In the week that she been gone, I had thought about Elizabeth’s body a whole hell of a lot. The things I wanted to do to it, the things I’d already done to it, the things I wanted her body to do to mine. But I’d also thought about conversations I wanted to have with her. Things I wished I’d said, things I was sure she’d argue with, but I’d made up counterarguments, and then made up fascinating ways to make up after we argued about it.
“No. I can honestly say I’m not just using her for her body.” Why did that feel like such a gut-wrenching admission?
“I know,” Nate said, again. The therapist who saw all. “Just making sure you knew. Now make sure she knows.”
I left Nate’s office and immediately started composing a text message as I walked back to my own corner of the floor, worried I was already too late. Still on for dinner tonight? We could meet at Gaston’s at seven.
Nervous, I hit SEND, regretting it immediately. Elizabeth liked making decisions. I should have given her the choice of restaurant.
I stopped in the middle of the hall, halfway between Nate’s office and mine, and sent another message. Or we can go somewhere else. Tell me where and I’ll make the reservation.
I sent it, shaking my head at myself for not taking care of this earlier in the week. Donovan owned Gaston’s—I could always get in there last minute. Finding reservations last minute elsewhere was going to be tough. There were only a few strings I could pull through some clients. Some other strings I could pull if I called my father.
I didn’t want to call my father.
But she responded before I had to get too worked up about other options. Gaston’s is fine. I’ll see you then.
Immediately I felt better.
Except then another text came through. Could you give me Elizabeth’s number?
Clarence Sheridan.
Why the fuck did he want her number? Was he still into her? If I gave it to him, would he call her? Would they get back together?
“You’re setting a great example for the staff,” Donovan said sarcastically, startling my gaze up from my screen. “Maybe if you were more focused on your work than your phone, we’d actually get some stuff done around here.”
It was a typical snide Donovan remark, one that I would usually let roll off my back, but I was stressed about this latest text, and he’d pushed me to my limit. He’d been playing me like I was his puppet, telling me what to do and when to do it, telling me who I could sleep with and who I couldn’t, treating me like I was a pawn on his chessboard. That was annoying enough, but to get razzed about it too was pushing me over the edge.
On top of that, he still hadn’t told me about sleeping with Sabrina, and that pushed a bunch of emotional buttons that I had yet to face. Not the least of which was— why hadn’t he confided in me about it? Why did I have to find out about it from her?
I’d been so irked by his lack of disclosure, I’d purposefully not told him about sleeping with Elizabeth.
And I was still irked. More than irked.
So instead of shrugging off his asshole comment like I normally would, I looked him right in the eye. “So, you and Sabrina, huh? Maybe it’s your distraction that’s compromising office production.”
I left him in the hall before he could reply, knowing Donovan hated it when he didn’t get the last word.
Back in my office, I made a decision. I’d waited too long to take control of my own life. I’d let others run the show while I’d sat back playing whatever cards I was dealt.
Well, no more.
It was time for me to be the dealer.
Starting with Elizabeth.
I would take Nate’s advice—make a plan, find the words, let her know that I wanted things to go on.
And I dealt with Clarence’s text the same way I dealt with all annoying messages that came in on my phone, usually from my ex-lovers, not someone else’s—I deleted it and never thought about it again.
Sixteen
I returned to Manhattan, feeling cool and calm and confident. Relaxed. A week without Weston had cleared my head. I was a new woman, pampered and refreshed.
At least, that’s what I’d told myself throughout the entire car ride home.
All of it was bullshit. It was evident even in the way that I had dressed for tonight’s dinner with Weston. My dress was a load of mixed messages. I’d intended to wear something smart and modest. Instead, here I was in a low-cut black sexy mid-length. It cinched in my waist and hugged my hips, creating a perfect hourglass. While it didn’t scream seductress, it was definitely one of the more provocative outfits I owned.
Maybe I just wanted to remind Weston what he’d had. What he couldn’t have again. That’s what I said to my reflection in the mirror by the coat check at Gaston’s as I double-checked my appearance.
I turned to the host, already fifteen minutes late. “Are you ready to be seated, Ms. Dyson?” he asked. “Mr. King is waiting for you.”
I wasn’t ready. I would never be ready. “Yes, please.”
He took me inside the restaurant, toward the tables near the windows. Gaston’s was fine dining, and the view was spectacular, since the restaurant was located at the top of the building on Fifty-Ninth Street, just across from Central Park, which was framed by the city itself. It was a romantic spot, and as we approached the table, Weston stood for me, handsome in his business suit, his dimpled grin greeting me.
Butterflies took off in my stomach at the sight of that smile; it wasn’t a reaction I could control. So I smiled back. As the host pulled out my chair, Weston leaned forward and kissed me.
“Now that’s a way to say hello,” the host teased.
“I haven’t seen my fiancée in a week,” Weston said, his eyes never leaving me. “I’ve missed her.”
The butterflies turned into an avalanche of snow at his words. His endearment wasn’t just intoxicating, it didn’t just make me feel fluttery inside—it made me feel overwhelmed, like I was being crushed with the weight of something bigger than I could handle.
Was it even real? Had he really missed me? Or was this part of the show we were putting on?
I was trembling as I took my seat, grateful there was already wine on the table. Weston reached to pour me a glass before the host could offer, so with no other task to complete, the man left, and we were alone.
I smoothed my napkin on my lap and grabbed a hunk of bread, eager to keep my hands busy as Weston finished filling my glass.
“How was Connecticut?” he asked, setting the bottle down as I took a sip of my wine. It was white and crisp, like the autumn air had been outside.
But here inside, the air was warm, and the chardonnay felt good going down. “It was relaxing. We did a lot of relaxing.” And a lot of thinking. A lot of thinking about Weston and his lips and his tongue and his body. His body inside mine.
“I didn’t reach out, because I thought you might want space.”
“I still had to share the suite with my mother. And she’s messier than you. Though we had housekeeping every day, so that made it bearable.”
“That’s not what I meant by needing space.”
I swallowed and glanced up at him. “You mean because we had sex.” I’d wondered if my phone wasn’t getting texts initially when I hadn’t heard from him, but then I’d gotten one from Marie asking about my mother, and another from a college friend.
I shook my head. I couldn’t feel that bad about his silence, because I didn’t try to reach out to Weston either. Then I recited the words I’d said over and over and over again to myself this last week. “Nothing’s changed.”
At the same time, he said, “Everything’s changed.”
We stared at each other, both of us caught off guard by the other’s answer. Everything’s changed. My heart began to race for no reason except for those two words.
Weston looked almost hurt by what I’d said. “What do you mean nothing’s changed?” he asked, his brows furrowed.
I looked around to make sure that we
were in a private enough section that no one could hear us. We were. “Because nothing has. We’re still just pretending for the sake of our respective businesses. We’re still only in a fake relationship. You still don’t want to live in my apartment all the time. You’re still insistent that you want to split our time between the two places. You still won’t get a damn maid.”
I looked at him as though I had proven my point, which I felt I had, and yet I went on. “You still have yet to tell me what’s going on with your family.”
He waved his hand, stopping me from going on. “My family has nothing to do with anything. They are not a part of this. And it’s irritating that you keep bringing it up.”
“And I’m still going to be irritated every time you mention Sabrina’s name.”
He glared at me. “I was a dick about that, and I admitted it. But she works with me. I’m going to mention her name—”
“Look, we’re still fighting, even.” Nothing had changed.
“This isn’t fighting,” he said.
“What is this, then?”
“Foreplay?” He grinned, his eyes gleaming mischievously.
“It’s bickering, like we always bicker,” I said, trying to ignore the images that last comment brought up and how they made my legs shake. “How can you say things are different?”
“Yes, yes. All that. Still the same.” I was suddenly moving closer to him and realized he was pulling me nearer with his foot wrapped around the leg of my chair. He didn’t stop until we were side by side instead of angled toward each other, until we were looking out the window into the quiet darkness that was Central Park.
He put his arm on the back of my chair, his mouth near my ear. “But now,” he said, his breath tickling my neck, sending electric shocks through my veins. “We can fuck.”
I was suddenly hot everywhere, and it wasn’t from the wine. My cheeks felt red and flushed. I turned my face toward him and our mouths were so close we could kiss.
“You want to…? Again…?” I tightened my glutes and thighs as I asked, as though that could hold the want and desire inside me, as though that could keep my panties from getting wet. I’d tried so hard in the week I’d been away from him not to imagine another night of passion. Tried not to relive the one night we’d had.
But every time the lights had gone out and my eyes had closed, he was all I could see, and I swear I had his touch memorized. Goose pimples would sprout up just by thinking of him. By remembering his mouth on my collarbone, his lips along my shoulders, on my breasts. It was absolute torture to share a room with my mother. All my masturbation had to be done in the shower, and with the insane amount of lust that was inspired by my daydreams of Weston, I’d found myself making excuses to take more than one a day.
But in no time during any of that fantasizing had I ever thought he would want to do it again. He was a player. Weren’t those guys only into one-time-per-woman deals?
I felt his fingers on my shoulder now, on the opposite side from where my head was turned. Felt his touch grazing down my bare arm. He looked me directly in my eyes.
“Do you not want to do it again?” he asked, curiously, as though he hadn’t even considered that was a possibility.
“I didn’t think you would want to do it again,” I informed him honestly.
“Oh, I want to do it again, Elizabeth. I really, really want to do it again. It’s all I can think about.”
My breath caught, and I pulled my head back, studying his face to be sure he was telling the truth. Everything in his expression said he was sincere. “I didn’t know.”
He moved in closer, his lips brushing against mine. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it clear. I should have texted you. I should’ve called.”
I really hadn’t expected that from him, but now that he’d suggested it, I wanted to know more. “What would you have said?”
He brushed his nose against my skin down to my earlobe and said in a hushed voice. “I would’ve told you how much I thought about you all week. How blue my balls were over you.” His hand was on my knee, moving higher onto my bare thigh. “I would’ve told you how I couldn’t stop thinking about touching you. I would’ve told you how hard you make me. I’m hard right now. I need to know if you’re wet.”
I was, and his hand was sliding higher on the inside of my thigh, about to find out the answer for himself. It was so fucking hot and so amazing and I wanted him to keep going, wanted his fingers to touch me and find out…but—
“Wait. Stop.” I recognized the feeling of panic before I could even understand the reasons why.
Fortunately, Weston was a decent man and he pulled away, immediately taking his hand off of me, and setting it back in his own lap. He left his other hand on the chair behind me, but he gave me space. Too much space. I missed how close he had been just a moment before.
But now the waiter was here asking if we were ready to order, and I couldn’t even think—I was still wanting Weston’s hands on me and wishing he was inside me—I couldn’t be bothered with the daily soup and fish specials.
“We’re going to need a moment,” Weston said, reading me. “In fact, I’ll signal you when we’re ready.”
The waiter nodded and shuffled off to his other tables. There was a beat of silence, and I took a swallow of wine, trying to figure out what I was going to say to Weston to get him to touch me again. Also, how not to panic this time when he did.
How was I going to explain to him what was going on inside my head when I couldn’t even explain it to myself?
Thankfully, he asked the right questions, the kinds of questions that helped me think, helped me sort myself out.
“Can I ask why? No judgment. Are you not into me? Or is it that we’re in public? Because it’s okay if you’re not into that like I am. Just because it turns me on, doesn’t mean it has to turn you on.”
I swiveled my face toward him. “That’s just it. It does turn me on. A lot. I think I kind of made fun of you at first when I realized that was something you’re into, and then I realized that it was really awesome.”
He nodded. “Really awesome.” He paused, and his face changed. “Then it’s me. You don’t want me touching you.”
“Weston, I can’t... I don’t even know how to put into words how much I want you to touch me.” I looked down at my hands, too embarrassed to face him for this. “This doesn’t make any sense to you, I’m sure. I wish I knew how to explain. See, it’s one thing if Darrell thinks all I’m good for is spreading my legs. If he thinks I’m slutty it doesn’t matter. And it really doesn’t matter if most of the Internet thinks I’m slutty, either, though. I mean it kind of does. Since I’m trying to build a reputation of being a classy woman and everything. One step at a time, I guess.”
I snuck a glance up at him and saw he was listening to me carefully. “I know the Internet isn’t here right now, that it’s just me and you. And that’s the problem, because I really do care what you think of me. It really matters to me that you respect me and that you think that I’m capable of being this thing that I’m trying to be.”
Out of the blue, tears stung my eyes, and my throat got tight.
“You’re the one who’s been teaching me and building me up for this, and if you don’t think I’m a classy person, if you only think that I’m worthy of spreading my legs, then—”
He cut me off. “I respect the fuck out of you.” His hand was back on my knee, but comforting this time, not attempting to make a move. “Are you saying you’re worried that having sex with me takes that away? That if I find out you’re into kinky things, I’ll think you’re less brainy?”
It was what I was saying, but I couldn’t trust my voice. So I just stared at my hands, twisting them around each other.
“Did you know the minute I saw you, I couldn’t breathe? I lost all ability to speak. I didn’t even know words anymore. It wasn’t even because you looked amazing, which you did, by the way. It was because I could tell you were the smartest person in the room
. Do you know how hot that was? I am so attracted to you, Elizabeth. I have been from the minute you walked into that Reach lounge, because I could tell you were a woman who knew what she was after, a confident woman, a smart woman. And the way you could just bulldoze Donovan? That took some serious skill. I have mad respect for you. I spent that entire meeting hiding my boner.”
Air stuttered into my lungs. I burned with the relief of it.
“And every time you speak, every time you argue with me—I wouldn’t put up a fight if I didn’t enjoy hearing what you had to say.” He leaned in close again, his lips brushing my neck. “The only reason I want to touch you right now so fucking bad is because I respect you.”
Under the table, I took his hand and guided it up under my dress toward the damp spot on the crotch of my panties. I let go of his hand once he was where I wanted him, and grabbed on tight to the chair edge while he slipped his fingers inside my panties to find my clit under the hood of skin where it was hiding, plump and aroused from his words.
I could feel him smile at my ear. “So wet. You want this so bad.” He massaged expertly in fine circles, small and then wide, clockwise then counter. “You’re so disciplined and strong, your eyes on the goal. Not even giving in to your own pleasure when you think it might take you away from what you want in the end. If you had any idea how much this stuff fucking turns me on, Lizzie... I wish I had half your ambition. Your drive.” I opened my legs wider, making it easier for him to dip his fingers down my slit and back up. “I wish I had your brain. You’re the total package—sex and smarts all in one. The sexiest thing I’ve ever had underneath me. The sexiest thing I’ve ever had in my bed, in my mouth, around my cock.”
I focused on the cars driving through the park, the dots of light beneath us as my orgasm built. Each compliment, each line of praise was as much of a turn-on, as arousing as what he was doing with his hands, and it wasn’t long before I was exploding, right there in the restaurant, coming from just his whispered words in my ear and his thumb on my clit. I tried to swallow my gasps, tried not to make a single noise. Weston took his free hand and covered my mouth to help stifle the sound, and I turned my face toward his, locked my eyes on his baby-blue gaze, and for the first time in my twenty-five years—as I was climaxing in a French restaurant owned by Donovan Kincaid—it occurred to me that maybe men didn’t just hurt women after all.
Dirty Sexy Player Page 17
