What he said was nuts. It was crazy. It was every bad idea I’d ever had, wrapped up in a bow, and put under the crazy tree. But it’d been years since someone had wanted me. And even though I knew it was a reckless decision, I couldn’t admit I wasn’t swayed by his words. I couldn’t tell my heart to stop pounding in my chest, couldn’t make my pulse stop skipping around, and couldn’t keep the corners of my mouth from tipping up and even more, I didn’t want to.
I could see the unease come over Preston when I didn’t answer right away, and he began fidgeting with his glass again.
“I can’t give you everything he gave you, can’t provide the same kind of life he could, but I’m hoping you’re looking for something different.”
My hand instinctively found his again, trying to ease him slightly.
“Preston,” I whispered, suddenly acutely aware we were having a supremely private conversation at a table in the middle of a swanky restaurant. “Look at me.” His eyes found mine and I saw the worry in them. His apparent vulnerability tugged at my heart. “I’d be lying if I said I knew exactly what I wanted, or where I think I’ll be in a month, or a year. But I do know that being with you has been the highlight of the last few years. Even in the wreckage that is my life,” I couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped me, “you’ve been able to give me something I’ve been lacking for so long, something I’ve always wanted.”
“You haven’t given me an answer.”
“I don’t have an answer.”
“That’s not good enough.”
I shrugged. “It’s the best I’ve got for now. I can’t give you something I don’t have, and I don’t have any assurances. All I know with complete certainty is, I’m here with you right now and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Preston didn’t move for a few moments and I felt my breath stall, afraid I’d lost him by not agreeing to his proposition. The panic that swelled within me was palpable, and I instantly wanted to take my words back, grab them right from the air and shove them back in my mouth. In fact, I opened my mouth to take it all back when he finally moved, only to grab his tumbler and throw back the rest of his scotch. He winced as he swallowed but then his gaze found me yet again.
“Lena.” His voice was harsh and removed. Usually when he said my name, something inside me liquefied. This voice made everything tense up. “I want you to walk to the ladies room, remove your panties, keep them in the palm of your hand, and then come back out here to me.”
His words shocked me, but they also excited me. The memory of being panty-less in the storage closet at the gala flashed through my mind and I remembered how exhilarating it felt. I saw this man, someone who I couldn’t say I knew, really, but also did know. I knew how he worked, how he operated, and how, most of the time, he was transparent. He was always up front with me, always telling me exactly what he wanted and so, even though I couldn’t agree to some exclusive relationship where we lived together and pretended as if everything were normal and not the fuck-up my life actually was, I could give him this.
Without a word, I scooted my chair back, stood slowly, and headed toward the back of the restaurant. I found the restroom with little difficulty and thanked the bathroom gods for a single room with a lock on the door. I didn’t want to have to worry about another woman seeing me peel my underwear down my legs from the stall next to me.
With the black lace bundled up between my fingers, I rested both hands against the sink and looked at myself in the mirror, trying to figure out if I recognized the woman staring back at me. It was the same face I’d always seen, but she had a glint in her eye that was new. A glow to her skin she’d never had before. She was excited about something; and far be it from me to deny myself the one person who could make me come alive again.
I took a deep breath and closed my fingers around my panties, trying to be sure no piece of errant lace peeked out and shouted to the entire restaurant what I was up to. I also pulled down on my dress, which now seemed quite a bit shorter than it had when I left Preston’s condo. The respectable just-above–the-knee hem now seemed like an expressway to my most private of areas.
Walking back to our table, my eyes flitted over everyone in the room, waiting for someone to notice I wasn’t wearing underwear and point it out to everyone else. When I came upon our table, I noticed Preston had moved my chair to the very edge of the table, right on the corner, and he was sitting close to the corner as well. I managed to sit down, smoothing the hem of my dress down over my ass as I did, trying to make sure no one got a free show, and I noticed our elbows were touching; that was how close our chairs were now situated.
Preston watched me sit, a satisfied grin gracing his face, making his handsome rating skyrocket. When my hands smoothed over my ass, I saw his eyebrow quirk, his grin growing. My heart fluttered thinking about his eyes on my ass.
He cleared his throat and held out his hand, his eyes boring into mine. I gave him a questioning look. Obviously, I wasn’t going to hand him my panties out in the open.
He simply snapped his fingers and laid his open palm out again, waiting for me to deposit my underwear.
“Preston,” I whispered with annoyance, leaning a smidge closer to him.
“Sweetheart,” he answered, looking expectantly at me.
I quickly placed the panties in his hand and forcefully curled his fingers around them, hoping no one nearby could tell what they were.
His eyes lit up when the lace hit his skin and I saw his fingers grinding into his palm, feeling the fabric. Then I watched, horrified, as he placed them in the front pocket of his suit jacket, a tiny bit of black lace peeking out, taunting me, like a dirty, erotic pocket square.
Just then our waiter brought our meals and my heart stopped while I waited for him to notice my underwear. Waited for him to catch on to us, realize our dirty game, and throw us out with our heads bowed in shame. But he didn’t bat an eyelash at us. Didn’t notice a thing. It was then I realized I was being paranoid and I was likely going to have to play along with Preston’s game.
“Calm down, Lena. You’re practically trembling in your chair and even though I like to see you tremble, I usually like it to be caused by me making you come, not because you’re about to have a heart attack. No one knows what we’re up to.”
I took a deep breath in as I closed my eyes. He was right. I could eat a meal with no panties. No big deal.
I opened my eyes, picked up my fork, and brought a bite of risotto to my mouth. I stopped, mid-bite, when I felt Preston’s warm hand on the chilled skin of my thigh. I tensed, waiting to see where his hand was headed, but I also shivered in excitement, goose bumps rising up on the skin of my arms. His touch did magnificent things to my system, caused so many wonderful nerves to go haywire. When his hand rested between my thighs, I pressed them firmly together in an effort to maintain some boundaries, but sighed in relief. I loved his hand on me, but could hardly enjoy my meal if it wandered where it wasn’t allowed.
I continued to eat, as did Preston, and we shared trivial conversation. We spoke about our day and asked questions you would usually ask on a date with someone you were trying to get to know. At some point, I had to laugh to myself, finding humor in the fact that we were doing everything backward. I was married. He’d just asked me to live with him, and I’d just asked him where his favorite vacation spot was. I also had to smile because even though it was backward, it wasn’t wrong. In fact, it was the most right conversation I’d had with a man in years. Our situation was strange, uncommon, and perhaps a little dramatic, but the way I felt for Preston was anything but wrong.
My breath caught again when his hand slid farther up my leg, now brushing the hem of my dress. I grabbed my water, taking a sip, the muscles in my legs becoming strained from holding my knees together. His hand squeezed the fleshy part of my thigh and he leaned over to me, his face just inches from my ear.
“Open up for me, Lena,” he whispered. I could not move my eyes from my plate, afraid if
I met his gaze I’d give in to him. I wanted to give in to him, wanted to feel his hand slide up my leg and into me, but not here. I worried my bottom lip between my teeth and shook my head slightly.
My body was starting to betray me: my pulse was thrumming through my veins, my skin flushing with excitement, my sex becoming slicker with every second his hand begged for entrance. My body wanted what he was offering, of that there was no doubt, but the rational part of my brain was still in control – mostly.
I exhaled a breath I wasn’t aware I’d been holding and my shoulders sagged when I felt his thumb making soft and slow circles on my sensitive skin just under the hem of my dress, silently asking me to do as he wanted, to let him in.
When I finally relented, gave in to him, a whimper escaped my lips as my knees fell apart. My muscles rejoiced as the stinging stopped, but new, more powerful sensations were flooding my system with every inch he gained up my thigh. His skin grazing along mine tickled in the most arousing way, prickled with the promise of pleasure, and the anticipation was nearly a physical being sitting at the table with us, it was that powerful.
I finally became brave enough to lift my gaze to him, only to find he was paying no attention to me above the table. He had no interest in conversation anymore or even to glance my way. The farther up my leg his hand roamed, the quicker my breaths came and the faster my heart thundered in my chest. I reached for my water glass, pausing at my lips as one of his fingers lightly grazed the length of my sex. Just barely and just enough for my eyes to flutter closed.
They immediately snapped open when I heard the waiter ask Preston if everything was fine with our meal. Simultaneously, Preston slid one finger inside me while answering the waiter with a, “Yes, everything is fantastic. Thank you.”
I was paralyzed with the fear we would be caught, but also frozen from the thrill of feeling him inside me, feeling something very private in this very public place.
The waiter smiled and walked away, leaving us to presumably enjoy our dinner. I looked at Preston and he picked up his fork and continued to eat his pasta, his finger still pressed fully inside me.
He swallowed and then said, “Your food is getting cold, sweetheart.”
“You want me to eat while you finger me?”
“No, I want to give you an experience you’ve never had before. I want to watch you writhe and squirm and sweat, all the while fearing someone will catch us.” He moved his finger out, but then pumped back in again, this time with two. My hand slapped down on the table, palm open, making an obnoxiously loud “thwack”. A few people turned their heads toward us, but turned away when they saw nothing of consequence.
“Preston, please,” I said quietly as his fingers retreated again, this time coming forward and circling my clit.
“Tell me what you want, Lena.”
His question was tied together with so many layers of meaning I was lost between them. Did I want him to stop finger fucking me in public? Maybe? Did I want to be with him in the way he was asking? Probably. Did I want to take the plunge to make these things happen? No. Not right now.
“You can’t do it,” he whispered as his fingers dove back into me, this time pumping back and forth in tight, swift blows. “Until you’re absolutely sure what you want, I’m going to take what I need from you.” He leaned toward me, pressing a kiss to my cheek, and from anyone else’s perspective in the restaurant I’m sure it looked innocent enough, but then his mouth moved to my ear and he whispered, “I’ll do whatever you want, Lena. You just have to let me know.”
With that, his fingers reprised their slow thrusts while the heel of his palm began a firm, circular grind against my clit. I was thoroughly wet and only getting wetter. If I listened closely enough, I could hear the sounds our bodies were making from rubbing against each other and even though I knew, soon enough, others might start to hear, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I started to daze, one hand gripping the arm of my chair, the other wrapped around my water glass as if I were about to lift it to my mouth. In and out. Around and around. He was slowly building me toward an orgasm that would surely have me screaming the roof off this high-brow, classy restaurant.
In an effort to control myself, I lifted the water glass to my lips and sipped the water slowly. Preston shifted, his fingers sliding in even farther, then he curled his fingers, hitting an elusive bundle of nerves head-on, causing me to moan into my water.
I clamped my legs closed, trying to stave him off, trying to stop what I knew was inevitably unstoppable. Even with my knees locked together he still managed to continue to finger me at the dinner table. My clamped legs seemed to actually just keep his hand right where he wanted it. My life was compounding at that very moment. Everything was colliding and I had no control. The only thing I could do was let Preston lead me. Trust him to show me the right way.
In an instant, I put the water glass down, grabbed the cloth napkin from my lap, and tried as gracefully and inconspicuously as I could to groan into it.
I came ridiculously hard and surprisingly quietly. With my release came the relaxation which freed Preston’s hand from my pussy just long enough for him to lift his hand and suck his fingers into his mouth, never breaking his gaze from mine. Even coming down from a shattering orgasm, even just after coming in a room full of strangers, I was still ridiculously turned on by his blatant sexuality, and would have climbed on top of him had we been in a different setting.
We didn’t say another word to each other until we left the building. The longer we sat at the table, him ignoring what had just happened, the longer my emotions had to advance from being sated, to confused, to full of rage.
He held my coat up for me and I shoved my arms through the sleeves violently, then I took loud and hard steps through the restaurant, my heels clacking along the tile floor, until we were out on the street and I was walking at a fast clip.
“Hey, Lena, wait.” He sounded like every other man I’d ever heard try to deal with an angry woman; like frustration mixed with fear. He didn’t know how to handle me angry.
“Wait for what, exactly?” I shouted back to him.
“Wait for me. Look,” he said, jogging up next to me. His hand wrapped around my arm, stopping me, and he turned my body to face him. “I’m sorry.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “No, you’re not.”
“Well, not one hundred percent, no…” His voice trailed off and I yanked my arm free.
“Ugh. Just take me home, Preston,” I said as I continued to march down the street. He caught up, keeping pace with me but not reaching out to touch me.
“You’re not going back to your house, Lena.”
I sighed loudly, realizing even though he thought I meant I wanted to go back to the house I shared with Derrek, I’d really meant his condo. It figured that when I was really angry with him I’d have a Freudian slip.
“Fine, we’ll go to your house, but you’re sleeping on the couch.” I turned the corner and entered the parking garage where he’d parked his Lotus. I made it to the elevator and the doors opened for us immediately. Once inside we stood at opposite ends of the car and while I maintained my best angry face, when I stole glances at him, he still looked confused and a little distraught.
The elevator doors opened and I walked out, heading right for the Lotus.
“What is it you’re angry about, exactly? It seemed like you enjoyed yourself in there.” He yelled across the parking structure, his voice echoing throughout.
“Enjoyed myself?” I turned on him, my dress flaring up around my knees, hair fanning out.
“You came hard, sweetheart,” he said with a smug grin.
“Don’t ‘sweetheart’ me, Preston. You did that to me even though you knew I didn’t want you to.”
Suddenly, he was right in front of me, pressing my back against his car, his front pressing into mine.
“You can be angry at me any day, Lena. You can throw your cute as fuck tantrums and stomp around, throwing
your sass around like it weighs a ton, but don’t ever insinuate that I forced you to do something you weren’t onboard with.”
“I was uncomfortable,” I managed, even though I was sure my voice was too small to be heard.
“Good. You’ve been comfortable for far too long, from what I can tell. I wanted to make you uncomfortable, I wanted to show you that sometimes it’s okay to trust me.” As his words fell from his mouth, his eyes softened, as did his grip on my waist. One hand came to cup my cheek and his gentleness caught me off guard. “I would have stopped if you’d told me, if you’d even said anything remotely close to no. But you enjoyed it and that’s okay, Lena. In fact, it was amazing. Watching you fall apart, knowing no one else in that room knew what I was doing to you. It was hotter than fucking anything I’ve ever seen before.” His thumb moved back and forth over my cheekbone, his tenderness melting the residual anger I felt just moments before. “Are you upset because it happened, or are you upset because it felt good to let me be in control?” His face came close and his forehead rested against mine, waiting for me to respond.
“I’ve been lost for so long, Preston. It’s scary to all of a sudden be front and center, experiencing things for the first time with someone new.” I inhaled, trying to find my next words. “And I did like what you did to me, after I got over the initial shock of it all. I’m sorry if I insinuated it was forced, it wasn’t. Highly discouraged, perhaps,” I said, a smile tilting the corner of my mouth upward.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“That’s not a promise you can make to me.”
“Perhaps not. But I can make it to myself. All I’ve ever asked you for was your trust.”
The Private Serials Box Set Page 16
