by L. L. Ash
Ok, so it wasn’t natural at all, but it appeared that way. Just like I was born with really nice eyes and lashes.
My doorbell rang and I hurried to it in my five inch, black suede ankle booties.
I was going for a mixture of sexy and comfort, not sure what we were going to do, So I brushed my emerald green, thigh-length bandage dress, adjusting the off-the-shoulder straps a little to work with my Gucci purse.
Inside the car, I felt my nerves fluttering again, stomach roiling with anticipation as if this were a true first date.
Well, to me it was a real first date. I just decided that I wasn’t going to think about the money.
I got into my Town car, and after a short drive we pulled up to a hopping restaurant, people piling in and out like it was a bar.
“Is this it?” I asked Jimmy, my driver.
“This is the address you gave me,” he looked back at me as if unsure if he should leave me here.
Well, this was where Serge chose, so I would go in. If I hated it, I’d make him take me somewhere else. One perk to paying someone to date you. You got to be the boss.
I saw him out front of the building, an unlit cigarette in his hand, flicking it back and forth between his fingers as he looked down the street.
I got out, thanking Jimmy and told him to be ready for my call, which would likely come sooner than expected.
I could tell the exact moment when his eyes found me. Heat burned up my skin against the chilled night, warming me throughout until that gaze focused on my face.
Meeting his eyes, his lips turned up in a small, knowing smirk.
He knew I was nervous, and he loved it.
“You smoke?” is the first thing I said when I got close enough.
He grunted and stuck the cigarette into an inside pocket of his suit jacket.
“Sometimes,” he admitted and moved his hands around me until suddenly I was in his arms, pressed against his chest. “You look… Mmm.”
His cologne enveloped me in a cloud of sweet air and warm spices. It was intoxicating.
“T-thanks,” I told him in a quiet voice, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by his presence, but in a good way.
“Let’s go inside,” he bent down and pressed a kiss on my cheek, his nightly stubble grating against my skin, same as last time, and sending shivers through me.
I followed him into the building, his warm hand surrounding mine and pulling me gently along.
The atmosphere around us burst from smoggy, cool air to warm, spicy chaos as we entered, people laughing and talking everywhere.
Ok, so this definitely wasn’t my scene.
“Serge, I-”
“Table for two,” he told the girl at the front. “I called in earlier to reserve a table.”
The girl at the front in a colorful dress looked down at her chart and started talking in Spanish to another girl wearing an identical dress.
“This way!” the other girl called and waved for us to follow.
Serge winked down at me but I pulled on his arm.
“I don’t want to stay here,” I said simply.
“What do you mean?” He quirked a brow at me.
“I mean, this place is crazy and it’s giving me anxiety. I’m paying you to show me a good time. Let’s go somewhere else.”
“No,” he responded, gripping my hand tighter. “You can leave if you want, but I’m staying here. But if you leave, that’s it. We’re done.”
“What the hell?” I yank my hand away from his.
He leaned down at me and whispered in my ear.
“If you’re looking for a boy to boss around, Adele, than I’m not the one for you. You do this my way and I’ll be sure you leave feeling amazing. That’s my promise to you. Take it or leave it.”
I jerked back and looked him in the eyes.
Was he serious?
“Are you kidding me right now?”
He smirked. Actually smirked.
“You need to decide what you want right about now. Our waitress is waiting for us.”
Fuming, I took a step forward.
I wanted to finish this conversation/argument with him, but I don’t want to keep our waitress waiting with how busy they looked.
We got to the booth that was reserved for us, which in and of itself seemed like it must have been a feat, and Serge just stood there, motioning me into the booth first.
“I’m not into this misogynistic bullshit,” I said straight-up as I sat. “I think you may want to restate your sentence before I walk out on you for good.”
Serge sighed and sat beside me, bringing his hand up to my face to look me in the eye.
“You need this, Adele. Whether you think you do or not, you need a little life breathed back into you. Your body has told me everything I need to know, and I’m going to give it to you. That’s the whole point of this. So you can either go with it and open up to what I’ve got to give, or you can gather your purse and you can leave in your town car and go home to your empty, apartment. It’s up to you.”
I blew out a long breath, looking around at the restaurant around us.
We were in a rather secluded area, the booth around us tall to block out the other people, so if I didn’t pay attention to how loud the other customers were on top of the blaring music, I could almost think it was rather romantic. In an exotic sort of way.
“I don’t know you,” I said slowly, looking back into his pale blue eyes as he looked intently back at me. “But I’m going to give you tonight. I’ll trust you tonight. But I don’t like being told what to do, Serge. I’m warning you right now.”
“And sometimes a woman needs to be told what to do so that she can loosen up. You're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. You've proven that. But nobody’s taken the reins from you in so long, if ever. Hand them over and just live. Let me deal with the rest. Let me treat you like a princess.”
Another sigh and I leaned back, breaking the eye contact.
“Fine. I’ll try it just for tonight.”
We sat in silence for only a moment before our waitress was back and asking what kind of drinks we wanted.
“Margarita,” I told her quickly before Serge could order for me.
“Corona. No lime,” he said next and she took off.
“It really chapped you last time when I ordered for you, didn’t it?” he asked me with a smile on his face.
“I’m a strong woman. I can live my life on my own and I can decide what I want to eat all by my little lonesome.”
He grunted, his smile broadening for just a moment.
“Nobody said you can’t decide what you want to eat on your own. I’m just taking the pressure off.”
“It’s not pressure to decide what to eat,” I countered.
“Fine. How about you decide what I have tonight and we’ll be even, ok?”
I looked up at the big man sitting beside me, at ease on the bench, his chest wide and open toward me instead of distracted by everything that was going on around us.
“Cool. I hope you like octopus.”
He laughed.
“They don’t have octopus here, but I do, actually. You’d be hard pressed to find any food I don’t like.”
Oh, yeah, now the pressure was on. I had to find the most disgusting thing on the menu for him to eat.
“Challenge accepted,” I told him with a cheery voice before digging into the menu.
Our drinks arrived and Serge asked for another minute so I could find something disgusting for him, but I stopped the waitress before she left and asked her to bring some menudo as a starter.
Pig stomach...Mmmm!
She looked surprised for about half a second before nodding and heading off.
Serge just looked at me with a mischievous expression. Little did he know he was about to eat tripe.
I went through the menu, which actually looked really yummy, and eventually come across something that sounded gross to me, so it’d be perfect for him.
An
d of course, some enchiladas for me.
After our waitress took our order, that I gave, I felt kind of powerful and devious.
The bowls of menudo landed at the table a couple minutes later and Serge lifted a spoon, stirring a little of the cream on top into the soup filled with tripe, hominy and little onion pieces.
“Care to try it, too?” he asked, a spoonful poised to his mouth.
I shook my head and he ate it. Then took another bite. Then another.
“It’s good,” he shrugged, looking over at me with a blank expression.
Dammit!
I’d get him with the entree.
“I’m glad you like it,” I deadpanned.
He laughed.
“We grew up eating pashtet. That’s a child’s snack where I grew up.”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s like pâté. An organ puree.”
Gag.
“You’re weird,” I just shook my head again. “But you have no accent. You can’t be from Russia.”
He shrugged.
“I grew up on Brighton Beach, raised by my grandmother who came from near St. Petersburg with her parents when they landed here in New York. The family has been here ever since.”
Oh, wow. So he really was pretty Russian. Minus the accent.
“Do you speak the language?” I asked, eye widening.
He hummed and moved closer to me, moving his cheek against mine before breathing strange, beautiful words into my ear.
“Ty dlya menya samoye seksual'noye sushchestvo. Vy chuvstvuyete zapakh kak ray, i ya khochu znat', chto vy na vkus.”
Shivers flew up my body, spreading out from my spine and out to my fingertips and toes.
“What did you say?” I breathed back.
“I said,” his voice dropped even lower as his lips brushed against the shell of my ear. “You're the sexiest creature to me. You smell like heaven and I want to know what you taste like.”
My heart started hammering in my chest just as his head moved back and our eyes meet, his like smoke in the dim lighting.
His gaze dropped down to my lips and I could almost sense him dipping to take that taste...until the waitress came back.
“Chicken enchiladas,” she said, setting my plate in front of me. “And huitlacoche.”
Three soft tacos sat in front of my date and he didn’t even inspect them before digging in. Our almost-kiss completely forgotten.
Maybe forgotten by him, but I was sweating now, my lungs still heaved for some oxygen as my heart pumped a mile a minute.
“Mmm, good choice, malishka,” he sighed into his taco before virtually inhaling the rest of it.
The man must not have had taste buds. He was literally eating fungus and loving it.
I ignored his obviously good attitude and forked up a little of my rice, taking a tentative bite.
Ok, maybe this place wasn’t as bad as I’d originally thought.
We ate our food, humming and mumbling about how good it was before sitting back, both full.
Just as our waitress took our plates away, a loud voice came over a PA system and announced that it was time to dance.
I turned to Serge and he gave me a devious smirk.
“Do you know how to dance the Salsa?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“No...” I said, suddenly worrying about what he had in store.
“Don’t worry. Your shoes will do, and I’ll help you,” he said, scooting out of the booth.
And right there, he started to peel off his suit jacket, the white cotton of his button up shirt stretching over his muscles, buttons straining against his chest.
“C’mon, malishka,”
“What does malishka mean?”
“Roughly? Baby girl,” he said, pulling me toward him and out of the booth.
“Why are you calling me baby girl?” I laughed, my body vibrating under his touch.
“It’s a compliment, Adele.”
Fine. I’d just go with it.
Besides, not that I’d admit it to him, but I kind of liked that he already had a pet name for me.
We went toward the dance floor, slipping in along the side where there was open space for us.
“The steps are simple,” he said, “Just follow my lead, I’ll push your hand and pull on your back.”
Oh God… I could hardly waltz, and here we were about to attempt a Latin dance.
He explained briefly how my left and right feet should move, but when he saw me staring back at him with a blank look, he chuckled.
“Ok. How about we just try it out?”
So, I jerk my feet around, trying to mirror him and failed.
Epically.
“Alright,” he said, trying not to laugh at my terrible dancing skills, but I interrupted him.
“I have two left feet. I always have and I always will. There’s nothing you can do that’ll make me any good at this.”
“There’s plenty of things I can do,” he said, his humor turning into sensuality. “Haven’t you ever heard that Latin dancing is like sex on the dance floor? We just haven’t found our rhythm yet.”
Aaaaand my heart started going all pitter patter again, as if I were a teenager, dancing with her crush.
So instead of taking my hands in his, he pressed his fingers into my hips, pulling my back to him.
“Move with me,” he whispered in my ear and I could feel the pressure of his chest against my back and hips to my hips as he started moving back and forth with the pulse of the upbeat song blaring around us.
The other people on the dance floor disappeared and I just felt him and the electricity sparking between us.
He pulled my hips as he moved, shifting us one step forward, than one step back, swaying my hips back and forth.
“See? You’ve got it,” he whispered into my ear, lips grazing the lobe, his rough cheek against mine.
My heart stalled for just a moment, just until I came-to, breathing as wetness started gathering between my legs.
I wasn’t a young woman anymore, and you’d think that I would be immune to his sort of charm, but sometimes his boyish charm was just so... manly. It was like my lady parts sang his name and called out for a little attention. After so many years of being alone, I thought I was basically cobwebs down there by now, but evidently I still knew how to react to a virile man who smelled good and looked even better. And I wanted to know how he tasted, too.
After I managed to get the simple steps down, Serge moved away from me, and my body immediately missed his warmth and scent.
Taking my hands again, we moved together to the beat, me finally getting the motions down enough that I could lift my eyes and see what his expression was.
And I wasn’t disappointed.
His cheeks were flushed and pink, eyes smokey with lust as he watched my hips move. When his eyes shifted up, ours met and sparks flew as my brown connected with his ice blue.
Before I could do anything about it, his hands were on me, abandoning the grasp he had on my fingers in order to wrap one around my hip, dragging me toward him and the other around the back of my neck, slipping into the hair at the nape of my neck.
Fireworks blew off inside my brain at the contact. Our hips were still moving, pelvises pressed together and faces not even an inch apart as we breathed the same air.
“Are you done dancing, malishka?” he breathed against my lips, his lashes practically brushing against his cheeks at the hooded look he was giving me.
So many promises in that expression.
“It’s getting too warm in here,” I told him and he smirked, just for a moment, before dropping it and taking my hand, leading me back to our table.
The check was there already and I watched as Serge pulled out his wallet and abandoned a stack of twenties into the checkbook before grabbing his jacket and heading for the front door.
The girls waved at us as we went past their station and out the door into the nippy fall a
ir.
“Come home with me,” he said in almost a whisper, slipping his hand over my cheek so carefully and softly I almost wondered if it was real.
“No,” I told him simply, pulling my phone out. “I’m going to go home.”
His lips parted in shock.
“You have me all night, Adele...”
“Not tonight,” I shook my head and he legit pouted.
“You’re a fucking tease,” he said eventually, his cheek back against mine as he spoke into my ear, a chuckle punctuating the words. “And I love it.”
Well, at least one of us liked the messed-up foreplay.
“I’ll call you again,” I said, giving Jimmy word that I was ready for him with a text.
“How long are you going to make me wait, woman?” he purrs, sliding his fingers through my dark hair, probably messing up the curls, but I didn’t care.
“As long as it takes until I’m comfortable with you.”
“I love a woman who knows what she wants,” he nipped my ear lobe once, avoiding my earring in the process before backing away to look into my eyes, “But you’re not getting away without at least a kiss.”
Before I could even process his words, his lips descended and I was being devoured by this beautiful beast of a man that wanted to own my mouth.
Crunch of tires blurred through my eardrums and I knew it was my car, but I just couldn’t back away. This kiss was magical in how incredibly sweet and erotic it was, our mouths open and tongues touching as he worked his jaw against mine.
“Change your mind yet?” he asked breathlessly.
Before I agreed with him instinctively, I just shook my head with a challenge, then took a step back.
“Goodnight, malishka,” he said from his spot, taking his own step back.
“Wait, I have the envelope...”
He held his hand out to stop me.
“When you start fulfilling your end of the bargain, I’ll let you pay me,”
The words were almost as shocking as the grin that bloomed across his face for just a moment.
“What do you mean?” I started to demand, but he just leaned forward again and took my lips, on the sidewalk this time.
“I mean, I better hear from you soon, Adele.”
With that, he dipped down to steal one last, little kiss, then he started walking down the sidewalk, retrieving the cigarette from inside his coat pocket.
