by Ana Vela
****
When Alexis woke up the next morning, the first thing she noticed was her headache. The pain mattered for less than a minute, as the memory of the night before hit her. She must have laid there for another five minutes simply focusing on the memory of the entire car ride right up to the very last touch. She finally got up, feeling nervous and excited for all that the day had in store. After such a wonderful evening the night before, she figured that some of that luck would follow her into today; so, she began writing her piece for the magazine as soon as she had made her coffee. An hour later, the sun was shining brightly upon her face as she very happily read her work. It was phenomenal, just like the night before had been.
And tomorrow night would be even more amazing, she thought with a sigh; that was right before the doubt begin creeping into her mind. What if he took all the women that he wanted out on an awesome date just before trying to seduce them? He was certainly attractive enough and rich enough where surely few, if any, would ever turn him down. Alexis wondered if she was wrong about that because she could hardly even imagine doing it herself.
Alexis got her things together and prepared to leave the hotel. She needed to find a new place tonight and send in her article to Jacob. As she made her way down to the front desk with her bags and her key, she felt annoyed at herself for not planning better. It probably would not be too far to find a new hotel or hostel, but it would have been better if she already had made a reservation somewhere.
“Checking out, Miss?” the young lady at the front desk asked her.
“Yes, unfortunately,” she sighed. “I won’t be able to stay in many places like this while I’m traveling.” As she spoke, the blonde behind the counter had taken her key and began printing the bill.
“Well, it looks like someone wanted you to stay for a few more nights,” she responded, reading the paper in front of her. “It’s good that you brought your bags down though. You’ll be in the master suite, it seems.” The woman stood calmly smiling and blinking as she waited for Alexis to respond.
“What? There must be a mistake,” she began. “My name is Alexis Black. The magazine, Modern Woman of Today, should have covered my first night, but that’s all. I’m checking out today.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the attendant smiled, never changing her stance or demeanor. “I can see that,” she pointed to her sheet. “But someone who would like to remain anonymous called and wanted to make sure that we put you in our nicest room for the next week. Right this way,” she said and began to walk back towards the elevator.
Alexis, in a stunned state, picked up all of her belonging and hurried to follow the attendant, full of questions. It couldn’t have been anyone from the magazine, or they would have left it under their tab and they certainly would not have put her in the nicest room. She did not think she had told anyone else where she was staying, except one.
“No,” she said to herself. It couldn’t be him. He was taking her on a date. A first date. Unless he was crazy, a thought which made her laugh, it could not be him. She decided to suspend suspicion until she could inspect the room.
“And here we are,” the attendant said as the walked to one of the two doors in the hallway the elevator opened to.
“At least I won’t have to worry about my neighbors being loud,” Alexis joked.
“Alright,” the blonde said matter-of-factly, ignoring Alexis’s joke. She unlocked the door. “Here we are. If you need anything, just call down to the desk.”
“Okay, thank you,” Alexis said, looking around the room in a stupor.
This was not just a room. It was three rooms. She could see a living area and a kitchenette from where she was standing at the door. As she explored, dropping her belongings slowly along the way, she discovered the large bedroom with mirrored walls, a huge bathroom with his and her sinks, and a surprisingly small closet compared to the rest of the place. Shaking her head at her dumb luck as she walked back to her things, something on the coffee table caught her eye that she had somehow missed in her surprise: a large display of white roses in a red vase.
She walked over to the flowers, shuffling through the possibilities one last time in her head, but knowing who the little black card would be from.
Now that I know where you will be staying,
I’ll pick you up tomorrow at 6pm.
Enjoy the room service.
RG
The feminist side of her perked up: the nerve of this man. She had only just met him and he was already controlling her life. She really should refuse all of this. She really shouldn’t take a luxurious bath in huge tub. Or use the free wireless that came with this room to catch up on her social life, make future travel plans, and send in her work. The more she listed reasons to herself that she shouldn’t stay, the more she felt like it would be rude not to. After all, he clearly just had so much money that he was willing to spend it on someone else on a whim – she might as well enjoy it.
At least, that’s what she would tell herself as she sipped the complementary champagne that came at the end of the beautiful dinner that had already been ordered for her.
****
Alexis rubbed her palms together nervously. She was trying to keep them dry for the next five minutes. That’s how long it would be until six. She had been getting ready since four-thirty, something that she had not done for a date since she was a freshman in college. She had a feeling this date would be a little nicer than the one to the local pizza place where the college one had been.
She had to admit, even though she had kept fixing every little thing about herself until she had let herself move from the mirror to the lobby: she looked sexy. It had been hard to find exactly the right mixture of the conservative innocence and prowling sex kitten, she thought. Not the she planned on sex; that was another story. She stood waiting on the steps of the hotel in her midnight blue cocktail dress that she had managed to find on sale today, because she could not bear the thought of wearing anything she had brought in her small suitcase from the States. She would go broke if she kept thinking this way – but how often do you get asked out by a multi-millionaire?
Just before six, a black car with tinted windows pulled up, and Richard Greene got out, smiling and dashing as usual in his dark gray suit.
“You should have waited inside for me,” he chastised playfully. He put his hand over his heart and stilled just before he reached her. “You look absolutely stunning.”
“Thank you,” she said, trying to feel the confidence that she thought should come with her outfit.
She accepted the kiss on the cheek from him and followed him to the car.
“I trust you like your new accommodations?” he said with a grin.
“That was really too generous of you, actually,” she answered seriously. “I can’t stay there for a whole week. That must cost a fortune, and you don’t even know me!”
“Firstly, I have a fortune. Secondly, I think the point of tonight is getting to know each other,” he said playfully. “Let’s leave that alone for now. What did you have in mind for tonight?”
“What?” she asked, taken off guard. “Oh, I guess I assumed you would have plans, but we can come up with something to do!”
He grinned at her discomfort. “I like you.”
She smiled down at her lap, unable to look at him while he was looking at her so intensely.
“Look at me,” he said. Her eyes met his tentatively. He placed his finger delicately under her chin. “I said, ‘I like you’.” As he nearly whispered these words, he leaned in to kiss her softly on her lips. He pulled away, leaving them with an intense electrical moment where it was all Alexis could do not to grab him. It was only a breath until he kissed her again, more forcefully this time, answering Alexis’s thirst.
For a few minutes, they entered into an uncontrollable desire for each other that encased them so they were completely cut off from the outside world. Alexis did not care that she was sitting in the back of a limo where the driver co
uld clearly see and hear them. She did not care that she had only interacted with this person for less than an hour in total so far, and she did not care how far they went in this moment. She had never felt this kind of jolt when kissing someone, such a magical surge.
He slowed down his kisses as they became aware that their vehicle had been stopped for a couple of minutes, although they had not been disturbed.
“I think we’re here,” he whispered, smiling up at her sweetly. “Logan drives to quickly. Should I have him go back around the block?”
She kissed him softly one last time, making him want more, but then stopped.
“Let’s stay. There’s plenty of time for this later,” she whispered coyly back.
She saw the intensity in his eyes soften. He kissed her hand and then they began checking their appearances, taking turns laughing and helping the other straighten up.
“I think we’re feeling like teenagers again tonight,” she said as he helped her out of the limo.
“It’s better that you didn’t meet me as a teenager, actually,” he said, winking playfully.
“Oh, is that right?” she feigned awe. “Would you not have treated me like a lady then?”
He laughed. “I think I just would have already treated you like one and left.” He squeezed her hand reassuringly.
She laughed, but was caught on a thought. So he must have been with a whole lot of girls; and he was formerly a womanizer. She assessed how she felt about this, and quickly decided it was not enough of a black mark to let it ruin the entire evening – people can change, after all.
As the waiter led them to their table, she kept imagining how nice it would be for Richard Greene to treat her like a lady. She could not keep her mind off the thought of his lips on her own. Hot and wet, with the perfect balance of tenderness and spice. She imagined his kisses traveling further down her neck and then stretched the memory to a fantasy by watching his mouth continue traveling down, hitting the high points along the way. Her body shivered as she felt a chill from her heated reverie.
“Are you cold?” Richard asked, ready to offer his jacket.
“No, no,” she hurried. “I just had a shiver. It was nothing.”
“A shiver?” he asked.
“You know,” she said, wiggling in response.
He laughed out loud at that. “Cute,” he said, flashing a winning smile.
After Richard had begun ordering for them, Alexis realized that they were in a beautifully designed Italian restaurant of some kind. She did not even know the name of where they were, she thought, embarrassed at her lack of observance.
“So,” she said, leaning in. “You think since you speak Italian, you get to order for me?” she asked, peering at him jokingly.
He laughed, amused. “Honestly, I just thought I could order better.” He recoiled quickly from her outburst, “Ha, no, in all seriousness, I have been here several times and it’s my favorite restaurant in London. I know the chef, Giovanni. He told me what to order on the phone earlier.”
She smiled, surprised. She thought it was sweet that he had taken so much time to plan all this out, but she didn’t want to say or think anything too presumptuous.
The night went on, and they continually inched closer and closer to each other in the booth in between every course and glass of wine. By the time dessert and champagne came, they had been talking and kissing equal amounts of time for the entire length of the two-hour affair.
Alexis did not know why it felt so natural to be with him. He was so far out of her element, that she expected to have nothing in common with him at all. As nervous as she was about what may happen later on that night and what he expected after this, she really wanted it to happen. She hadn’t been with anyone since Brandon some five months ago. She wanted him and she felt like that was totally okay. She was curious to find out what he really thought of her though, but it suddenly seemed fine if she found out in reverse order from the way her mother taught her.
****
“You’re beautiful,” he said, with his lips to her ear as he slowly moved his hand up her leg in the back of the limo.
She put her hand over his, moving with it and applying more pressure to show him that she wanted his touch.
“You don’t have to say that,” she said back, before realizing how it sounded. He stopped kissing her and pulled away. Her body ached.
“I know I don’t have to say anything,” he looked at her seriously, his deep blue eyes appearing a darker grey now. “But you are the most beautiful woman I have ever even been around. Just, the whole package. You astound me. You’re witty and funny and unbelievably gorgeous in a very sweet and sexy way.” He paused, watching her astonished face as she listened, slowly blushing more and more. “And it scares me and excites me that I barely know you at all.”
“Ohh,” she said, begging him with her hands and eyes to kiss her again and to never stop.
They kissed fervently the whole way back to his hotel, then walked as intertwined as possible up to his top floor suite at the much nicer, much larger hotel than hers. Her body was too focused to be very interested in her surroundings at the moment.
He carried her from his door to the bed, and she swooned even more at the thought of how easily his arms had lifted her. He gently laid her down, then slowly took of his jacket and folded it over a chair with his eyes trained on her the whole time. She lay there, hoping she looked as appealing as she wanted to. His eyes did not look displeased.
He leaned over her and kissed her softly before lifting her up, so that she was sitting, facing him on the bed. As he put his face to her neck, he felt the front of her dress with his hands on their way back to the zipper of her dress. He slid it off of her after slowly and sensually kissing every little part that he removed it from. He stood back. She was so thankful for beautiful matching undergarments as even more passion came into his features seeing her with her dress off.
In only high heels and her sexiest black bra and panties, she sat up and hugged his waist, feeling his hardness with her chest. He sighed at the pressure. She slowly began undoing his belt and he began taking off his shirt as they picked up speed now. The whole time they were barely breaking away from each other’s lips, needing to kiss.
They continued on like this, passionate yet taking the time to discover one another. There were no more words spoken until nearly an hour later when Alexis lay spent in Richard’s arms, sighing contentedly.
“Wow,” she said, looking up toward his smooth dimpled chin.
“Yeah,” he sighed, pulling her closer to him even though it was nearly impossible at this point.
As she looked up at him, slowly examining the freckles she could see and the shape of his ear, thinking about how perfect he seemed in every way, she could not help but wonder what he wanted from his. She still felt like this was probably just a more intimate fling for him, trying to fill some relationship void without ever actually being in one, and she supposed she could learn to be fine with that. They were traveling after all, so it would be easy to lose touch and never see one another again. At the same time, she could not help but feel a twinge of longing to know him better, to hold his hand while walking through the streets, to be the one he called after a long day. She knew she was getting ahead of herself and that these were the very thoughts men joked about women having that scare them away, but she could not help but feel like there could easily be something more for them. Every comment, every anecdote, and every smile was shared so easily that it had to count for something.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked her, as he stroked her hair.
“Nothing,” she said with a smile. “Isn’t that what all girls say when they know you don’t actually want to know what they are thinking?” That made him smile, and she was becoming very fond of his smile.
“Maybe, but I do want to know what you’re thinking,” he said with an ease that made it seem as though they had been talking in bed for years.
“I was thi
nking about your favorite things and about how I don’t know what any of them are in any category,” she began slowly, not making eye contact, but playing with his hand that held hers. “And, I was wondering if you would like for me to know you that well, or if you’re happy with me just knowing you this well.”
It was quiet for a moment until he took the hand she was tracing heart outlines on absentmindedly and turned her face towards him so that there lips were only a breath apart.
“Alexis,” she melted inside as he said her name, “all I know right now, is that I’m happy with you. And I want to be happy. Are you happy with me?”
Her hopes fell slightly, but she answered honestly, “Yes. Very.”
“Then you should know,” he started seriously, as she steeled herself to hear the terms of this relationship, “that my favorite color is green. Comes with the name. And my favorite food is anything delicious and Italian.” She laughed, nearly tearing up as he went on, “And my favorite person right now, in this very moment, is you.”
