by Score, Lucy
Every single one of them wore a ridiculous gold party hat just like the one my mother had sent me.
And then there was Ally.
Front and center in the black Valentino dress I’d snuck into the closet just two days ago. It hugged her breasts and waist before flaring out into a short, flirty skirt. I’d intended for her to wear it for me with the express purpose of me taking it off her, which would unfortunately have to wait until I could get these people out of my house. Her party hat was askew on top of those thick, loose curls that I loved. But it was her smile that hit me the hardest.
She was bone-deep happy. And it was just for me. It was all for me.
She danced over to me and threw her arms around my neck. “Happy Birthday, Charming,” she whispered in my ear. “Were you surprised?”
Surprised didn’t even begin to describe the feelings I was having. “Appalled,” I told her. “Why the hell is Christian James in my house? I hate that guy.”
“You only think you hate him,” she teased. “I have an ulterior motive there. Don’t you worry your pretty little birthday head about it.”
“Potluck? Really?” I teased, noting the mismatched dishes and trays on the island.
She beamed up at me for remembering our little inside joke. “Potluck food and alcohol. No presents. And the only thing you get to unwrap tonight is me, and I’m not wearing anything under this dress.”
“You’re in huge amounts of trouble,” I warned her.
“You can punish me later,” she promised, pulling back and raising on tiptoe to kiss me on the mouth.
It wasn’t enough. It was never enough. “Don’t think I won’t.”
60
Ally
The music was on, the lights were low, and the kids and Brownie divided their time being glued to the living room TV upstairs watching one of the movies Delaney thoughtfully brought and racing downstairs to sneak snacks.
The adults claimed the kitchen and dining room as our territory. Plates of food were passed, drinks poured, and a dozen conversations were happening at the same time.
The smile on Dom’s face while he chatted with Mrs. Grosu and Harry made every hour of sneaky subterfuge absolutely worth it.
“Miracle of miracles,” Dalessandra said, sidling up to me in the kitchen. “You managed to surprise Dominic, and he looks like he might actually be enjoying himself.”
I liked seeing Dalessandra slip out of her role of indomitable boss.
“I couldn’t have done it without you and your last-minute, urgent conference call,” I reminded her.
“Introduce me to your miracle worker,” Simone insisted, slipping in next to Dalessandra. She was lovely. Born to a Chinese father and Nigerian mother nearly seventy years ago, Simone either had incredible genes or a very good doctor on stand-by. Her glossy ebony hair hung in a curtain that just brushed her shoulders. A model since sixteen, she managed to make the simple white silk blouse and slim black pants look effortlessly chic.
I was the teensiest bit starstruck.
“Simone, meet Ally. Ally, meet Simone, my oldest, dearest friend.”
“Thank you for coming, Simone.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it. I’ve known Dominic since he was a little boy, and I’m very fond of him,” she said, eyeing me over the rim of the pink fizzy cocktail Faith had mixed up.
“I am, too,” I admitted, locking eyes with the man across the room where he was pouring a whiskey and smirking at something Elton was saying.
“Ladies.” Christian joined our little circle. Simone gave him the same appreciative once-over that all women did.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed across the room, and I sent him a little wink.
“Christian, I’m so glad you could come tonight,” I said. “Have you met my friend Faith yet?”
Dalessandra and Simone shared a sly look.
“I have not,” Christian said.
“She’s the stunning, Gwen Stefani-esque woman currently telling children that Santa Claus isn’t real,” I said, leading the way to my friend, who was telling Linus’s kids a story that had them transfixed.
“Excuse me, guys. Mind if I borrow this lady for a minute?”
“Aww,” they pouted.
“Here’s five bucks each,” Faith said, opening her wallet.
“Yay!” The kids forgot all about Faith and dashed off with their earnings.
“Faith, this is Christian. Christian, this is Faith. You two have a lot in common. You both spend a lot of time around mostly naked, beautiful people for a living.”
Christian raised an eyebrow. “Model?”
“Strip club owner. Plastic surgeon?” she shot back.
“Designer.”
“Faith has no intentions of settling down and no tolerance for sweeping judgments on her lifestyle. Christian here has zero time to devote to an actual relationship because he’s in love with his business. I thought you two should meet.”
“Tell me more about strip club owning,” Christian insisted, leading Faith in the direction of the bar by the elbow.
Mission accomplished. If those two beautiful people didn’t decide to take their bodies on a strings-free test drive, then there was something very wrong with the world.
“When can we kick everyone out?” The gruff voice was accompanied by a nibble at the spot where my neck met my shoulder.
I turned and looped my arms around Dominic’s neck. His tie was loosened. He’d ditched his shoes at some point, and he had a cinnamon butterscotch cookie in his hand.
“It’s your birthday, Charming,” I said saucily. “We can fake food poisoning at any time.”
The music changed to a Frank Sinatra favorite, and I felt us begin to sway to the beat.
“Am I still in trouble?” I asked.
There was an eruption of laughter behind us as Mr. Mohammad finally reached a punchline. Brownie ran past us with a kid’s sock in his mouth. Several someones drank a toast to someone named Dave behind us. The back door opened, bringing just a hint of sweet cigar smoke into the room.
“Of course. Just because this is a moderately not horrible experience doesn’t mean you’ve escaped punishment,” Dominic said, running the tip of his nose around the shell of my ear.
A delighted shiver worked its way up my spine. “I really like you, Dom. A lot.” Smitten and dizzy. That’s exactly how I felt.
His eyes, those denim blue eyes, roamed my face intently.
“I just thought you should know,” I said, starting to feel embarrassed.
He gathered me tighter to him and danced me in a little circle. “I really like you too, Ally.” His voice was rough and raspy. And I thought I detected just the slightest hint of emotion in it.
* * *
With the snick of the lock on the front door behind our last guest, my charming, civilized Dominic turned into an animal. He shoved me against the wall. “I wanted to do this all night,” he growled into my hair as he ground his erection against my ass.
“Yes,” I breathed.
“Do you know how many pieces of furniture I’ve bent you over, how many walls I’ve fucked you against in my fantasies?”
“Tell me.”
But he was too busy biting and nipping his way down the back of my neck.
One hand roughly shoved its way into the top of my dress and palmed my breast.
Pushing away from the wall, I turned in his arms and spun us so his back was against the wall.
“What are you doing?” he asked gruffly as I unbuckled his belt.
“Just re-enacting a little fantasy of my own,” I whispered. I let my teeth graze his jaw and then pushed back, slowly sinking to my knees.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
“Take out your dick, Dom, and tell me what you want me to do.”
If his jaw got any tighter, enamel would shatter, bone would crack. Oh, how I loved pushing the birthday boy’s buttons.
“Ally.” There was a warning in the way he said my name. I decided to ignore the warning.
&nb
sp; I waited where I was on my knees. The neckline of my dress clinging precariously to my breasts. My hair a mess from his hands. I knew exactly what kind of picture I was painting for him.
“Come here,” he said gruffly.
I crawled to him, savoring the flare of his nostrils, the white-knuckled grip he kept on his control. The sound of his zipper was like music to my ears.
I stopped in front of him and watched as he fisted his shaft at the root. I licked my lips.
“Taste it,” he ordered.
Dutifully, I took that hot, velvety crown into my mouth and ran my tongue in a circle.
He hissed out a breath and shoved a hand into my hair.
“You make such a beautiful fucking picture right now, Ally.”
As a reward, I took a little more of him into my mouth.
His head hit the wall behind him. I hoped not hard enough for a concussion. I hummed my pleasure against his flesh.
I could taste him. Could feel the pulse of blood beneath his skin with my tongue. He fed another inch into my mouth and held my head still with his hand in my hair.
The guttural growl that rose up from his chest had me squeezing my thighs together to relieve some of the pressure that was building there. This wasn’t my life, I decided. Any minute now, I was going to wake up in a ditch somewhere after having been hit by a bus and not know how powerful it felt to have Dominic Russo’s cock in my mouth.
But until then, I was going to savor every damn second of this.
I slid my mouth over him as far down as I could go without choking. My lips brushed his fingers.
“Ally,” he rasped again. I reveled in hearing my name. If it had been hot hearing him hiss out my name while pleasuring himself in secret, this was a five-alarm inferno, and I was getting burned.
I rocked forward and back, laving his shaft, the blunt crown, that sensitive slit with my tongue. He was gritting out dirty promises and praise while I sucked his cock. The fabric of my dress was teasing my nipples, making them beg for more.
The noises we both made were inhuman, and if Brownie hadn’t been passed out upside down on the couch, he would have been growling at the door to the foyer.
I wanted him inside me. I wanted to pull his hair and bite his neck. I wanted to come. But more than all of that combined, I wanted to taste him.
“You need to slow down,” he warned, his voice unsteady as I rocked faster, sucked harder.
But I wasn’t slowing down, and I sure as hell wasn’t stopping.
I felt the tremor that started in his legs as I took him deeper into my mouth. His hands slapped against the wall, and I grabbed the base of his shaft, moving fingers and mouth together in long, wet strokes.
“Baby, you’re going to make me—”
He didn’t get the rest of the words out because he was coming. Loudly, exuberantly pouring what felt like an entire fucking protein shake directly down my throat. Oh my God. I was drowning. And he just. Kept. Coming.
He was sliding down the wall, still coming. I was still valiantly trying not to die as my eyes watered and my mouth overflowed.
We ended up in a tangle on the floor. The tile cooling heated skin. Muscles still shaking. Dominic stroked a hand over my hip.
“I think I pulled a hamstring,” he whispered.
“I think you impregnated my lungs.”
“This is my best birthday ever,” he said, his chest still heaving.
“Birthday blow job for the win,” I said, sucking in a breath of jizz-free air.
“I’m going to need ten minutes, some ibuprofen, a glass of water, and then I’m going to return the favor,” he promised.
61
Ally
Charming: I am so bored I might set this place on fire just to stay awake.
Me: Poor baby, in beautiful sunny Los Angeles surrounded by beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes.
Charming: What are you wearing?
I laughed.
And caught the side-eye Nelson sent me from behind the wheel.
I held up my phone. “Dominic from LA. He’s grouchy.”
Nelson’s mouth twitched under his mustache. Dominic had assigned him to Driving Miss Ally duty while he was gone. We were on our way home from my evening dance class that Nelson had politely declined to attend and instead had waited in a coffee shop one block down.
Me: A parka. You’re missing out on the cold snap to end all cold snaps.
It was a frigid Friday night, and Dominic had been gone for four days for LA’s Fashion Week. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. Six days away? Pfft. No problem. I had plenty to keep me occupied. And I hadn’t had the guy in my life for so long that I was used to having him around. Right?
Big fat wrong-o, buddy.
I missed him aggressively, obsessively. I made tea every morning just because the smell reminded me of him. Every night before I left work, I walked up to Dom’s office and sat behind his desk because it felt like he’d walk through the door any minute. Hell, the practically inconsolable Brownie and I were both sleeping in Dom’s t-shirts. Me because I missed him and Brownie because it was hilarious.
In an effort to keep my mind off how much I’d missed him, I’d smuggled Brownie into my Dad’s nursing home, having him pose as a therapy dog. A therapy dog that ate a nurse’s roast beef sandwich when she wasn’t looking. I unashamedly blamed it on Mrs. Kramer, a known snack thief. I’d even gone with Faith to a video shoot for the online content team that Christian invited us to at his studio. Sparks were definitely flying between club owner and designer. Both of whom seemed to be playing a little hard to get.
But none of it made me miss Dominic less.
Charming: I wish I was there to keep you warm.
I sighed and fought the urge to clutch my phone to my heart.
The only things that made Dom’s absence almost tolerable were his hourly texts describing every detail of the trip. Fashion Week was a dream for some. For Dominic Russo, it was a nightmare. Endless shows, afterparties, and wardrobe changes. Red carpets everywhere. People whose names he was expected to remember and be impressed with.
Me: Question. Do you miss me or your vests more?
He hadn’t packed a single vest. For which I was eternally grateful.
So of course I’d entertained myself—and tortured him—by trying on his vest collection and sending him selfies while wearing nothing else but a glossy coat of lipstick. Checking all the photos and video footage to see if he had a visible erection from one of the pictures was my new favorite game.
Speaking of photos, Dominic hadn’t been photographed with his arms around any of the bevies of stunning models flooding the city. In fact, in every photo, he had a camera-thrilling scowl and both hands in his pockets. I hadn’t asked him not to hug beautiful women. But he’d refrained anyway.
I was starting to think the man liked me. Really, really liked me.
Of course, just to make sure I wasn’t feeling totally confident, there had been a handful of mentions of Dominic flying solo with the speculation that our relationship was on the rocks. The jabs felt almost personal, but I tried not to read too much into it.
My phone buzzed again.
Dominic: You in my vests. Next year you’re coming with me.
I felt a thrill rush through me that had nothing to do with the seat warmer.
Were we really talking about next year? Was I okay with that? I checked in with several of my organs. Yep. Most of them reported back with resounding hell yeses. My brain was a little more pragmatic. There were a lot of things still up in the air. I was still behind on the bills. The renovations were stalled until Dom came home since the man forbade me from going over there alone. It was one little carpet tack puncture and a tetanus shot. Dom acted like I’d been held up at gunpoint.
But it was only a matter of time until the house was done and on the market and… Okay. I was overthinking. We hadn’t defined what this was other than “a relationship,” and we certainly hadn’t talked about an
ything relating to the future.
Me: Count on it. I miss you.
Dominic: Good.
* * *
I woke early the next morning with Brownie’s warm furry body cuddled into my side and a figure looming over us both.
The dog and I were epic sleep partners. It took a lot to drag us from our slumber.
My confused screech and subsequent flailing to free myself of blankets and pillows roused Brownie, who grumbled lazily and did not leap into attack dog mode.
The laugh was soft and undeniably familiar.
“Dominic?”
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my mouth. I didn’t care about morning breath or the fact that we were squishing Brownie. I just wanted to pull the man into bed.
“How? When? I thought you were staying for two more days? What time is it? Is everything okay?”
“So many questions,” he teased, running a hand down my side to squeeze my hip.
“Wait a minute. What day is it? Did Brownie and I accidentally sleep for two days?”
“It’s obscenely early Saturday morning. I took a red-eye. You have fifteen minutes to pack.”
“Pack?” I croaked.
This was a dream. One I was going to be really, really disappointed to wake up from.
“Pack,” he repeated with a grin. He looked tired too. “I’m whisking you away for the weekend.”
Brownie wriggled his way in between us and showed Dom his expectant belly.
“You, too, buddy,” Dom said, giving the dog the required pats.
I sat up. “Oh, my God. You’re really here. This is really happening!”
He laughed, and I threw my arms around him, raining kisses on his face and neck.
“Baby, I may never say these words again, but I really need you to get out of bed.”