Tonight's The Night (Night #5)

by Lauren Milson

  She answers after the first ring.

  “Meg’s Catering Services!” she answers brightly, if a little exasperated.

  “Do you always answer your personal phone like that or is this now purely a business number?”

  “Angela?”

  “Yep,” I say, “it’s me.”

  “It is so good to hear from you! We haven’t talked in the longest time, but I always wonder when you’re going to call me. How is California treating you?”

  I stand up and walk along the edge of the pool, dipping my toes through the water and flicking some droplets ahead of me.

  “I’m actually back in East Hampton at the moment,” I say, cradling my elbow with the neck of my beer.

  “No kidding, I guess I figured you’d stay out West,” she says, then her brain catches up with her mouth. I guess I’m not the only one who noticed I never really found my place here. “Sorry, you know what I mean. Anyway, how is school, how are you?”

  “I’m good, it’s good, everything’s really good. I was actually wondering if you had any gigs coming up? I mean, I know I’m probably at the very, absolute bottom of the totem pole, but I thought I’d just throw my name out there in case you happened to have anything.”

  “Hm. I actually have something you might like.” I hear some papers rusting around in the background. “Yeah. Joshua Stevens is having a private event tomorrow night and his budget is always, like, basically unlimited. He loves having as much help at these things as he can get. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that you’re gorgeous and young and pretty and exactly his type.”

  The world around me tilts.

  “His type?” I say in a small voice.

  “Yeah, he always asks for an all-female staff. I think it’s a charity fundraiser thing tomorrow. Anyway, you in? I’ll be there doing all the prep and everything and I’d love to see you.”

  Fuck the diversion, I think, because I am suddenly feeling very territorial. If he wants young girls at these parties, I am going to have to be there to make sure none of them try to take my man. I’ve never felt jealous like this before. Is it wrong that I kind of like the feeling…just a little?

  “I’m in.”

  “Fantastic. I’ll text you all the details and everything. Oh! And get this, you have to wear a bowtie and a black dress. The black dress I get, but the bowtie? I guess he thinks it looks classy or something? He’s so weird. Hot but weird. Anyway, I’m so glad you’re in!”

  My heart drops.

  A bowtie? I wore a bowtie to prom.

  “Me too,” I whisper.

  “Great! Text you the details. Can’t wait to see you!”

  “Yeah, me too. Bye.”

  I clutch my phone to my chest with shaking fingers. A bowtie. It couldn’t be because of me…

  It couldn’t.

  3

  Joshua

  “And then Miranda told me she was taking it all. Everything. That she’s going to bleed me dry. That raising the kids entitles her. Can you believe the fucking balls on this woman?”

  Raphael is drunk.

  “And if she came to me I’d get it for her,” Lillian, one of the partners at my firm, interjects. She tips her champagne flute against her lips. “It’s a feminist issue. Women’s labor in the home isn’t valued like it should be. If it weren’t for the women behind the scenes, the men would have no opportunity to actually go out and compete on the open market.”

  “You talk about the value of women’s labor and then have the nerve to mention the open market in the same breath.” Raphael grins.

  “Yes, I do.” She laughs. “That’s what divorce attorneys are for. To ensure the equitable distribution of assets.”

  “Equitable? According to who?”

  “According to whatever I can suck out of the other side’s portfolio for my client. Equitable doesn’t mean equal.”

  Bored, I tip back the last of my scotch and put the glass on a passing cater-water’s tray. The girl has dark hair and bangs, but she’s shorter than Angela and her eyes are blue. Angela’s eyes are blue with specks of gold. I’ve been on edge since seeing her last night. I barely slept, spending most of my night inside my office with my eyes trained on my pool with a scotch in my hand. Try as I might, I couldn’t tear myself away from that sofa. Her scent lingered in the air and I breathed it in slowly as though to save it and when it became too much to bear I unfurled my cock from my pants and spread the precum that had been burning through it all evening up and down the shaft.

  I closed my eyes and imagined she was in the room with me again, but this time there was nothing stopping me. The bikini top was now used to fashion a restraint around her wrists at the base of her spine and her lips were working overtime, tenderly sucking up and down the length of my cock. The restraint would be for my benefit — to remind me that in time I would be returning the same pleasure to her and she would have to beg me to take my mouth off her clit. Every time my cock would hit the back of her throat and she mewled at the salt hitting her there, I told her she was doing everything perfectly, my fingers playing in her dark hair. When I was close to spending my release I lifted her onto the sofa, spread her legs in the air and ate her pussy for hours, her arms still restrained behind her back and the soaked crotch of her bikini pulled to the side to frame her glistening lips on one side while my finger framed them on the other. When she cried because she couldn’t take anymore I guided my cock past her worn pussy lips and into the tight, silky depths, busting through her virginity in one slow, hard thrust. She screamed and I pulled her onto my lap to claim her innocence.

  “I thought you had to go through some kind of ethical vetting to become an attorney,” a girl in a bowtie says to her friend from beside me. I shuffle my fantasy to the back of the deck and approach her. “Isn’t there a character test or something?”

  “Excuse me, miss. Is everything all right?”

  The young woman’s gaze turns up to meet mine.

  “Mr. Stevens,” she says, shocked. She is about to speak but there is some movement behind her that catches my eye.

  My cock stiffens and my blood rushes.

  I’ve designed these events in the hope she would some day show up. That she would some day come knocking on the door with a tray of canapés and her bowtie and black tulle dress, having left California and come here, where she belongs. With me. For me to watch over her from a quiet distance.

  Then she showed up yesterday and I realized that my vice had become more dangerous - because I was the forbidden fruit she wanted, too. I would no longer be able to live out the dangerous fantasy in my head. I could no longer be safe to care for her from afar. The thin line snapped last night.

  Rafael stumbles back and his ass lands on the lawn, slick with dew. Angela’s big eyes find mine. Here she is, in her black dress and bowtie. I charge toward her.

  “Did he do something to you?”

  I grab her upper arm. She nods confidently, her jaw clenched without shedding a tear.

  “He tried to grope my ass.”

  I grab Rafael by the collar and drag him toward the house. I’m vaguely aware of him yelling at me to let him go, but I’m on autopilot and I’m unthinking. Instead of passing through the house, I walk along the side until we are on my front lawn. I release his collar and he falters, hitting the ground again.

  I shout at him to get off my property in vague shapes of words that sound meaningless to me. Red is still vibrating in my peripheral vision. I turn around to go back to the party and check on Angela, but she’s standing right there, a few feet away from me, illuminated like an angel in the soft blue moonlight.

  “You finally came,” I say. “You’re here.”

  Her fingers play in the soft fabric of her dress and her eyes shine up at me.

  “I’m here.”

  I’ve been a fool to push her away. I’ve spent so much time trying to move on from her, but all I’ve done is fill my life with work that I hate so I can win money for people who have more wealth than nece
ssary to start with. I fight other peoples’ battles for scraps that add no value to this world and do nothing but make people cold and bitter and angry and greedy. I’ve surrounded myself with barracks of girls and an army of help and hoped that she would flitter into my life like the angel she is so I could watch her from afar when I should have been tracking her down and making her mine.

  Seeing her here in exactly the way I’d wished is making me realize that it’s the farthest thing from what I want. I can’t fight anymore.

  I’ve built a life for myself so my daughter would be provided for, but I am no longer proud of that life. Emily is an innocent in all of this, and I won’t have whispers about what I do with my life affect her. I will have to bring Angela away with me and start a new life with her.

  She is the woman I need. I am the man she needs.

  And tonight is the night.

  4

  Angela

  I hadn’t planned on even leaving the guest house. I’d planned to sit inside and peer out the window with my fingers curled over the sill, just watching him. Is that creepy? I know it is. But since I’m being paid to be here, it’s not creepy. But then I reasoned that if I wasn’t doing any actual work that I couldn’t accept any money from Meg at the end of the night. She’d be running around and wouldn’t even notice the amount of work I’d done. And I wouldn’t be the only person slacking off. I caught a few waiters ditch their trays in the guest house and then go smoke cigarettes at the edge of the property instead of picking up another tray of hors d’oeuvres.

  “I want you to stay here after the party,” he says, getting closer to me. My heart skips with glee. “I need to talk to you.”

  “Okay,” I say, nodding. “Though judging by the looks of this place, would you know it’s me who stuck around?”

  “Always,” he says, taking another step forward. His deep, bright blue eyes are trained on me like I’m the only thing in the world. He has this way of doing that, or at least he always did for me. When our classmates gawked at him and said the only thing wrong with him was that he was so cold and distant, I had to hide my genuine confusion. It’s always seemed that he has a soft spot for me — and only for me. So much so that he’s had all his help dress like me.

  “What the hell is all this? When I got this catering gig from Meg I thought she was pranking me or something. Black dresses? A tie? Joshua, please…explain what’s going on here.”

  “I always hoped you’d come back here and stumble into one of my parties. I never thought you’d stay in California for as long as you did. This was the best way I could think to get you here. Supervised, so I could keep an eye on you. Then you showed up yesterday with Emily and you turned my world on its head. You stayed away for too long, Angela.”

  From the way he’s looking at me, I fear I didn’t stay away long enough. Because this look — with his eyes intense, focused, clear — I think this is the night he’s going to make me into the person I’m meant to be.

  His.

  He takes another few slow steps toward me, crowding me against the side of his house, bringing one hand to lay on the wall next to my shoulder. My skin bristles as I breathe him in — his musk, his power, everything he exudes.

  “I built an army of women who look just like you, I made them dress like you and I wished you would be one of them one day. And now, here you are.”

  “Here I am.”

  “And now I realize what a mistake I’ve made. I don’t want you to blend into the background. I don’t want to look after you from afar. I want you to be my whole life, my whole world, my angel, my everything. But I have certain needs and I know only you can fulfill them.”

  My heart flutters. I don’t know what he means, but…I can feel what he means.

  “How do you know I’m the only one who can fulfill them?”

  My voice is quivering. My body is so on edge. I can feel his gaze all over me as his eyes search everything on the outside of me — but even more intense, I can feel everything that he’s looking at on the inside, too.

  “Because these needs circle around you.”

  My legs turn to jelly as he places a small, delicate kiss on my lips and I taste him, his tongue sweeping out and entering me.

  He smells like that cologne I’d searched for, but so subtly different at the same time. The cologne I’d searched for might have been his cologne, yes, but what made me like it was that he was wearing it. All of the trappings around him — successful attorney, brilliant daughter, ex-wife, multi-million-dollar home, more money in the bank than he knows what to do with, and yes, the cologne that costs the same as my monthly rent — I never cared about any of it either way. It didn’t make him attractive and also it didn’t turn me off to him. There’s no way to separate out the man he is from the man he seems to be, because he is real, and genuine, and perfect in every single way. Unabashedly himself, no matter what.

  And I feel it more acutely right now than I ever have in my life. It’s not his cologne I wanted to inject into my veins — it was…just him. Him that I wanted to carry a piece of with me everywhere.

  “Joshua, I don’t know what to say. I’ve always wanted to be yours.”

  “Angela, don’t you see? You have always been mine.”

  He crushes his lips to mine and he fucks my mouth with his tongue slow and sensuously and lasciviously. Dirtily. My panties drench when his hand comes up to grasp around my throat and a moan slides out of my lips and into his mouth. His hand at my neck really makes me feel like he owns me. He crowds me against the house more, harder, digging his hips into mine.

  Excitement and panic flash in my belly when he pushes his hard cock up against me and his thumb finds the hollow of my throat.

  “I want you to fuck me,” I moan.

  “Oh, I am going to fuck you,” he growls against my mouth. His fingers dig into my hips again and my belly rolls deeply as pressure fills out every inch of my skin.

  I take his tie and glide my fingers down it, trying to pull him closer to me and not caring that anyone could see us. I fought and fought my feelings for so long because I knew the shame I would bring him. But right now I just can’t help myself. I just can’t. Something else is taking over. And he’s taking a risk, too — but then I remember there are a dozen other girls here who look just like me.

  The anonymity is thrilling. I could be anyone — but no, I can’t. I’m the one he chose.

  I’m the one he wants.

  “I want you to be my first,” I whisper. This makes his cock twitch against my belly and a sinister laugh break through his chest. “Please, Mr. Stevens. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help myself anymore.”

  “Before I fuck you,” he says, tipping my chin up so I’m peering into his deep, possessive eyes, “I want my dick up your pussy and I want you to squirm and squeal and beg me in that sweet little voice of yours.”

  My whole body lights up like a Christmas tree, every nerve ending glowing and bursting with heat.

  “I want you to cry because you want me to fuck you so bad. I want to kiss away your tears and play around with your clit and only fuck you after you’ve had three orgasms with my cock shoved up in that sweet little innocent cunt with your ears between your knees. And then I would hold you still and make you take it until your throat was raw from screaming. And when I take your cherry, I am keeping it. You’re mine.”

  He gives me a sexy, dirty smile.

  My heart is hammering a million thumps a minute as his thick hand slides down my thigh and then comes up under the layers of my skirt. I cannot believe this is happening and I truly cannot believe that his feelings for me travel as deep as mine do for him. I want to cry. I want to scream and run around in a circle like a dog chasing her tail, giddy in the knowledge that what I want is right there and just waiting for me to grab it, teasing me with its distance and torturing me with its proximity. I already knew that he cared about me. I thought he loved me, in a way. Now I know he wants more. I can tell that what he described is only
the tip of the iceberg.

  When his fingers connect with the thin, delicate untouched skin of my inner thigh, he growls because he can feel how wet I am. My panties are soaked and my inner thighs are sticky. My nipples peak and twist into tight, erect buds as his fingers find the edge of my panties.

  “Jesus, you’re wet,” he growls. Pleasure shoots through me at the introduction of the lightest touch through my black silk panties. They’re matted to my slit and I feel so exposed knowing that he can feel every valley and crevice of my pussy. Heat gathers where his finger touches me, but the fabric doesn’t dampen the effect. It heightens it, making friction gather at his fingertip. I hold back an orgasm, gasping for breath and forcing myself to not scream.

  “You’re going to make me come if you’re not careful, Mr. Stevens,” I whine, my voice only muffled by his lips. I feel his lips curl into a grin and he kisses me, past my neck and the modest swell of my breast, making my eyelids flutter closed. My eyelids shoot open when his hand clamps over my mouth.

  “Don’t make a sound,” he rasps against my ear. He slides his finger up and down my slit, capturing my clit behind the wet fabric. His machinations are soft, light, quick, designed purely to torture me and make my clitoris burn. The pleasure edges against the line of pain until my eyes are erupting with tears and I’m choking against the clamp over my mouth. I can only suck in shallow breaths through my nose and when I think I can’t take anymore, he wiggles his finger around the edge of my panties.

  I don’t know what’s happening. The pleasure is suddenly brand-new, the friction of the material now replaced with the sliding of his finger against my buzzing, exposed clit. My heart is pounding wildly in my chest and he’s telling me I’m a good girl for taking what I’ve been asking for, and when I’m the precipice of something great, he slides two fingers up into me, barely breaching my tight virgin hole.

  “Oh God!” I gasp as he takes his hand from my mouth and crushes his lips to mine. He kisses me ravenously. Deep waves travel the valleys and peaks of my belly as he brings his fingers out of me and then puts my panties back into place. His fingers sink into my hips but now I am a hot mess of tears and sweat.