostly now. Times like these, I missed him, but I preferred knowing that he was taking care of her.
Rather than going back to the penthouse, we headed towards the Hamptons. I managed to make a few more calls on the ride, hoping we’d get to the house before Aleena and Annette left.
As we pulled into the driveway, I saw that I’d timed it perfectly. Annette and Aleena were coming outside. When they caught sight of my car, both women smiled. While they were both beautiful, only one of them managed to make my heart trip sideways and the blood rush straight to my cock, leaving me hard and aching with just that one look.
“I was hoping I’d catch you.” I tried to keep my voice casual as I climbed out of the car.
I didn’t fool her. She frowned as she walked towards me. “Is everything okay?”
I nodded and reached out to slide my hand down her arm, my fingers lingering on her hand. Just the simple physical contact was enough to ease some of the tension in my chest.
“We’re wrapping things up,” Annette said, a knowing look on her face. She glanced down at her phone. “I hope you don’t need me to walk you through the plans, Dominic. I’ve got another client meeting me in an hour on the other side of Manhattan.”
“No, you’re fine. Aleena can bring me to speed.” I hoped I didn’t sound too eager for her to leave.
Based on the smile, Annette saw right through me, but she didn’t call me on it. Instead, she gave a general farewell and hurried to her car. In just a matter of minutes, Aleena and I were alone on the lawn.
“Were you planning anything after this?” I asked her.
“No.” She brushed an imaginary wrinkle out of my suit.
I brushed a stray lock of her hair back behind her ear, wondering if she felt the same compulsive need to touch me as I did her. “Then would you have lunch with me?”
“Sure. Where do you want to go?”
I gestured up to the house. “In there. I’m having it delivered.” I quickly added, “There are some things I want to tell you and I don’t want to do it in public.” I hoped she’d trust me enough not to be offended.
“Of course.” She threaded her fingers through mine and led the way back into the house.
***
She listened.
Without question, without comment, she listened.
And when I was done, she came around the table to me.
There were empty cartons of food on the table and I was surprised I’d managed to eat at all. I’d ordered Chinese because I knew she liked it and food preparation wasn’t the main thing on my mind at the moment.
As she walked towards me, I pushed my chair back from the table, turning it slightly so I could face her. She nudged my knee with hers and I obliged by spreading my legs so she could step between them. I reached up and grasped her hips, sitting up as I pulled her closer until I could actually wrap my arms around her, using the warmth of her body to center myself.
“I think you’re doing exactly what you need to do,” she said as she ran her fingers through my hair.
“Am I?” I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation of her fingers against my scalp. “That’s what I told myself for the longest time. But Mom, she’s…” I grimaced at the word. That could get confusing. “Jacqueline, I mean. This is going to hurt her. I don’t want that.”
“She raised you. It’s obvious she loves you.”
I could hear the tension in Aleena’s voice as she spoke about my adoptive mother.
She continued, “I don’t much care for her, but I can tell she loves you, even if she does have a shitty way of showing it. I’d be surprised if you did want to hurt her.”
“She’s been a bitch to you.”
“Plenty of people are unkind, Dominic.” She shook her head. “You don’t repay or fix that kind of deep, inbred wrong by repaying it with more of the same. Dark can’t drive out dark, as the saying goes.”
I slid a hand down her back and over her ass. I felt her stomach contract as she sucked in a breath. I kept moving down over her skirt until I hit the hem and then stroked back up her thigh, moving under the skirt this time to toy with the lace on her stockings. “Where in the world did you come from? People don’t think like you.”
“Sure they do.” She cupped my face in her hands, tipping my head back so that I was looking up at her. She bent her head and pressed her lips against mine in a quick kiss. “I knew plenty of people like me back in Iowa. And I’ve met plenty here in New York. You just need to know where to look.”
My hand tightened on her thigh. She was the most amazing woman I’d ever met and I wondered what I had done to deserve her.
“You’re so sad, Dominic.” She traced my mouth with her fingers. When she leaned down, I closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of her hair and the warmth of her skin. “Let me make you feel better.” She lightly bit the top of my ear. “Sir.”
I could barely keep my voice from betraying the way my heart pounded against my ribcage. “What did you have in mind?”
I sat passively as she slid to her knees and reached for my belt. Without a word, she loosened my belt, opened the button, and slid down the zipper. As I watched, she reached into my pants and wrapped her hand around my already-swollen cock. “You didn’t let me finish the other night.”
“What a selfish bastard.”
The last word was choked off as she took me into her mouth, her hand stroking the part she couldn’t get in. When she pulled back, my cock was glistening with saliva, thick and heavy with need. Her hand worked me up and down until skin slipped against skin and then she lowered her head again.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, no matter how much I wanted to close my eyes and just enjoy the sensation of that wet heat and the nearly unbearable suction of her mouth. When she took me all the way, my hands curled around the arms of the chair, fighting the urge to thrust. I knew I was technically still in control, but dammit all if she wasn’t close to taking it. Then she hummed and the vibrations shot straight through me.
Fuck.
I didn’t want to come in her mouth. I needed her. Needed to be inside her. Nothing between us. Skin against skin.
I reached down to give her hair a light tug. She raised her head and gave me a questioning look, the tip of my cock still in her mouth.
“Stand up and take off your underwear.” My voice was ragged.
She looked a bit disappointed, but she did as she was told.
I caught her hips. “Straddle me.”
The look she gave me was hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure what to do next. I tugged her closer, guiding her into place until the head of my cock brushed against her thighs. She reached beneath her to hold me steady and then began to sink down. My eyes locked with hers as she took me slowly, giving her body the time needed to adjust to the intrusion without preparation.
It was deeper this way and her weight drove me deeper than I’d been before. It was also impossibly intimate, which was why I never did it this way. She moved her hips tentatively, testing. Her face was only inches away and I could see that her lips were swollen slightly from what she’d been doing.
I had a million things inside me that I wanted to say to her in that moment, but I said none of them. Just guided her hips into slow, easy circles and stared into her eyes. She moaned low in her chest as the motion put the right kind of friction on her clit. I tugged her closer and took her mouth in a hungry, desperate kiss. She clung to me as I scraped my teeth along her bottom lip, as my tongue explored every inch that I was coming to know so well.
She moved harder and faster and I buried my face in her hair, not wanting her to see on my face what I couldn’t say.
She came with my name on her lips and as I followed, I silently spoke the secret I wasn’t yet ready to tell her.
I think I love you…
Chapter 7
Aleena
“Whoa…look at you!”
I looked down at myself and then up at Molly, confused. “What?”
Molly grinned and patted the seat next to her. “I’m just…you look so happy.”
“Oh.” Flushing, I slid onto the booth next to my friend and shrugged. “I guess. Well, yeah.” She leaned over and gave me a hug. I returned it, feeling a pang in my chest. I hadn’t seen her in almost a month and I only just realized how much I missed her. “How’ve you been?”
“Okay. School sucks. Work sucks. I want a better job, but I need to get through school for that to happen…and the wheel just goes round and round.” Molly shrugged, wrinkling her nose. Her dark eyes were dancing, telling me that things were actually fine. “How about you? How’s life with the billionaire?”
I smacked at her arm. “Life with Dominic is good.”
“Dominic.” Her grin widened. “So how is Dominic? I mean, really. Give me details. Is he hung? How big is he? How does—”
“Hello, ladies!” A bright-eyed, cheerful server appeared at their section of the counter. “Can I get you something to drink?”
Molly started to snicker. I jabbed her in the side and ordered a soft drink. Molly ordered tea and as soon as the server left, she broke into fits of laughter.
“Sometimes you act like a twelve-year-old boy,” I said, shaking my head. There was no malice in my words though. As embarrassed as I was by my friend’s direct questions, it was nice to have someone to talk to.
Molly just grinned at me. “Come on. Let’s figure out what we want to eat. We’ve got a couple of hours, right? I thought we could walk around and do some window shopping later.”
***
“Oh, hey, sorr—” Shit. I stared at the woman Molly and I had almost run over as we came out of the diner. “Penelope.”
I heard Molly make a noise next to me and hoped she wouldn’t do anything crazy.
Penelope stood with another woman, this one nearly a copy of Penelope herself, although I doubted she and Penelope were related. It was just that they seemed to have been cut from the same cloth. Hair expertly styled and colored. Eye makeup of a similar palette. Discreet pearl necklaces. Clothing choices were soft, pale pastels of course. The most tasteful colors only. Penelope wore pink while her friend wore a spring like shade of green. Even their shoes were similar. Beige pumps.
Penelope gave me a look of pure disdain and then took a step to the side as if to go around me. That’s when she caught sight of Molly in her torn-up blue jeans and oversize t-shirt. Penelope’s lips pursed and that made a decision for me.
I stuck out my hand to the other woman and gave her a polite smile. “Hi. I’m an…acquaintance of Penelope’s. We met through Dominic. I’m Aleena.”
The other woman glanced at Penelope as if for permission while I kept my hand out and the smile on my face.
“Dominic?” the woman finally said.
“Yes. He and I are dating.”
The woman blinked and then looked over at Penelope. I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that the wheels were turning.
“Ignore her, Olivia,” Penelope said, her mouth twisting into an unattractive smile. “You know Dominic wouldn’t be caught dead dating somebody like that.”
I felt Molly tense beside me, but I just laughed. “Oh? I guess that’s why you keep getting seen at all the hot events with him.” I hooked an arm through Molly’s and said, “Come on, Moll. Let’s get back to shopping. I need an outfit for a party Dominic and I are attending.”
***
“Are we going to a party?”
Dominic was waiting for me when I got back, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Ummm….” Crap. How did he hear about it? How did he hear about it already? Striving for a bright smile, I said, “I don’t know. Are we?”
He came around the counter, a glass of scotch in his hand. “According to Penelope, we are. She called my mother and then my mother called me, pissed off and wanting to know why I’m attending a party with my secretary.” He looked down at his scotch, amused. “Then she wanted to know where the party was and why she hadn’t been invited.”
I pressed my lips together. I was glad he seemed more entertained than angry, but I wasn’t sure how he would take the whole truth.
He lifted his scotch to his lips and sipped, eying me expectantly.
I sighed. Spinning away, I moved over the couch and flopped down on it. “Molly and I ran into Penelope at the mall, almost literally, and she was being a bitch. I didn’t plan on saying it. It sort of popped out.”
He settled down beside me and put his arm around my shoulders. As he pulled me close, he turned his face towards me, pressing it into my hair. I loved when he did that. It somehow seemed more intimate than other things we’d done. I snuggled into him, breathing deep the spicy scent of his aftershave, mingled with the smell of him.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” he suggested, his fingers making soothing back and forth motions on my upper arm.
So I did. All in all, it took less than five minutes, starting from the time we left the old, fifties-style diner to when we bumped into Penelope. I finished with a shrug. “I didn’t plan to say anything to her,” I repeated. “But she has this way of bringing out the worst in me.”
“It’s a gift she has,” he told me, wryly.
“It’s not a pleasant one.”
Chuckling, Dominic agreed with me. Then, he said, “I think we should have a party. A dinner party.” He slid his fingers under the neckline of my shirt, his touch hot against my skin. “A dinner party here. I’ll invite some of my friends. You invite yours. I’ll even invite my mother and Penelope.”
I frowned. “Is this a punishment?”
“No,” he said. “It’s just clever thinking. She’ll keep pushing until she knows we’ll push back. So we’ll give her a shove and she’ll wish she’d kept her mouth shut.” He bent his head and caught my lip, biting down lightly. “But if you’d like me to punish you…”
Yes, please. I shivered. “If you think you should, sir.”
***
I got a crash course in party planning that week. It was Tuesday and he decided he wanted to have the party on Friday. Thanks to having worked with Fawna on the masquerade ball back in February and working with Amber on the Devoted event, I’d already figured out that while Dominic might know that he wanted to make things happen, he wasn’t particularly good at the specifics. Hence why he needed an assistant.
If I could help put those events together, I could handle a small get together for a group of twelve. Well, fourteen, including Dominic and me. Invitations were easy. He gave me a list of people and I included Molly since she was my only friend. I was grateful to see Fawna’s name on the list as well. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable inviting her as one of my friends, but I considered her one. Knowing she and Molly would be there helped me relax a bit. Even though Penelope and Dominic’s mom would be present, I had people who’d support me.
The meal? That wasn’t so easy, but I begged and pleaded with Francisco and he agreed to come in and prepare. Actually, I didn’t need to do much pleading. Francisco was actually delighted to help. He’d confessed more than once that he didn’t think Dominic truly appreciated his culinary skills.
Appetizers, wine, dishes…my head was packed with a million little things that no one ever thought about when preparing dinner for one.
By the time Friday rolled around and I was standing in front of the mirror staring at my reflection, I was kind of wishing that Molly and I had opted to see a movie for our girl day instead of a meal and window-shopping. We could have avoided the encounter with Penelope, which meant no dinner party...and I wouldn’t have been wearing this.
