Yes, Mr. Van Der Wells (Not Another Billionaire Romance)

by S. Ann Cole

  He tails us to the elevator, stopping outside while we walk in. And now, in the bright foyer light, I can see his true expression: Mildly panicked, like he’s about to lose something important. That, and concern and helpless worry.

  Our eyes lock. He’s trying to tell me something.

  Kiera’s slim, pink-polished finger presses the floor button.

  Noah takes a step forward and stops. The doors start to close.

  Sweet and artless, I curve up my lips and say, “Goodnight, Mr. Van Der Wells.”

  The doors slide close.

  Lotty = 1. Noah = 0.

  “He totally wants to do you, you know.”

  We’re both checking out Muscles’ amazing denim-covered ass. His back is turned to us, guarding our VIP deck table, T-shirt stretching to the seams across his back due to his folded arms.

  For the sake of Kiera’s rep, we rented one of the deck tables. Tables available only to the affluent populars.

  V, Kiera tells me, is now one of the top hotspots in UES. It’s where people come to be seen, to get on the radar. Where social-climbing women come to hook up with the wealthiest men. Where arrogant a-holes come to blow their cash for eyes to see. Where unassuming girls get their hearts broken, and fresh rich guys get their egos squashed. V, a fancy Bar & Grill, is the place right now, where anyone who’s anyone comes to lime.

  For now, at least. Next year, or even next month, it will be somewhere else. This is New York.

  “You mean I so totally want to do him,” I reply, taking a gulp of my martini. “Hmm, that’s one amazing ass. I just want to bite it.”

  I’m not drunk. I’m tipsy. Just on my martini. A hangover tomorrow morning is just not acceptable.

  When we first arrived, we shared a large dish of seasoned fries, and then we danced until our hair began sticking to our napes. At that, we decided nuh-huh, we we’re too grown for this sweaty-neck-back business. So we went to bathroom, touched-up and refreshed our faces, and then settled on checking out hot men.

  This bar is rife with them. And from our elevated deck seating, we have view of the majority of the bar: Rich, rowdy trust-fund dickheads, champagne poppers, volunteer to buy rounds for the whole bar, stunning women vying for said dickheads’ attention…

  Kiera turns her head to me. “I’m talking about your boss. Who are you talking about?”

  I meet her eyes. “My boss? I’m talking about my bodyguard.” I jerk my chin to indicate Muscles.

  With a groan, Kiera slams her face to the table. “No, no, no, Lotty. Why?”

  Confusion tugs my eyebrows together. “Why what?”

  “Your bodyguard,” she says, raising her head. “I like him. In a more-than-one-sex-session kind of way. Don’t tell me he’s off-limits, too?”

  “More-than-one-sex-session kind of way?” My eyes bug in disbelief. “No. Way.”

  “Yes, way,” she confirms. “And I haven’t wanted that with a guy since Q. Can I have him first? You know I’ll be over him after about four sex-sessions. Like, boy bye. ”

  She’s had her sights on Muscles all this time and said nothing? Huh.

  “Kiki, of course.” I bump her shoulder. “I didn’t know. Knock yourself out. He’s not talking to me anyways, so…I’m sure you’ll have better luck with him than me.”

  “He’s not talking to you? What? Why?”

  My shoulders rise and fall with a shrug. “I kissed him. He told me not to. I kissed him again. He stopped talking to me. I dunno. He’s intensely complicated. So…good luck.”

  Kiera brings her eyes back to Muscles, frowning, which means she’s contemplating. Re-thinking. Kiera doesn’t like work. She’s easy, so she likes easy. She has zero patience dealing with complicated men.

  I nudge her with my elbow. “Hey, he might take a little more effort than you’re used to putting out, but I bet the sex will be worth it.”

  She perks up at the word sex.

  Stifling a laugh, I stand. “I have a plan. Let’s go back on the dance floor and give him a show. By the time we’re done, he’ll be so hard, there’s no way he’ll tell you no.”

  Truth is, Kiera is more fitting for Muscles than I am. With her glowing mocha skin, she’s thick and voluptuous and walks with an attitude in that way big black studs like Muscles prefer. I’m surprised he’s even attracted to me at all, to be honest. Must be because I’ve got ass and tits like a Kardashian.

  We tap Muscles on the shoulder and let him know we’re going to dance, he acknowledges this with a mere jerk of his chin and moves in a position where he has full view of the dance floor.

  There, we put on a show, not just for Muscles, but for the entire bar.

  As Ciara’s Body Party begins playing, Kiera and I exchange a glance that says “just like old times” and then we move in on each other, amping things up. We’re all over each other, hips to hips, tits to tits. I dip low and slip my hands under the hem of her dress, and a few moves later she does the same. Whistles ring out, cheers and hollers and hoots. But we’re lost in the wave of the music, sliding and gyrating against each other as one song bleeds into the next. We’re sweating before long, something we both hate, but we don’t stop, enjoying ourselves way too much.

  Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl begins playing. and, on cue, a sexy British accent demands, “Kiss now, luvs! Kiss!”

  The voice sounds familiar, but I’m too caught up to care. My eyes lower to Kiera’s lips, and she raises an amused brow at me.

  The familiar British voice demands again that we kiss. And soon others begin hooting in agreement.

  Kiera gives me a “Are we gonna do this or what?” grin, and I shrug, move in.

  My fingers slide into her hair as hers slide through mine, and we give each other one last “we’re so freaking wild” grin before sealing the deal, our lips teasing, our tongues meeting, our kiss deepening as the cheers erupt around us.

  We part, giggling like the prick-teases we are, and find a pair of lust-filled gray eyes right there between our faces, perfect lips curved in a lascivious smile. “Bloody hell, my rocker is so hard right now, I could shag a hole through the wall.”

  Finally placing the voice, Kiera and I both look to the side. There, just inches away from us, is Qwesie James.

  Behind him, farther back, arms folded across a strong chest, a highly annoyed, highly unimpressed expression on a devastatingly beautiful face, is Noah.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ mumbles Reckless Lotty, covering her mouth to lock in her giggle.

  Rational Lotty just sighs something weary and exhausted.

  “Jesus, Q,” Kiera snaps in irritation. “Can’t a single night go by without you showing up at V?”

  Q cocks his head. “Obviously, you know I’m here because you are here twice as much. I’m here a lot because my future wife works here, yeah? What’s your excuse?”

  Kiera rolls her eyes and grabs my wrist. “Come on, Lotty.”

  She hasn’t spotted Noah, clearly, so I let her pull me off, because seriously, what’s Noah doing here? We left him watching freaking TVD on his couch, so how on earth did he end up here?

  “His future wife?” I ask Kiera. “Who’s his future wife?”

  “The hell do I know?” We part through the crowd, making it back to our table. “Q’s a slutbag. Everyone’s his ‘sweetheart’ and his ‘bae’ and his ‘luv’ and his ‘wench’ and his ‘hart.’ Who listens to anything he spews out?”

  I’m laughing at Kiera’s irritation as we’re near Muscles. He moves aside to let us pass.

  Kiera bats her eyelashes up at him, while I peer around her to check below his belt for a bulge. Yep, there’s a semi-hard-on.

  “Did you enjoy the show, strong man?” Kiera drawls sultrily.

  Muscles blinks down at Kiera, and then his eyes flick to me. He stares and stares, until I shift uncomfortably, not understanding what that stare means.

  Stepping around Kiera, I slip past them both and onto the deck, sliding into my seat.

  Kiera hangs back, chatting up
Muscles, touching his arms, squeezing his biceps. Eavesdropping is pointless with the music and bar chatter, so I bring my gaze out to the floor, searching for Noah.

  I find him. In the same place I left him. With the same crossed-arm stance. Qwesie is talking to him with a delighted grin, but Noah’s gaze is trained across the room, directly at me.

  My legs cross and then uncross. My throat dips with a swallow. My lips itch with the urge to lick them, lure him. But I’m too intimidated by him right now.

  He’s looking at me like…like…I don’t what like. Just…like.

  Turns out I don’t need to lure him over, because a half a second later he’s moving, eyes fixed on me as his broad shoulders bully their way through the crowd.

  I press back in my seat, unnerved. There’s a pause in his determined stride when he gets up to Muscles and Kiera. He looks at Kiera, then arches a brow at Muscles, but Muscles remains expressionless. Noah, however, looks exceptionally pleased with the idea of Kiera and Muscles hooking up.

  Maybe thinking I’d never hook up with Muscles after Kiera? He has no idea how our wild friendship works.

  He strides out onto the deck, moves around the table, and eases down right beside me, soaking up all the air with his heat. Under the penetration of that gaze, that no-holds-bar, I-want-to-screw-you-into-next-summer gaze, I suddenly feel my age, like a scared little nineteen-year-old, terrified of being eaten by the big bad wolf.

  ‘Oh Lort,’ Reckless Lotty gasps in her best Madea voice. ‘Mama wants to be devoured by the big bad wolf.’

  I reach for my martini glass, only to find nothing but a lone olive sitting at the bottom.

  I need a drink. I need a drink bad. My hand shoots out to the side of the table and hits the button there that will cause the light above our deck entrance to blink red, alerting the cocktail waitresses that their services are needed.

  All this time, Noah hasn’t stopped staring.

  “Just going out for a drink, huh?” He stretches his hand along the back of the seat, and his heat envelops me now, stripping me of sobriety; leaving me stupid drunk on him.

  For the sake of doing something, anything, I pluck up the olive from the martini glass and pop it in my mouth.

  “Is that not what I’m doing?” I ask around the olive.

  “From my point of view, no. You just gave every man in this room a hard-on.”

  “Sweet,” I say, swallowing the olive after chewing it to death. “I’m going to be in over two dozen men’s fantasies tonight. I’m officially a fantasy porn star.”

  “No.” He leans in, dangerously close, grasping my chin with two fingers. “No. Not sweet, Lotty. Bad. Bad for you. Bad for me.”

  I’m suddenly aware of my breasts rising and falling, aware of every inhale and every exhale, aware of every beat of my heart, aware of my tingling nipples, aware of the tightening in my belly.

  “Do it,” I breathe.

  “No.”

  “Do it. Please. Kiss me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Noah—”

  “Oh, for love of a traitor’s head on a pike,” came that obnoxious British accent, “will you two stop torturing each other and get bonking already?”

  Noah’s hand drops from my chin, as he leans out of my space.

  Snapping out of the trance he’s put me into, I shift my gaze, finding Kiera and Qwesie watching us with matching smirks.

  Noah clears his throat, and as Kiera starts to say something inappropriate, an unbelievably gorgeous waitress with hair so blonde it’s almost white with pigtailed braids like Pocahontas dangling down to her waist, walks onto the deck.

  She should really be looking like a preschooler with those braids, but instead, they put her on this unique level of beautiful. Her eyes are the epitome of the term “doe eyes,” her lips that perfect shade of pink that all women wish for. I swear she looks as though she just stepped out of a fairytale book.

  “Where did you come from?” Qwesie stares at her as if she’s a dream. “That bloke with the fat neck told me you weren’t working tonight.”

  Popping her gum, Fairytale Beauty pulls out her pad from her apron and taps it with her pen. “That’s ‘cause I wasn’t going to. I danced at Baladorre tonight. But I made the mistake of trying out Coffee Patron and now I’m too pumped up on energy to let it go to waste. So, yeah, here I am.” She gives him a testy look, and there’s definitely something between them. “Got a problem with that, Q?”

  Qwesie watches her like she’s lost her mind. “Problem? If I’d known you were going to be here, I wouldn’t have left the engagement ring at home, yeah?” He moves in on her. “And I can think of a million ways to make use of that energy. Say ‘yes,’ Snow.”

  As if this is a usual thing with Qwesie, she rolls her eyes and, pointedly ignoring him, sweeps her gaze over the rest of us. “Light above your deck is blinking. Who pressed it, and how may I help?”

  I raise my hand like I’m in class, and it’s just the awkward gesture needed to break through the thick waves of sexual tension bouncing around this small deck. “Me. A dirty martini, please.”

  Fairytale Beauty starts to pen this down, but Noah speaks up, “She doesn’t need another martini, Snow. Get her a club soda.”

  My head jerks to Noah. “Uh, excuse me?”

  Like he’d done minutes earlier, he leans in, his hand across the back of the seat shifts, and I shiver when the tips of his warm fingers skim my shoulder. He’s giving me soft eyes now, voice smooth and coaxing when he says, “No more alcohol, Lotty. Mom’s coming over tomorrow, and I’d love for you to be up with her. I don’t want you hungover with no appetite for whatever she prepares.” His fingers move deliberately back and forth over my bare skin. “Sundays are hers now, remember? We agreed.”

  ‘Oh, he’s good,’ Reckless Lotty says, stunned.

  ‘Really good,’ Rational Lotty agrees, equally stunned.

  See, if he’d been all bossy and demanding and jerk-ass alpha, I’d flip my shit on this deck, and I have a suspicious feeling he knows that. So he chose the soft, tender route, and throwing his mother in there is sheer genius.

  I stare at him. He stares back. I narrow my eyes at him. His remain soft. Dammit, but he’s good.

  Letting out a sigh, I nod my confirmation at Fairytale Beauty.

  Noah = 1. Lotty = 0.

  Fairytale Beauty glances between me and Noah, then dips her head to hide a smile as she crosses out the first order.

  Kiera puts in her order, and Fairytale Beauty turns to Qwesie, pen to pad, waiting. Qwesie looks down at her, and it’s not with the overtly licentious leer he gives every other girl. It’s with something else, something real, like he’s really into this girl. “You already know what I want, Snow. You. In a wedding dress. With my wee one in your tumtum.”

  “And saying things like ‘tumtum’ is precisely the reason that’s never gonna happen.” She sashays off.

  “Swear it on my life,” Qwesie says staring after her, “I’m going to marry that girl. Whatever I have to do, it’s gonna happen.”

  “Aw,” Kiera fake pouts and throws herself down into one of the seats. “You break my heart, Q. I thought we had something special.”

  Qwesie throws down beside her, leans over, resting his cheek on her copious breasts. “Luv, you know you always have your special inch on my rocker. No girl has ever ridden me as wild as you. You’re a mean little wench in bed.”

  Kiera presses his head closer and pats it.

  Shaking his head at his friend, Noah leans in to inform me, “That was Snow. She’s V’s best cocktail waitress. She’s been working here about two years now. Q’s been stalking her for about that same length of time. Snow won’t give him the time of day. And that messes with his head. Big time.”

  “Seriously?” My eyes blow wide. “There’s actually a woman in the world immune to that face and accent? And, well, wealth?”

  Noah chuckles. “Yep. Her name is Snow.”

  “What are you doing here, Noa
h?” I lean more into him, only so his hand would shift further down my shoulder, skim the swell of my breast. “Stalking me like Q stalks Snow?”

  His gaze falls, rakes over my bare legs, the short hem of my dress, my cleavage. He swallows. “I couldn’t think straight after you left. Dressed like this. You’re so damn sexy it’s hard not to…it’s all just hard. I kept thinking some skinny white boy unworthy of you is gonna be taking this dress off you at the end of the night. Touching you. Putting his mouth on you. I couldn’t take it. So…here I am.”

  I take a moment to process his words. Be still my heart. Be still.

  “Do you want to be the one taking my dress off at the end of the night, Noah?”

  Once more, he drinks me in, and I’m preening, almost panting for his yes. A yes that doesn’t come. Denying us yet again, he shakes his head. “No. But I don’t want anyone else to be doing it either.”

  To stop myself from screaming at him, I bite the inside of my cheeks. “Why?”

  “Because…” His fingertips brush the top of my breast, and then retreat, “…you’re mine.”

  I pull away from him, feeling indignant, owned, seduced, denied and freaking played. Just as I’m about to say something I know I would’ve regretted in the morning, Snow returns with our drinks.

  Mouth parched, I take my club soda and down it in one go.

  Kiera laughs at me, and Qwesie smirks at Noah. But I’m not in a laughing nor smirking mood. I’m in no mood. All my moods are sulking and glaring at the infuriating man beside me.

  “You know what guys,” I mutter, pushing to my feet. “I think I’m gonna call it a night.”

  Kiera and Qwesie both groan in protest, telling me how the fun is just about to begin. For them maybe, but not for me. Kiera will be parting thighs for either Muscles or Qwesie tonight, and I will be parting thighs for no one, because Mr. Tease-Her Van Der Wells just came and shit on any such intentions, at the same time refusing to be a volunteer.

  I make to move past Noah, but he doesn’t shift to give me way.

  He looks up at me under those stupid dark lashes. “Are you okay?”