‘All right, I will,’ I snarl, and stride towards the door. A hand shoots out and catches my wrist. I am slammed into his body. His face is inches away from mine and his eyes are dangerously stormy. We glare at each other.
‘Are you trying to drive me crazy?’ he growls.
‘No.’
‘I don’t want any man near you, let alone to touch you. God, I can’t even bear it when I see them looking at you. You’re mine.’
‘He wasn’t trying to bed me.’
He closes his eyes in exasperation. ‘You don’t understand men. Whenever one approaches you he has already thought of bedding you.’
‘So you think the receptionist is pretty.’
‘Maybe.’
‘What?’ I gasp.
He laughs. ‘I was teasing you. There is no one else but you, Lana. You’ve got me so I can’t even think straight.’ His eyes move hungrily over my face. ‘I crave your mouth, your skin, your hair. Every morning I wake up ravenous for you, then I pace around during the day starving for you, and at night just after I’ve had you I start to crave your hot, sweet body all over again. Do you really believe any other woman could nourish me? The last thing on my mind is having sex with another woman.’
Inside I melt. ‘But you think she is pretty?’
‘Not really. Sorab is better looking.’
‘But you must have noticed her to mention it.’
He groans. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Lana, I just said the first thing that came into my mind.’
‘I just want you to know that I don’t appreciate being dragged through hotel lobbies like some recalcitrant child.’
He runs his knuckle tenderly down my cheek. ‘Then don’t flirt with strange men in silly hats.’
‘For the last time, I wasn’t flirting.’
In response he cups my buttocks.
‘I’ve really missed you today,’ I say a little breathlessly.
‘I bet you say that to all the boys,’ he says, as his mouth moves down to crush mine with such passion that my feet lift off the ground.
Six
I am given a choice between the four-starred Le Bernadin with its formal dress code and its prestigious three Michelin stars or a red sauce joint in Greenwich Village called Carbone, where, Blake tells me, excess is de rigueur and the diner must abandon any hope of moderation. After staying inside the hotel all day, of course, I choose Carbone. They book thirty days out, but, of course, Laura, who seems forever on the job, swings us a table.
‘Doesn’t that girl ever sleep?’ I ask.
‘I never thought to ask,’ Blake says, shrugging into his jacket.
I look at him standing there in a charcoal suit and a black, turtle neck sweater and—gorgeousness overload—my stomach does a little flip-flop.
Carbone is packed, lively and loud. Designed to look like the stage set of an old-fashioned Mafia movie, it carries that instinct for entertainment throughout. From the floor pattern to their choice of music—songs my grandmother used to listen to: Sinatra, the rat pack—and strutting, jovial waiters dressed in shiny Liberace style maroon tuxedos. They show us to our table in the VIP section: a rear room made to look like the kind of place where powerful Godfathers might have met—red and black tiled floors, brick walls and no windows.
Deeply fragrant shellfish reduction stock wafts up from the next table as we sit. My eyes are drawn to four flushed men tucking into their food. On other tables the waiters seem to be character actors who have perfected the art of the flashy, bossy restaurant captain. I watch them, with cocky smarminess, lean in conspiratorially, improvise dialog, and kiss the tips of their fingers, as they make wildly exaggerated promises of excellence to sell their wares and smile approvingly when their recommendations are taken.
We are handed menus that are at least three feet long.
Blake orders the veal parm and I am ruthlessly cajoled into having the lobster fra diavolo (the best you’ll taste in your lifetime). A four hundred dollar bottle of Barollo is opened with flourish, the cork sniffed appreciatively, and offered to Blake to try. He arches his eyebrow at me. My glass is filled. We clink glasses.
‘To us,’ Blake says.
‘To us,’ I echo. The wine is big and rich and very strong.
‘What was your day like then?’ I ask.
‘Grim. I spent all day with people I’d rather not ever see, and then I come back to the hotel and catch you flirting with some hick in a cowboy hat.’
‘I wasn’t flirting.’
His eyebrows shoot up. ‘So, what did you do, besides flirting with strange men?’
‘I wasn’t flirting!’ I say forcefully.
He smiles. ‘I love it when you are fierce.’
‘Well, I don’t like it when you are. You are downright scary.’
‘Then don’t piss me off.’
I sigh. ‘I went downstairs because I couldn’t read. I was worried about you.’
A waiter comes with appropriate cutlery for us.
‘I wouldn’t like you to get bored while I am at work. Is there anything you’d like to do with your time?’
‘I want to set up a charity to help children,’ I say, quite timidly.
‘Really? What sort of charity?’
I lean forward eagerly. ‘I haven’t decided yet, but I do know that I want to make a huge difference.’ I take a sip of wine. ‘If you were me, what would you do? What is the most significant thing I can do for the children of the world?’
‘If it is the children of the poorest countries, then I’d give them the most precious commodity in the world—water,’ he suggests quietly.
‘Water?’
‘Yes, clean fresh water from tap spigots. Currently two million children die every year from drinking unsafe water, but those figures are about to go through the roof.’
‘Why?’
‘There is a global water crisis and water is being privatized.’
That surprises me. I know so little. I had much to learn before I could set up my charity. We are still deep in discussion about the mechanics of starting a trust fund when the food arrives. I lean back and finally understand what Billie meant when she said the food portions in American restaurants are the size of garden sheds.
Blake’s veal is shock-and-awe huge and served with a fried shaft of bone, ovals of browned buffalo mozzarella, and bright red, fresh tomato sauce. Mine is a two and a half pound lobster that has been de-shelled, cooked with Calabrian chilies and Cognac, and piled back into the shell. It is polished and glistening and reeking of garlic butter. Bread like Mama used to make arrives.
Blake and I tuck into the delicious food. It is the best lobster I have tasted.
For dessert we order zabaglione. It is prepared using the yolks from goose eggs in a round-bottomed copper pot over a flame at the table. Afterwards, I have homemade limoncello and Blake knocks back a fig grappa. By the time we leave the premises I am feeling decidedly tipsy.
‘Can’t wait to get you into bed,’ I mumble into his neck.
He looks down at me indulgently and chuckles. ‘I’m so glad you’re such a greedy little thing.’
We get back to the hotel and fall into each other’s arms.
‘You are my dream,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘You have made me who I am.’ Neither of us mentions the father he dispatched into the next world for me, or the funeral that must be attended tomorrow, but it is there, silently watching, its long shadow falling over our entwined bodies.
Stay if you must, but I will never pretend I am not glad a predator like you is gone from this world. And that because you are gone, my son is safe.
That night I wake up to sudden movement beside me. I sit up and in the light from the moon I can make out that Blake is caught in a nightmare and thrashing about in distress.
‘I killed him!’ he yells.
I shake him awake urgently. His bleary eyes focus on my face, and for a micro-second he looks at me with fear and horror, and then his brain gets into gear, and he recognizes
me. With a look of relief he clasps me to his body with such force that my lungs can’t expand to take the next breath.
‘Hey.’
He loosens his hold. ‘Oh, Lana, Lana, Lana,’ he sighs.
‘Were you dreaming about your father?’
‘No.’
A cold hand comes to clutch my heart. No. I close my eyes with anguish. I cannot not love him. But oh God! Oh God! Has he killed someone else? Who is this man that I love?
‘Who then?’ I ask fearfully.
‘I don’t know him. He is covered in blood.’
My body sags with relief. It was just a nightmare. How incredibly frightened I had been as I formed those two words, ‘Who then’. Tears of relief start running down my face. He feels them against his skin and pulls me away from his body.
He touches them with wonder. ‘Why?’
I don’t tell him the truth. Because for a moment I thought I was in love with a monster.
‘Because I love you,’ I say. But that, too, is the truth. I loved him even in that corrosive, soul-destroying moment when I thought he was a monster.
Seven
It is Brian who gives me the exact time the funeral will be shown on TV. I tune the TV to the appropriate channel and settle myself in front of the large flat-screen to wait. The film clip is remarkable for two reasons: its brevity and the fact that it is filmed in church. A suitably sober woman’s voice announces that the funeral of an industry leader was held that afternoon.
The camera rests for a moment on the widow and I see Blake’s mother properly for the first time. In those few seconds it is obvious to me that Blake is her favorite son. Wearing a matt black coat she stands very close to him and seems almost to lean on him. He appears very tall, broad, and unapproachable. Almost I don’t recognize that stern, imposing man!
A little farther away Marcus stands beside his immaculate and totally expressionless wife. They are flanked by their two children. I look for Quinn and I think I recognize him. The family resemblance is strong. He is the one standing a little to the left of Blake. Blake seems very protective of him. Then there is a quick shot of the casket and the news item is over and the Barringtons slip seamlessly into their manufactured obscurity. The entire news clip is another carefully crafted PR exercise from a notoriously secretive family.
I switch off the TV and time seems to stop as I wait for him to return.
I try to read, but cannot arouse any interest in the words before me. I put on some music and try to relax in the bath. But I am too wound up and after a few minutes I get out and dress in a blue blouse and black skirt. I hear him at the door and run out to greet him.
He takes off his long dark coat and stands in his funereal garments. His face is grim. I want to run to him and bury my face in his neck, but he seems unreachable. I stare at him without comprehension. He bewilders me, infuriates, makes me feel weak and vulnerable, and yet he is my hero and the strength that carries me through the day.
‘How was it?’ I ask instead.
‘As expected.’ His lips curl into an expression I have not seen before.
‘Everything went well, then?’
He nods. ‘Let’s get drunk together,’ he says.
I look into his eyes. He looks furious about something. ‘OK.’
He goes to the phone and orders up a bottle of Scotch.
They must have asked which brand.
‘Just bring your best,’ he says impatiently, and puts the phone back on the hook. I go to hold him and he puts his hand out as if to ward me off. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he says, and I freeze.
He runs his hand through his hair. ‘I just need a shower. Meet me in the bedroom,’ he says, and turning away goes to the bathroom.
The bottle arrives with two glasses and a bucket of ice while he is in the shower. I tip the man, and taking everything into the bedroom, pour two generous measures into the glasses. I can hear the sound of the shower. At any other time I would have gone into the shower and joined him, but I can see that today he is different. He seems like forbidden territory. I shudder. Something has happened that has affected him deeply. I pace the bedroom. Look at myself in the mirror. I look OK.
He comes out and leans in the doorway in a towel loosely hitched around his lean hips. Wow! Divine. I love this man with wet hair. The blood starts to pound in my eardrums. When will the half-naked sight of him cease to affect me this way?
‘You are still dressed,’ he notes with raised eyebrows.
I say nothing—simply, slowly, start undressing. First the blouse goes over my head, then the skirt ends up at my feet, the bra gets flung away, and finally the knickers go the way of everything else. The balcony windows are open and the slight breeze scatters goose pimples on my skin. I look at him as he approaches me. God! He’s so fucking delectable. I watch the muscles rippling as he loses the towel. He stops inches away and twirls my hair in his fingers. The nearness of him makes me want to lick that pulse beating at the base of his throat. That is the only real conversation we have. That pulse that never lies to me. When it beats, I know he wants me, bad.
‘Want ice cubes in your drink?’ I ask, huskily.
He smiles and shakes his head. ‘The ice cubes are for you.’
I smile back. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ he drawls, and pulls me towards him until I feel his entire length and his hot, hard shaft presses into my abdomen. His mouth descends. My hands rise up and entwine around his neck and we kiss. We kiss. And we kiss. Both he and I know. This is the magic staircase by which he can climb back from whatever dark place he has been in.
He lifts me off the ground and lays me on the bed. I grab his thighs. He looks at me, surprised. I lift myself off the bed and take his beautiful cock in my mouth. He inhales sharply. I straighten my head so he can have a full view of my lips curled tightly around his thick meat. When I look up I meet his eyes. The intensity of his gaze hits me in the bones. I suck so hard my cheeks hollow in, and experience heady power when I see him surrender to pleasure, to me. I swirl my tongue around his shaft confidently.
‘Open your legs,’ he growls.
Obediently, I spread my legs and show him what he wants to see, but I do not stop sucking and pulling hard at his meat. He eyes my open sex avidly. His face contorts. His body buckles, and he spurts inside my mouth. Even when his eyes have turned languorous, I don’t take my mouth away. I hold the semi-hard cock in my mouth and I gaze up at him. He gathers himself, touches my face tenderly, and pulls out of my mouth.
Deliberately, I lick my lips.
He grins wickedly, and turns away. My eyes follow him as he prowls around, buck naked, over to the bottle of whiskey. Tipping it over the ice bucket he starts pouring it out. I rise up on my elbow.
‘What’re you doing?’
He looks at me over his raised arm. ‘Fixing myself a drink,’ he says, and continues wasting the whiskey until there is less than a quarter of the bottle left. He drops half a fistful of ice cubes into my glass and brings the bottle and the glass into the bed. He walks towards my body on his knees and holds out my glass. I take a sip—the alcohol is strong, but goes down smooth. I watch him swig straight from the bottle, his head thrown back, his throat strong and powerfully masculine, his skin glowing like polished bronze. What a sight he is. His manhood erect, his thighs rippling and powerful, his shoulders broad.
Always in moments like this he reminds of a Greek god.
He swings the bottle down to hip level, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and catches my eyes. His are hooded, dark and full of desire. There is something in him that is different. He looks into my eyes. I feel myself burn under his gaze. A fluttering in my belly. I am nervous. Why? But I am also turned on. Unbelievably excited by this new him.
‘Now what?’
He breaks eye contact and looks at the bottle. Very deliberately, he removes the metal ring broken off from the bottle cap and puts it on the bedside table.
He lies on his elbow beside me. The bottle t
ouches my cheek. It is cold. I turn and look into his eyes. What is in them thrills me.
‘Do you know that far, far more erotic than a cock inside you is to have an ordinary household object put into you? My excited, scandalized eyes swivel to the bottle and back to him. What I see in his eyes electrifies me.
‘Yeah?’
He smiles slowly. ‘Yeah.’
I nod and he swipes the pad of his thumb along my bottom lip. Suddenly he is on my mouth, rough, rough… The bottle goes away from my cheek. I part my thighs and gasp into his mouth when he inserts it into me. Fuck me! Cold and hard and erotic. Very, very erotic. I gape at him.
He lifts his head and watches me as he puts his hand under my buttocks and lifts me off the bed so I feel the liquid gurgling into me. I want to cover my mouth. ‘Oh!’
‘Yes, “Oh”,’ he murmurs, but his breathing is ragged, his eyes liquid and locked on mine. I am riveted by the fiercely masculine flare in his eyes. The light of ownership. He knows that there is nothing he cannot do to me.
When the bottle is empty he tosses it away.
‘What does it feel like?’
‘It’s sexy.’ My voice is a hoarse whisper.
He laughs wickedly. ‘All illicit trespasses are.’
Gloriously naked, he reaches for a handful of ice cubes. He runs them over the heated flesh of my sex and inserts them one by one into me, while I squirm helplessly. All of a sudden I feel shy and close my eyes.
‘Open your eyes,’ he orders.
I snap them open and he trains his stare on me.
‘This is my cunt,’ he states, his features harsh with lust.
I swallow and nod, my hands fisting the bed covering.
‘I love watching your face when you are like this: helpless, open, bare…mine.’
He possesses me with his eyes while he continues to stuff me full of ice cubes.
‘I want you everyway I can.’ Then he kneels between my legs and begins to drink from my pussy.
‘The process is a slow sensual assault. Lick, lick, suck, lick, lick, suck, suck as the cold liquid dribbles out of me. I arch my back.
‘Yes, right there… Yes.’
Besotted (The Billionaire Banker Series) Page 4
