by Parker Swift
“I miss you too, nutcase. Talk soon, ok? Love you!” I heard her sigh, quickly, before the call was cut.
My best friend had just admitted that she never felt interconnected with her boyfriend of two years. Was it weird that I already felt interconnected with Dylan? Like we were embedded in a back-and-forth, even when we weren’t together, like he was making me feel like I was part of something bigger? I tried to put the thought out of my head. It had only been a couple of days, I knew that. But something had been moved—jarred loose. I was out of my element, but for the first time I didn’t mind. In fact, I loved it. It was like the moment when you are in the water and suddenly you can’t feel the sand beneath your feet. You’re free.
* * *
The next day at work flew by in a haze until around three thirty, when all the work that could be done for the party that night was done. That left us about two hours to primp before we had to leave for the museum. Fiona and Josh dragged me back into the closet to begin their assault.
“You’re lucky, you teensy-weensy Yank,” Fiona said, emerging from the racks. “You’ll fit into all of these. I need to find something among the very few in my size and that will accommodate these bristols.” Fiona cupped her boobs and sighed.
“Well, I may have a small waist, but we’re going to have to hem the hell out of anything I try on with mountains of tape!” I was holding a gown by the hanger, my arms stretched far above my head, and the fabric was still grazing the floor.
“We all have our limitations.” Josh sighed.
After about thirty minutes and twelve dresses, we all agreed I should wear a black off-the-shoulder dress with a long gauzy skirt made from overlapping panels of chiffon. There were yards of fabric, but because it was so light, it was subtle and hung weightless to the floor. I would have felt self-conscious in anything too flashy or big. Apparently it had been hemmed for a shorter celebrity who had borrowed it for a movie premiere. Josh helped me tame my flyaway locks into something resembling a messy braided bun,
Fiona and I stood before the vanity, covered with our various cosmetics, and looked into the mirror to admire our handiwork. “We clean up rather nicely, don’t we?” she said and smiled at me. I smiled in agreement, but I was starting to feel a combination of nerves and excitement about the evening. I just wasn’t sure how to act when I saw Dylan, or whether or not I’d be able to restrain myself if I saw Amelia making a move. I knew I’d want to go to his side, and I wished I could go to this as Dylan’s date, but that wasn’t the situation, and it never would be.
Chapter 16
By 6:45 Fiona and I were done with our tasks and had snagged a couple of glasses of champagne from the first waiters to enter the room. The party was held in a huge gallery of the museum, lined with portraits of famous British people: everyone from poets to royalty and actors. It was a mesmerizing place for a party, with endless fodder for conversation. And at the moment, the space was relatively empty. Only a couple of guests had arrived, so we just took in the art and exchanged stories.
Fiona had grown up in Yorkshire and gone to university in Manchester. She had five brothers, which seemed insane to me given that I was an only child, and they’d had a bucolic postcard-perfect English country life from what I could tell, gallivanting on the moors and celebrating Boxing Day, basically living my English fantasy. Her boyfriend was a Londoner, a graffiti artist, and lived in Hackney. Fiona described late-night tagging adventures, which she confessed scared the crap out of her, but she was completely falling in love with him. She looked positively glowing as she talked about him.
We were still gabbing when I saw Dylan enter the room, his eyes scanning, searching. I felt all the color rise to my cheeks, and I shivered, the goose bumps coming to the surface. The actual quality of the air had changed now that he was here. He looked like a modern James Bond in a perfectly fitting tuxedo with a black straight tie—custom-made, I’m sure. There was something about a man in a tux, especially this man in this tux, that made me swoon. I could see hints of his impressive muscles beneath the tailoring of the jacket and his shirt. He had a restrained power—even strangers moving about the room seemed to sense that he exerted a gravitational force.
I couldn’t believe that twenty-four hours earlier this debonair man walking towards the bar had had his face firmly buried between my legs. I tingled just thinking about it. Finally, drink in hand, his gaze met mine briefly, but he pivoted and walked across the room to someone I couldn’t see, ignoring me completely. And there was the sting—fast, sharp, and inevitable. I didn’t blame him for wanting his relationships secret. The problem was that it was getting harder to deny that I wanted more.
Fiona was chatting in my ear about her new flat in Hoxton that she was sharing with two other girls, when I noticed Dylan drifting closer with a group of people. They were all admiring a sculpture, some kind of conceptual piece made of Bible pages, and a photographer stood behind him, waiting for a good shot. Dylan was clearly on the to-be-reported-on list.
“Ooh, Lydia. That is Dylan Hale. Have you heard of him?” Fiona was nearly shouting at me in a hissed whisper. “He is basically London’s most mysterious and eligible bachelor. Not to mention one of the kings of the art and design world. Oh god, isn’t he just gorgeous? People say he is a total arse to work with, though, like completely insane about his work. But, ugh, can you even imagine what he’s like in bed? He just oozes sex, doesn’t he? He’s probably got an outrageously huge nob.” The champagne was clearly working on Fiona—her Northern accent was getting thicker, and she was channeling Josh pretty effectively at this point with her rapid-fire assessment.
I nearly choked on my champagne. “He really is attractive, isn’t he?” I replied, taking down a large sip. We were both following him with our gazes, and I got the sense he knew it. He easily navigated this scene, mingling with his highbrow social circle.
“He is all over the society pages,” she continued, “and look at him—he knows everyone in this room!” I glanced over and saw a continuous stream of people approaching him. “Can you imagine the women who throw themselves at him? Didn’t you hear Amelia Reynolds, that client, talking about him? I mean, he’s a Marquess. I think every socialite in London would die to land him.”
This was not helping me. In fact, as Fiona went on about how eligible and desired Dylan was, the sting of being Dylan’s “piece on the side” was becoming more apparent. I tried to remember his words from the previous night, that he wasn’t interested in Amelia. But right now, watching him make other women—and there were other women; a gaggle of them had settled around him—laugh and swoon, I was keenly aware that that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in others. And I couldn’t get Amelia’s words out of my mind, that he was going to have to settle down eventually. Was I just going to be last in a long string of flings before he made England’s nobility proud and produced heirs or whatever he was supposed to do?
Fiona and I continued to chat and wander, and as we were inhaling our fourth mini quiche, there was a commotion at the main entrance. It became immediately clear why: Princess Caroline had just arrived, and holy hell she looked incredible in person. I’d seen plenty of photos of her, of course, but she was taller and leaner than I expected as she drifted into the room with a group of friends. I gulped. I couldn’t help it. I felt like the ugly stepsister in some kind of twisted fairy tale—I mean, she was a goddamn princess.
Fiona gave a little shriek. “Ohmygod, Lydia. I can’t help it, but I need to get a closer look. Shall we go stalk the royals?”
“Oh, you know, my feet are kind of aching from these heels. I’ll ogle from afar.”
Fiona was already off, pretending to be looking at art mere feet from where the Princess and her entourage had convened.
I looked to where Dylan had been standing, and he was also walking towards Caroline. Her friends parted to let him enter the group. He kissed her on both cheeks, and she smiled back. Their welcome was warm—it was clear that they felt incredibly comfor
table around each other. They chatted amiably, laughing and looking around. Then he leaned over and said something quietly to her, and I saw her eyes dart up to him and then scan the room in my direction. He continued to speak, whispering directly into her ear, and her eyes seemed to fix on me. What was he saying? Fuck—I would do anything to know what the hell was going on. She looked at him and smiled, squeezing his arm. Was he telling her I was his latest conquest? Was he talking about me at all or was her looking my way a coincidence? They chatted for a few more minutes, and then he fell away and migrated to a group of suits nursing their tumblers of Scotch.
I was still reeling and trying to make sense of what happened when Fiona returned bubbling. “Oh god. Did you see Amelia Reynolds? She actually looks pretty incredible in Hannah’s dress. I hate to admit it since she’s such an awful bitch, but the woman is bloody stunning, isn’t she?” God, out with one threatening woman and on to the next. Would it never end?
I followed Fiona’s eyes and saw exactly what she meant. Amelia looked amazing and was out for blood. And Dylan was a red-blooded man. I watched Amelia search the room until her eyes settled on him. His back was turned to her, and he was still engrossed with the businessmen. She approached him from behind and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and gave a polite smile, introducing her to the group. She lingered and leaned into him, but he remained tall and shifted to keep their stance less intimate. After a few minutes, I saw him excuse himself and head for the bar. My shoulders sank with relief. Looking back, I saw a befuddled Amelia, posture slumped as she presumably tried to figure out how to extricate herself from the conversation.
Suddenly I felt Fiona’s posture stiffen, and I registered Hannah approaching us with a satisfied expression on her face. For Hannah this was beaming. “Have you seen the way people are responding to the gown? This is perfect.” She looked at the model on the pedestal with approval. She glanced around the room and filled us in on who was who, pointing out the important people from the British Fashion Council as well as other designers and artists. Apparently being included in tonight’s showcase was a real coup, an honor reserved for the most prestigious of London’s working artists. A friend of Hannah’s who was a painter joined us with her husband, and Hannah introduced us. It turned out that they’d taught at NYU for a year, and we quickly fell into reminiscing about favorite coffee shops and the school’s latest bureaucratic scandal.
At a lull in conversation, Hannah glanced down at the dress I was wearing, giving me a pleased once-over. “That gown looks marvelous on you, Lydia.” Hannah held my arms out and took me in thoughtfully. “You know, I don’t think I realized that this neckline would fall this way on someone who was so petite. It works perfectly.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said a familiar voice from my side. My head snapped up to see Dylan, looking appreciatively, not at me, but at the gown I was wearing. He was so practiced at feigning indifference—it was a little disconcerting. He reached his hand out to Hannah. “Dylan Hale. I love your work, Hannah.” Hannah blushed at the compliment—it was clear that Dylan was the more renowned of the two in these circles. He knew the other couple as well, and the conversation quickly resumed, but everyone somehow silently deferred to him. He had this way of being in charge even here.
He had positioned himself so he was standing slightly behind and next to me, our backs hugged to the wall, and he guided the group to appreciate the pieces of art on display, speaking eloquently about their origins and bantering about their merits with the others. He was clearly incredibly knowledgeable. He still hadn’t acknowledged me in any way, and now that he was right there, next to me, my position in his world, notably one of inconsequence, was just that much more obvious.
But I couldn’t dwell on that nagging unpleasantness for long. His art-world banter turned out to be a very effective strategy for keeping the attention faced away from us as he began his seduction. His hand holding the glass of champagne gestured to the pieces in the middle of the room, and the others’ eyes followed, but his other hand was firmly spread across my lower back, and was drifting decidedly south.
My breathing hitched, and I began feeling the familiar spread of heat and anticipation. Every hair on my body stood up, and I wanted to melt into him, have that delicious anticipation soothed by him. His hand spread broadly across my ass, cupping the cheeks, almost lifting them. I couldn’t believe he was doing this here, in front of all these people, including my boss! He seemed adept at executing these moves without notice; his stance barely shifted, and I thought—hoped—the others were naïve as to what was going on. But god, this was insane!
I squirmed and shifted slightly when one of his fingers began pushing the fabric of my gown between my legs. He pinched me, hard, on my ass, and I did my best not to squeal. I got the message: I was to remain still. I was now dripping in anticipation, in longing. There was no way he’d be able to alleviate this need, to make me come while standing here—it was going to be pure torture. He found a separation in the panels of my skirt, and slid his hand in. Skin on skin. His thumb found the border of my panties, right where my pussy met my thigh, and suddenly he paused.
Oh, shit. He’d said that thing about underwear. Had he been serious? He couldn’t have meant no underwear now? When I was essentially at work? Suddenly he withdrew his hand, leaving me hotter and hornier than hell. He excused himself and walked towards the entrance.
What the—?
I smiled at Hannah and ducked away, letting her continue her conversation with the couple. I passed Fiona, waved, and headed for the restrooms. If I didn’t find Dylan, then at least I could find a bathroom and discreetly relieve the tension myself.
Chapter 17
As I rounded the corner into the dark hallway, Dylan reached out and pulled me to him. Our entire bodies were flush up against one another, and we were only just blocked from view by a column. “You. Are a very. Very. Bad girl, Lydia,” he whispered and smiled, and I could feel the bulge between his legs pressing into my side. He looked so turned on, like he was struggling to maintain control.
“What did I say about underwear?” I knew it wasn’t a real question, and he knew the answer, so I responded with a kiss instead, fiercely molding my mouth to his own, following the lines of his lips with my tongue. He reached his palm around the base of my head, into my hair, and pushed me further into my kiss. Just as suddenly, he pulled my face from his own and leaned into my ear. “Say your goodbyes, and go around the corner. I’ll pick you up on St. Martin’s Street. Five minutes.” And he was gone in that way only Dylan seemed to be able to disappear.
I hurriedly told Fiona that I needed to be off, making up an excuse about delayed jetlag that didn’t make sense and no one should have believed, but she kindly did. Just as I rounded the corner, I saw the tail of the Mercedes peeking out from a delivery alley, the passenger door slightly ajar. As soon as I slipped into the car, Dylan hauled me onto his lap. “Your place or a hotel?” His tie was loosened and the top button of his shirt unbuttoned. His eyes were glowing, and he was ready to pounce.
“Why not yours?” I asked, and I began kissing his neck.
“There was a photographer there when I left tonight, and we shouldn’t go there anyway. Too risky,” he replied as he kissed me back. I paused, but willed myself to ignore the sting, kissing him again.
“Then mine,” I answered.
“Lydia Bell’s house, Lloyd.” His huge hands were covering my back, as though he were trying to touch all of me at once.
“Yes, sir,” replied Lloyd from the front. I turned to look in the direction of the front seat, and then looked at Dylan warily.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “Lloyd is nothing if not discreet. But we’ll wait till we’re there. We’re close.” I tried to slide off his lap, but he held me firmly in place.
“I can’t believe the way you were touching me in front of those people,” I whispered.
“No one saw. I would never let anyone see.” Of course he wouldn
’t. He didn’t want anyone to know.
I tried to push away the nagging, uncomfortable feeling about the secrecy issue and focus on enjoying the insane and delicious sexual tension blossoming between us. I rested my head in the crook of his neck, trying to maximize the areas of our bodies that were touching. Suddenly, I remembered, popping my head up to look at him “What did you say to Caroline?”
He shrugged, and gently urged me to put my head back where it had been. “You told your friend. I told mine.” He reached down to fondle my ankle and began gliding his hand up my leg and under my skirt. “On second thought,” he said, as he pressed a button. The tinted partition rose between where we were sitting and where Lloyd was driving. “I can wait to fuck you until we get home—barely—but let’s get these off, shall we?” He tugged at my panties. The fact of his impatience made me feel coveted, so attended to, and so turned on.
“Wait.” I tried to close my legs to stop him so I could get the rest of the story. “What did you tell her?”
“I don’t want to wait, Lydia.” He pushed my legs apart. I rolled my eyes and consented. I braced myself on his shoulders and raised my hips. He went about expertly separating me from my lacey thong, and he tucked it into his jacket pocket. “Are you going to tell me everything you told Daphne?” The panels of my gown were pushed to the sides over my hips, so I was completely exposed on his lap. He placed his hand against the inside of my bare thigh, and strummed his thumb against my hypersensitive skin, barely missing the edge of my pussy. It had the effect of coiling me even tighter.
“Um, definitely no.”
“Well then.” He was staring into my lap and driving me crazy. Not only did I want to know what he’d said to Caroline, but he was teasing the edge of my slit in a way that had me close to coming. I needed him in me. I attempted to shift towards him, forcing his fingers into me, but he removed his hand completely for a moment. “Ah ah, Lydia,” he chastised, before resuming his assault. “I want me inside you as much as you do, but I say when…Do you think I could make you come like this? Without even touching you there?” His voice remained at a whisper.
