“Rhona,” he breathed, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. “I was going to ask…but you deserve better. Would you possibly grant me a second…second date? If you say yes, I give you my word that it will be, if not spectacular, then certainly…special.”
The way he tripped tentatively over the request, stumbling over his own confidence into uncertainty, made me smile. He sounded like my own internal monologue, and it endeared him to me—it made me want him more, right then and there.
“A second second date…”
Will you show up this time? I left the question unspoken, but he saw it in my eyes and winced, almost imperceptibly. Not wanting to punish him, or myself, with a refusal, I agreed.
“When?”
“Friday,” he said, beaming in his relief. “Eight o’clock. Can I pick you up?”
“Of course,” I agreed, delighted at the prospect of starting our second date in a more traditionally romantic way. Besides, that way, if he didn’t show up I wouldn’t be stuck outside freezing my butt off for two hours. “I’ll give you my address.”
With practicalities out of the way, he walked me to my car, draping one arm around my waist to rest his hand on my hip as though it had always been there. The warmth of his touch made that infernal pressure begin to build between my thighs once again, making me sound ditzy and breathless as I bid him goodnight.
His sexy grin sent me home on a wave of crushing need, a need which had me panting by the time I made it back to my apartment. I would never get to sleep in this condition. Stripping the second my door locked behind me, I made for the shower, my naked skin tingling, each nerve screaming to be touched.
The shower, hot and inviting, spurted to life in a powerful stream. As I stepped into it, I let the water caress every inch of my wanton body, loosening the tension in my shoulders, compounding the pressure in my belly. My imagination transformed the trickling tease into Blake’s touch, fingers, lips and tongue trailing over my skin.
Desperate for release, I turned my hands onto myself, caressing my breasts until the peaks hardened, igniting like firecrackers with every lapping, dripping, shower kiss.
Gasping, trembling, I let my palms slide flat against my ribs, down over my stomach, gently into the hot, aching folds at my center. As the hard, sensitive nub pulsed against my fingers, I called up an image of Blake’s sexy, rakish grin, imagining him looking up at me from between my thighs.
Gasps morphed into moans then screams as the furious intensity of my overwhelming passion transformed me into a carnal beast, furiously whipping myself over the edge into a quivering, pulsing ecstasy.
Momentarily sated but so very far from satisfied, I took my limp and trembling body to bed.
Chapter 8
Rhona
One Week Later
“Don’t do it, Rhona,” Nina warned.
“I have to,” I insisted for the fourteenth time. “I need to fill in the blanks.”
“Then ask him tonight, on your date,” Nina said, her tone indicating that her patience was wearing thin.
“I can’t go into this date unarmed,” I argued. “I have to know more about him!”
“Like what?” Nina asked, exasperated. “You know he’s hot, intelligent, considerate, and has enough money to spend a good chunk on a dating app and still pay the dinner tab without blinking an eye. What more do you even need to know?”
“I don’t know, what if he’s a serial killer? A womanizer? What if he’s the one creep in the world who’s been using Matchmakr to stalk his prey? What if I go on that date tonight and he takes me to his cabin in the woods filled with pictures of girls who look too much like me to be comfortable, and then he straps me to a—”
“Good God, enough already! I would like to maintain some sort of appetite for lunch, if you don’t mind. Fine. If you’re going to be that obsessive about it, fine. Google him.”
“Yes!”
Not that I needed her permission, I told myself firmly. I totally would have done it anyway. At least I think I would have, but there’s a good chance I would have just kept badgering her until she broke. I made a mental note to exercise my own initiative at least once a day…starting Saturday.
“Do you even know his last name?” Nina asked, betraying her curiosity as she wheeled her desk chair around the partition to peek over my shoulder.
“The photographer called him Mr. Lexington,” I told her, unwilling to admit that I had spent the last week thinking that I quite liked how the name “Rhona Lexington” sounded.
I typed the name in, crossed my fingers, and waited for the computer to catch up to my racing heart. When the results loaded, my jaw dropped.
“Nina,” I whispered. “Nina, Nina, Nina!”
“What, what, what?!”
“Blake…is a billionaire.”
“What?!”
I pointed at the screen. The first result, at the top of the page, showed a picture of Blake flashing his sexy smile at the camera. Beneath it, the headline knocked the wind out of me.
Blake Lexington, CEO of TechLine Inc. Estimated worth 4.2 billion. Recipient of Forbes’s fastest-growing tech start-up award in 2016. TechLine Inc. is the parent company of…
I stopped reading, less interested in the specifics of his company than I was in the man himself.
“He didn’t tell you?” Nina asked in disbelief.
“He told me he started his own business, but he didn’t tell me this! You should have heard him, Nina. ‘I made enough to expand and take care of myself,’ he says. ‘It’s harder to work up the corporate ladder than start your own business,’ he says.” I shook my head, unable to believe what I was seeing. “What am I going to do?”
“Keep the date, obviously,” Nina said, suddenly more invested in my love life.
“Oh, God, the date! I can’t date a billionaire, Nina, look at me!”
“What’s wrong with the way you look?”
“I, I’m not…posh, I’m not a model, I’m just…me! He’s gorgeous and rich—super rich, super gorgeous… I can’t do this, I can’t. I’m going to cancel.”
“The hell you are,” Nina said forcefully, taking my hands and spinning me around to face her. “Look at me, Rhona. You didn’t know he was rich last week, right?”
“Right! And I was sassy and got in his face about standing me up last time, and…”
“And he loved it,” Nina interrupted. “You might not have known he was rich, but he sure did. Do you think he would have asked for a second date if he thought he was out of your league?”
“He was probably just surprised at the coincidence,” I said, twisting my hands nervously in hers. “He probably won’t even come tonight; he’s had a whole week to think it over. Jeez, Nina, he makes my whole year in a day!”
“Yeah, so you’ll never have to worry about him getting insecure about being the breadwinner,” she said slyly.
“I don’t think he’s ever been insecure about anything in his whole charmed life,” I said miserably.
“Don’t tell me that you’ve already forgotten what happened the first time around?”
“He ghosted me on our second date.”
“Mm-hmm, because…?”
“Because he was intimidated by the fresh jar of peanut butter.”
“Now extrapolate,” she prompted.
“He didn’t want to be the first one to stick a knife in the jar.”
“Because…?”
“Because he knew that I would be terrible because I’d had no practice?”
“No,” she said firmly. “Because he was insecure about his abilities to make your first time memorable…in a good way.”
I paused, frowning as I considered. “I never thought about it like that before.”
“Did you think all these guys were turning you down because they thought it would be a bad lay?” she asked, arching a perfectly manicured brow.
“Well, yeah. That, or they were afraid that I’d get one taste and go nuts.”
“Oh
, no, honey,” she said with a sympathetic little laugh. “No, no, they were intimidated because they were afraid that they would hurt you, or that they wouldn’t be skilled enough to graduate you properly.
“Trust me, honey, guys don’t have the same kinds of standards for what constitutes a good lay. They’re happy as long as they get off…and remember, these are the same people who make love to sock puppets and silicone dolls.”
I laughed, mildly shocked at the image she evoked.
“I very much doubt that Blake has done either of those things,” I said.
“Hey, he might be all grown up now, but he was a teenager once,” she said with a grin. “If you think teenage boys are above anything, you’re wrong.”
“Oh, great,” I groaned. “Now, just because you said that, I’m going to have a son at some point in the future, and as soon as he turns thirteen I’ll spend every waking moment haunted by that description.”
“Better than being surprised when you walk in on him while he’s giving it to Mr. Snuffles,” Nina said with a wicked smirk.
I slapped her playfully with a folder, then turned back to the computer with an exasperated huff. Blake grinned back at me from the screen.
“At least I know I’ll be better than a sock puppet,” I said, sticking the bits of my confidence back together with verbal twine and chewing gum. “Assuming, of course, that he actually shows up.”
“You’re going to be great, and he will show up,” Nina said decisively. “Because if he doesn’t, San Bravado is going to be missing its youngest billionaire.”
“Down girl,” I laughed, rolling my eyes. “You can’t kill my date.”
“Who said anything about killing? I would just torture him with feather tickles until he explained himself to my satisfaction.”
“You’re diabolical.”
“Shut up, baby, I know it.” She grinned and winked at me, making me giggle at her ridiculousness.
I knew Nina was just trying to get me to relax before my date, and for a while it worked. By the time I had been at home for a couple of hours, however, all of that initial tension was back. I couldn’t seem to focus on the Blake I somewhat knew; instead, I was obsessing about the fact that a billionaire was supposed to pick me up at my mid-grade-at-best apartment and take me out on a special date of some sort.
“He’s not going to show up,” I told myself at six forty-five as I was retouching my lipstick for the forty-eighth time.
“Don’t be silly, he’ll be here. He wouldn’t ghost me twice, it would be bad for his conscience,” I argued back as I tested two different shoes out in the mirror.
“He’s a billionaire, he can afford a blow to his conscience,” I disagreed again as I decided on the white pumps. “There’s no way he’s going to come, I’m low-rent south-side, he’s…a freaking mogul.”
I sighed, frustrated to distraction at the incessant back-and-forth going on between my ears, and checked the time. Seven forty-five. I had been arguing with myself for exactly an hour, and I had gotten nowhere.
“So obviously there’s nothing to do now but wait,” I told myself firmly.
Fifteen minutes stretched on like an eternity in front of me. Growling at myself in frustration, I paced my apartment like a caged animal. I was out of arguments, out of assurances, out of my mind.
At 7:59, the doorbell rang and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I paused, not wanting to give my anxiety away, but only for a second. To hell with it, I was excited to see him and I couldn’t see a single valid reason to hide that.
“Blake!” I greeted him, trying to obscure my surprise behind a veil of delight. It didn’t work.
“We did have a date tonight, didn’t we?” he asked, sounding puzzled.
“Of course we did, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” I hated how giddy I sounded, but he seemed to enjoy it. He grinned at me, offering his elbow.
“Are you ready?”
Honey, I’ve been ready for six whole years.
“Just let me grab my purse,” I told him. “Where are we headed?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said with a sly little sideways look.
“Am I dressed appropriately for the surprise?” I asked, suddenly quadruple-guessing my outfit. What if he took me to one of those swanky, upscale places that only billionaires and politicians knew about? I chewed my lip, painfully aware of how much I was neither wealthy nor a politician.
“You’re perfect,” he said with a soothing sort of earnestness.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I quipped, trying to break the tension I felt. I never thought I would actually be walking down my dingy apartment hallway on the arm of a wealthy man, yet here I was, parading Mr. Prada through my paisley-decked building. A nervous little chuckle betrayed my unease as we reached the elevator.
“It is safe, isn’t it?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye, misreading my nerves.
“It’s as safe as any hundred-year-old, gravity-defying death-cube,” I said with a shrug.
“Well I’m in a death-defying sort of mood,” he said with that sexy, confident grin. My knees were already like jelly, and the date had barely started. I had a flash daydream of myself plastered all over the cover of a tabloid: Mystery Woman Bangs Billionaire Babe!
I wondered how he had come so far in such a short time. To me, the last six years had whizzed by at the speed of light career-wise. I couldn’t imagine growing any faster than I had, at least not successfully. And if Blake was anything, he was successful.
“So tell me more about this business of yours,” I invited as I slid into the passenger seat of his surprisingly modest car.
“Ah, it’s just a bunch of tech nonsense,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Programs and apps and things; just numbers and codes is all.”
“Do you make your people use those Hollywood hacker computers with the green lettering on the black background?” I asked playfully.
“Only when I want to pretend I’m an action hero,” he chuckled. “But I find newer technology to be more helpful, which I’m sure my programmers appreciate.”
“I’m sure they do,” I agreed. I paused, giving him the air space to tell me what I already knew about him, but he merely smiled at me benignly.
“You look great, by the way,” he said, allowing the conversation about his work to fizzle out.
“Thank you, so do you,” I replied vaguely. Why hadn’t he said anything? If he was really interested in getting with me, shouldn’t he be playing the billionaire card? I wasn’t certain, as I had never in my life attempted to seduce a woman, but it certainly seemed like a sure-fire way to get attention.
“Something on your mind?” he asked.
“Well… Yes,” I admitted, out of ideas for the subtle approach. “I happened to…er…become aware of a particular fact about you, and I’m wondering why you haven’t mentioned it yet.”
“Oh?” he said, sounding almost defensively casual. “What fact is that?”
“Blake,” I sighed, exasperated. “You’re a billionaire!”
“Oh, that,” he laughed, visibly relaxing. “Yeah, I’m not real sure how that happened. I mean, the old adage says it’s all about hard work and dedication, but I don’t buy it. I think I just got lucky.”
“That’s a whole lot of lucky.”
Blake continued to impress and surprise me. He could have easily used that to his advantage, but he hadn’t. Maybe it really wasn’t all that important to him; he didn’t seem hyped about it, but mentioning it didn’t seem to make him uncomfortable either, so I didn’t think that he had any guilt wrapped up in his money. Eventually I concluded that he really was just incredibly humble, and I took a delicious moment to bask in that fact as I watched the city lights flicker past the window.
He turned off the freeway into a dark patch on the outskirts of the city and steered the car up a winding road which snaked up a dark little hill. I suddenly realized where we were, and I turned to him excitedly, clasping my hands.
“Surprise,” he chuckled softly. “I wanted to surprise you at the gate, but there’s only the one road up to the observatory.”
“I am completely surprised and totally thrilled,” I assured him. “Oh, this was a wonderful idea, Blake, absolutely perfect.”
He grinned, blushing in the dark.
If Blake hadn’t been driving, I would have thrown my arms around him and kissed him right there. To think that he was so pleased with my reaction. He, who had been so successful, still earnestly wanted my approval. Mine! I was giddy with the knowledge, and floated on stardust as we made our way through the San Bravado Observatory.
It hadn’t changed much on the surface, but there were more things to look at, more information about obscure astronomical observations, new space rocks, new theories which had been stripped and simplified for mass consumption plastered on posters on the wall. The one thing that had not been updated was the photo booth.
For old time’s sake, we slid inside, giggling and giddy as we had been the first time around.
“I still have mine from last time,” he confessed as the camera flashed. “It’ll be fun to see how much we’ve changed.”
I chewed my lip and didn’t answer.
“It’s all right if you ripped yours into little pieces and lit it on fire,” he said casually, disguising the underlying hurt in his tone. “I deserved it.”
“Oh, I didn’t do that,” I told him quickly. “I just maybe put it in a book for safe keeping, and then possibly donated that book to a second-hand book store.”
He laughed, which confused me. Seeing my expression made him laugh harder. “I’m just picturing the face of the person who buys a book and finds our faces in it. Was it at least a romance novel?”
“No,” I admitted ruefully. “It was a seventh-grade science textbook from 2003.”
“Oh no,” he groaned, covering his face. “That poor kid!”
I laughed along with him, and the first strip of pictures was nothing but hilarity. It made me happy, and we fed the machine more money to do it all over again. I was having the time of my life, and I never wanted it to end.
Take My V-Card - A Billionaire Second Chance Romance Page 7
