by Nikki Wild
His hand was hot against the small of my back as he led me back to the table. Mom was waiting and looked up from her phone with a smile.
“You’re back!” she said. “I was beginning to think you both left me here.”
“Sorry about that,” Bear said, pulling back my chair like a perfect gentleman. “We were talking, but I think we made some progress. Didn’t we, Chloe?”
“Yes,” I replied, swallowing hard, trying desperately to hide what had just happened. My face flushed and covered in small beads of sweat as I closed my thighs together tightly.
“I’ll go to New York with you, Mom.”
“What! You will? That’s wonderful,” Mom’s eyes lit up with joy.”
“It’ll be okay, I think,” I said quietly, embarrassment running through me like lightning as bear caught me with his gaze. “I have to go… I’m meeting some friends later.”
“Oh,” she replied. “Okay, well, call me tomorrow.” She leaned up and gave me a light touch on the shoulder. “Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me.”
“I understand,” I said. I nodded at Bear silently, my body shivering with pleasure as he flashed a nonchalant smile. I grabbed my sweater and my purse and turned and walked away, my legs quivering with every step.
“What did you do to convince her?” I heard Mom ask Bear as I walked away.
“I offered her a job,” he replied lightly.
His words would linger in my ears all night, but his touch buzzed against my skin for days.
Two
Sometimes, you see the fork. Sometimes, you don’t.
Sometimes, your life takes a turn and you don’t really have a choice.
Every now and then, changes come hurling at you and you don’t even see them coming.
And then, there they are—unavoidable, in your face, ugly, messy—demanding you acknowledge them.
Or, maybe they aren’t so harsh at first. But that’s how they get you, you know?
They’re sly and charming, pulling you in with a smile and maybe a promise of something sweet and then, before you know it, there you are—falling to your knees to do whatever it takes to get another taste of paradise.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I haven’t fallen to my knees just yet, but we’ll get there, don’t worry.
What I’m trying to tell you is that I didn’t see it coming at first. I didn’t see any of it coming. How could I? I was naive, really.
Sure, I’m a grown-ass woman, but even at twenty-six there are days when I still feel eighteen.
To say that I had led a sheltered and bland existence before that day at the restaurant with Bear would be the understatement of the year.
I’d managed to graduate college without much in the way of experience… I’d had one boyfriend throughout college—the infamous Harlan Lewis, as my friends called him. Our relationship was full of drama. A lot of drama.
He was charming and cocky, at first. He drew me out of my shell by showering me with attention and affection. I’d never had a boyfriend that was so doting before, but he had a few shortcomings. Sex was all about him, and it was over in an instant. I had no time to be excited, much less satisfied.
In the beginning, I told myself that sex didn’t matter. Things would get better.
But they didn’t. They only got worse.
After a year of dating, his attention turned to suffocating possessiveness. Then he accused me of cheating on him.
One night, he slapped me after I came home late from happy hour with my friends.
That’s all it took.
I mean, I should have left a lot sooner, I know, but I wasn’t about to hang around and be someone’s punching bag.
I got over him quicker than it takes for a good Oregon shower to run through town. Six months later, he still texts me trying to get back together.
As if I’d sink so low ever again.
I wanted a lot more from a partner than Harlan could ever provide.
I was ready for all the breathless orgasms I was supposed to be having at my age.
I’d certainly read all about them. In fact, I’d spent hours upon hours haunting the romance section at Powell’s bookstore, walking out with bags full of deliciously trashy novels, hoping nobody on the Max peeked in my bags on the way home.
I couldn’t wait to see what it felt like for my breasts to heave or my stomach to flutter with desire as my lover gazed at me through hooded lids.
I wanted all of that stuff. I’d never even come close to feeling like that with Harlan. I was starting to think I’d never feel it…
I mean, I didn’t see those things in my near future—but I was ready and waiting, just in case.
There were a few things in the way, of course.
My shyness, for one. I wasn’t a flirt, not like my friend Marie. She didn’t hold back, not for a second. When she saw someone she was interested in, she went at them with both guns blazing.
Me? I just turned and ran the other way. The few times I’d gone out on dates in college (outside of what Marie and I now called my ‘Harlan period’) had ended in excruciating awkwardness. When the date was over I’d lay there for hours, staring up at the cracked ceiling of my apartment, wondering—is this it? Is this really all there is?
Sex wasn’t fun. It wasn’t exciting. There were no hooded lids, no heaving breasts anywhere to be found. I would have given anything to even feel a little quiver in my stomach, but nope—no flutters, no butterflies.
I guess you could say I gave up after I broke up with Harlan. Trying to find someone else seemed like so much work. I stopped thinking it would ever happen and I turned myself off to the possibility of ever meeting someone who made my toes curl.
I had my bad boy book boyfriends and that was enough.
I dove into my semester at school, learning everything I could about fashion design and focused all my energy on creating my own line of dresses. School and work became my life.
That’s why I was blindsided today. Sure, maybe I’d put those little red panties on because I had some misguided little fantasy in my head, but I never expected a man like Bear to make that fantasy real… I never expected him to make me feel like that.
There he was—bigger than life, utterly intimidating, his demanding presence so grand and hulking that I was left breathless just by staring up at him. I mean, I felt a quiver in my stomach as soon as he’d closed that door behind us—and that had to mean something, right?
I just didn’t know what.
I didn’t know that this was my fork.
Bear Dalton. Chairman and CEO of Dalton Enterprises, the premier development firm in America, my Mother’s billionaire boss. He was the man who made my toes curl, my breasts heave, and my pussy sing.
How could I have ever said no to that?
Three
Relentless throbbing pain shot through my brain as the phone next to my head buzzed. I rolled over and looked at the clock, a loud groan escaping from my mouth. It wasn’t even seven yet. I didn’t need to look at my cell to see who was calling, I knew it was my Mother.
‘Early bird catches the worm, Chloe,’—I could still hear her high-pitched mantra singing in my head, even after all these years. She’d woken me up every morning as a child with that stupid saying and it was forever etched onto my brain.
There were times where I was certain I was adopted or switched at birth. Considering she’d raised me alone, you’d think that would have bonded us more, that maybe I’d have adopted some her characteristics over time, but we couldn’t have been more different or more distant.
Not only was she an early riser compared to me being content to sleep way past noon, but she was so fucking ambitious. She never stopped. She never took a day off. She never took her eye off of the proverbial prize.
I was more of a ‘be here now’ kind of girl. I stopped and smelled every rose in my path, savored every morsel of life that I could. I could sit for hours, letting the day float away and just people watch.
<
br /> Not my Mother. She was constantly moving, insisting time was money all along the way. It was exhausting. She was exhausting.
And the fact that she was attempting to wake me up way before seven in the morning on a fucking Saturday was exhausting. I threw the phone across my bedroom and shoved a pillow over my head.
I’d call her later. After I’d had time to think.
I’d been so blown away by my experience with Bear last night that I’d come straight home, cancelled my plans with my friends, and sat on my couch getting up close and personal to a cheap red wine. I did my best to make some sense out of what had happened.
It didn’t work.
I was still just as confused as I had been when I’d left. I was also very sore—in the most absolutely delicious way.
My body was still on fire with Bear’s touch and now that I was awake again, thanks to my Mother, I couldn’t ignore the fact that all I wanted was to feel him inside of me again.
“So much for sleeping,” I groaned, throwing the covers off my naked body. I’d fallen asleep with my hands tucked between my legs, desperately trying to quench the fire that Bear had ignited within my body, and now there they were again—furiously rubbing at my clit, hoping to find some magical illusive release that would give me a break from thinking about him, yearning for him, if only for a few minutes.
Dizzy and fuzzy, my brain began replaying the scene from yesterday like a movie in my head. I could still hear his voice, see those deep blue eyes peering into mine as if he was pouring himself into my soul.
I barely knew this man but somehow he’d managed to crawl inside of me and take up residence, in a spot so deep and dark that I never even knew it was there. In the depths of my intoxication last night, I’d imagined Bear doing things to me that I’d never thought of before. I’d gone places I’d never taken myself, holding his hand the entire way.
What had happened to me?
Look, I wasn’t one of those naive girls that really believes some magical man is going to show up with some magical, rainbow-shooting cock that is going to transport to me to some everlasting heaven.
I know those books I read aren’t real. They’re fantasies. An escape from the ho-hum days of boring routines we’re all forced to play out just to survive and put food on the table.
As much as I wanted them to come true, I didn’t really expect Mr. Toe Curler and all my fantasies to actually materialize.
I was a reasonable girl. Hell, part of me didn’t really even believe that stuff existed at all, especially after enduring all of Harlan’s bullshit. I’d put up with so much shit from him and gotten nothing in return.
Not one heart-racing moment.
Not one breathless kiss.
Certainly not an orgasm.
It wouldn’t have taken much to make me happy right now. I would have been satisfied with a short-lived butterfly or two in my stomach from a first kiss.
That’s why I never, in a million, gazillion years, thought something like this would be real. That a man like Bear Dalton would be real. That a man like Bear Dalton would want a woman like me.
There were times when Harlan’s possessive nature might have been a turn on, but he did everything wrong. His every move was selfish.
With Bear, something was different.
Very different.
Bear made me quiver with every word he’d uttered. His demanding orders had only made my body shiver with exquisite anticipation. He left me wanting more in the most perfect way possible—because it had been so delectably wrong and so precisely satisfying. It was like someone handed him a map to my body. Once he’d started fucking me, it was obvious he knew exactly how to please me.
He’d found the spot.
That spot in my brain that had been begging for someone to turn it on. The spot that was desperate for the kind of attention a man like this could demand.
I don’t know how he found it.
I don’t know why it was him, of all people.
I don’t have any idea what the future holds, but I do know one thing—I wouldn’t turn this opportunity down if my life depended on it.
And maybe it does.
Maybe this will turn out to be the worst thing I’ve ever agreed to in my life. Maybe it’ll even be worse than Harlan. Maybe I’ll go running back to Portland with my tail between my legs.
But maybe I won’t. Maybe it’s exactly what I’ve needed all this time.
My hands worked faster and faster, my fingers sliding inside of my pussy faster as I imagined it was Bear’s throbbing cock inside of me. I felt the first waves of my orgasm crash as Bear’s face was front and center in my imagination. Those teasing, demanding eyes beckoned me as I submitted to his memory one more beautiful time.
“Hey Mom,” I finally answered one of her many phone calls two hours later. I’d dragged myself out of bed, showered and eaten and was finally feeling strong enough to face a conversation with my her.
“Chloe, please tell me you aren’t just waking up,” she said.
I rolled my eyes and ignored her question completely. She didn’t really want to know or care, she only wanted to judge me. I could do that just fine on my own.
“What’s up, Mom?” I asked.
“What job did Dalton offer you?” she asked, getting right to the point. She was never one for small talk or beating around the bush.
“Didn’t you ask him that?” I asked. I had no idea what job I would be doing. So far, the only work I’ve done wasn’t anything she wanted to hear about. If Bear had other ideas, he hadn’t communicated them to me.
“He was vague,” she said. I could almost see her eyebrows wrinkle disapprovingly through the phone.
“He was vague with me, too,” I said.
“How much is he paying you?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Mom,” I replied, growing frustrated with her inquisition.
“Then why would you accept?” she demanded.
I sighed, knowing there was no way in hell I could tell her the truth. Part of me hadn’t figured out the answer to that just yet. All I knew was that I’d never felt more alive than those few moments alone with Bear and I couldn’t help but chase that feeling.
“I love you, Mom,” I said. “I just want you to be happy.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “He really didn’t mention a salary? Benefits?”
“I’m sure it’ll be plenty of money. Besides, isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”
“But what about your career?” she asked. My breath caught in my throat for a second. Was she really thinking about what was good for me? “You just graduated with an art degree. That’s hardly going to transfer to working for a development company. I don’t know what Bear was thinking…”
I wondered the same thing. What was he thinking? Was he thinking about me? Was he at home somewhere thinking about me right now? Was he laughing about the naive woman he manipulated?
“Mom, I’ll figure it out. It doesn’t matter about the job. If I don’t like it, I’ll find something else once we get settled. I’m doing this for you. Besides, you’ve been trying to get me to take an entry position with the company for years.”
“Yes, but Bear Dalton can be a demanding boss,” she said in a tone of warning.
“Maybe that’s exactly what I need right now.”
“Hmmm,” she murmured. “I guess that’s always a possibility. Chloe, I really think you’ll find that New York has a lot of opportunities for a woman like you.”
“I know, Mom,” I replied. “I learned from the best.”
“That’s sweet,” she said. “Okay, I’ll get everything arranged. The movers will be coming to your place to pack up and ship all your things on Monday…”
She launched into business mode, her rare show of warmth replaced by her short, clipped barrage of instructions.
No wonder Bear wants her to be his CFO, I thought to myself.
Four
“I can’t believe you’re leaving me,” Marie said
, as she folded up my favorite sweater, her fuzzy curly red hair sprouting wildly from her head. She’d shown up a few minutes ago to help me pack. We’d ordered pizza and opened a bottle of wine and gotten to work. “And so quickly! I don’t even have time to throw you a party!”
“I know,” I replied. “I’m sorry that it’s all so sudden.”
“I just don’t understand how she convinced you,” she said. “I would have thought you’d have used this opportunity to put some distance between you and Matilda, once and for all.”
Marie and I had been friends since middle school. We’d met in a painting class at daVinci Arts Middle School—the school that parents sent their weird artsy kids to that they didn’t know what else to do with.
We were the most timid of our whole class when we’d first arrived, in awe of the bigger, cooler, artsy kids on the verge of high school, most of them already sporting dyed hair and Doc Martens. Marie blossomed, quickly adapting to the quirky unstructured atmosphere. She surrounding herself with all the cool kids.
I was like a fish out of water.
My classmates were performers—loud, wild, constantly moving and expressing themselves. I’d spent my childhood cutting out paper dolls and then making my own clothes for them, eventually moving to sewing real ones, but I’d spent most of my time tucked away in a corner all by myself.
Marie quickly recognized that I was struggling. She took me under her wing, made sure to include me in everything and dared anyone to say a cross word about me, even though my shyness was painful at times.
After a while, she managed to make me feel comfortable and in my own way, I guess I blossomed too. We’ve been inseparable ever since. We endured high school and college together and we always thought we’d still be standing next to each other after graduation.
I couldn’t blame her for being upset about this. I’d upended our entire plan.
