The Pet Stylist and the Playboy

by Rebecca James

  “I’ll add it to my calendar,” Jonas said, picking up his cell phone and tapping at the screen.

  I hid a yawn behind my water glass. A server appeared at my elbow to refill it. Outside the large window, the lights of New York City lit up the darkness. I wondered what the rest of the Hedonists were doing. I’d briefly spoken to Blaze on the phone a few days before, and at the end of our chat, he’d assured me I’d always be a member of the club, even if I couldn’t be there. The statement had warmed my heart.

  “You don’t want something stronger?” my father asked me, eying my water glass.

  I shook my head. “I’m driving.”

  “For Christ’s sake, I told you to have Edison drive you.”

  “You know I prefer to drive myself,” I said stubbornly, marveling a little at the way I’d slipped back into a more refined way of talking since moving back to East Hampton. Well, my parents might have me where they wanted me, but they weren’t going to rule over every single aspect of my life. I’d never liked having someone drive me around, and that wasn’t going to change, no matter how much money I wound up with.

  “At least have some dinner,” my father said.

  “I’d already eaten when you told me to meet you here.”

  “Have you found an apartment?” Jonas asked. “Oh, but wait. Felicity said something about you being interested in a house.”

  My father’s eyes lit up. “That’s wonderful, Son. I hope you’ll allow me to help you decide on the purchase.”

  He began talking neighborhoods, and Jonas the real estate agent joined in. I never should have mentioned a house to Felicity, but at the time I’d been trying to avoid moving into her apartment building.

  Despite the fact I wasn’t eating, or maybe because of it, dinner seemed to go on interminably. Jonas refreshed his drink every few bites, and my father ordered dessert. When I caught myself tapping impatiently on my leg with my fingers, I had to busy my hands somehow, so I ordered a cup of coffee. It was well after midnight by the time I parted with Jonas and my father in the underground garage.

  The place had cleared out quite a bit since I’d arrived, and as I drove the Maserati Gran Turismo in slow, winding circles out of the garage, I perused the vehicles that were left. My eyes caught sight of a Harley parked at the far wall under a sign marked Employees, and I recognized it as one Zeke had been working on in the clubhouse garage.

  Isaac was riding a hog? Blaze must have set that up. Chewing on my lip, I thought about hanging around until Isaac got off work, but, the way I was feeling lately, that would only lead to another encounter like the one in the golf shed, and that wouldn’t be fair to Isaac. I didn’t want him to feel used, and considering my future plans, that’s exactly what any intimacy between us would seem like. The fact that I felt entirely different about him than I had about any hook up in the past didn’t matter.

  In truth, sometimes lately it felt like I needed to be near Isaac like I needed to breathe air, and that was kind of terrifying.

  I drove to my parents’ house, wishing like hell I was going back to the clubhouse instead, but I had a brunch with Felicity and two other couples the next day and needed access to my FB-B-appropriate wardrobe.

  I made it home before my father and went straight to my wing of the house to avoid the father-son chat he might want to have if I ran into him. I kicked off my shoes and stripped down to my underwear. Too wound up to sleep, I sat on the window seat and picked up my old guitar, the one I’d first started teaching myself to play on, fingers seeking the strings like the face of a long-lost lover. I played through a series of old favorites, including “Alone Again, Naturally” by Gilbert O’Sullivan and a few Art Garfunkel songs, singing along softly. I didn’t have the worst voice in the world—I could hold a tune, anyway. As I played, my heart grew heavier, but I couldn’t bring myself to play anything livelier. Finally, I set the guitar back in its case, and leaned back against the wall, thinking.

  I knew I should leave Isaac behind with the rest of my old life, but I needed to see him. I couldn’t explain it any other way than like an addict in the first throes of detox. I needed to touch him, feel the silk of his skin, see those goddamn lacy panties he wore underneath his clothes. I needed it more than I needed air or food or sleep. The glimpse I’d had of him that evening had only fueled the fire.

  Rubbing my hands over my face, I let out a string of curse words before grabbing up my clothes and pulling them on again. I was going to see Isaac one more time. Just one more. And, God help me, that had to be it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Swish

  As soon as I turned off the water in the shower, I heard the dogs barking furiously. I grabbed a towel, stepped onto the rug, and tapped my phone screen for the time.

  2:14 AM.

  Who the fuck?

  I’d had a long night at Lux, and I just wanted to go to bed. I secured the towel around my waist while descending the stairs to the foyer, and when I glimpsed Dante’s face through the half-open blinds, I froze.

  Don’t answer it, some self-preserving voice inside my mind told me, but I could as easily chop off a piece of myself as deny Dante access to me. Besides, he knew I was home.

  I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

  Dante looked a little wild, the clothes I’d seen him in earlier at Lux now wrinkled and disheveled. His long hair flowed over his shoulders, and dark circles shadowed his blue eyes. Dante being Dante, the disarray only made him look sexier.

  I started to say something and stopped, arrested by the intensity of his stare. Dante stepped past me into the house and, before I could properly latch the door, he was on me like a leech to warm skin, only it was my heart he was sucking from me, not my blood. Strong arms wrapped around me and warm lips coaxed mine open, kissing me deeply and almost searchingly.

  Unable to think of anything but touching him, I latched my hands onto Dante’s back, digging into the hard muscle underneath his shirt and pulling him as close as I could.

  With a growl, he yanked off my towel and threw it to the floor, then clamped his hands on my bare ass and lifted me. I wrapped my legs around his waist, mouth moving hungrily over his, our tongues locked in a sensuous slide.

  Somehow, Dante managed to blindly carry me up the stairs to my bedroom without breaking our kiss.

  As soon as we made it to the bed, I scrambled to yank his shirt over his head. He set me on my feet and our mouths met again.

  When Dante’s fingers slipped inside my crack, I groaned into his mouth.

  “Need you,” Dante whispered against my lips, fingertip brushing against my hole, and the next thing I knew, I was face-first on the mattress of my bed with Dante kneeling on the floor between my legs. The moment his tongue swiped over my rim, I jerked and shouted. Dante held me open with his thumbs as he licked his way inside. I clutched at the bedspread, body shaking, grunts and groans spilling from my mouth.

  Dante’s fingers tightened on my ass cheeks, and he became less frantic, taking his time as he ran the tip of his tongue around my entrance in soft swirls, occasionally biting the crinkled skin with his front teeth. My cock leaked on the bed, and I knew, given time, I could come from his mouth on me alone, but it would be slow torture. We seemed to stay like that forever, Dante eating me out and me lost in a haze of pleasure, but then Dante stiffened his tongue and began fucking me with it, and the sensation of his slick muscle spearing my backside set off a whole new burst of sensations.

  I began to pant, squirming on the bed, calling out Dante’s name in hoarse bursts. Dante’s hands remained firm on my ass, holding me open to his hungry mouth, his day-old scruff scratching the sensitive skin of my perineum. I quivered all over, nuts tightening into hard balls.

  “Dante!” I shouted. “God, please fuck me!”

  His mouth left me, and cool air hit my wet ass. I heard Dante moving behind me, the sound of his shoes clunking to the floor and his belt opening. It took all my concentration to climb onto my knees.

&n
bsp; Dante cursed as he fumbled with a condom from the bedside drawer. I swallowed, mouth dry, and took a deep breath when I felt the tip of Dante’s lubed and sheathed cock at my entrance. I pushed back, thrilled at his loud gasp as half his cock slid into my body.

  Dante gripped my hips and swore, holding both of us still and breathing hard before suddenly slamming the rest of the way in with one smooth thrust of his hips.

  I shouted, sending the dogs downstairs into another frenzy of barking. It was a repeat of the first time, only it wasn’t. There was something different in the air between us, and I didn’t know what it was, only that he was communicating an urgency that had taken hold of me as well.

  After the intense rimming, the burn was minimal and easily overpowered by the increasing wave of pleasure issued by every hit of Dante’s fat cock-head to my prostate. I greedily rocked on his dick, too lust-crazed to be embarrassed by the sounds I was making, or how I must look with my back arched, ass in the air, fucking myself on him. The fingers of Dante’s left hand bruised my hips, while he grabbed my hair with his right and pulled my head up and back. I felt stuffed full, my rim snug around the base of his cock like a taut rubber band. Desperate, I begged for more, and somewhere behind all the pleasure, my heart whispered joyfully, Dante wants you. He came back.

  Dante fucked me harder and faster, bed slamming against the wall. His every grunt and moan made my dick harder where it bobbed between my legs, but I didn’t even think about wanting to touch myself. I was spiraling toward release.

  One more well-aimed punch to my prostate, and Dante’s name from my lips became a scream as a lightning bolt of pleasure rushed through me. Light flashed behind my eyes and the world tilted sideways. I felt his foot dip the bed at my left knee, and the angle changed, intensifying my pleasure as my cock shot almost painfully onto the sheets. I felt something warm deep inside me just before Dante’s weight came crashing down on my back.

  We lay entangled, both of us breathing hard. I floated as though cast out of my body. All I knew was Dante’s warmth against me, and the feel of his cock still holding me open. We were connected, and I never wanted to lose that feeling.

  Dante moved and suddenly cursed. “Christ, the condom broke! Oh, my God, Isaac, I’m sorry.”

  I couldn’t find the energy to care. I lay, eyes closed, listening to him moving about the room. I knew I should be upset. I could feel Dante’s cum trickling down my ass, but all I could think was that a part of him remained inside me.

  “I swear, I’ve been tested religiously every three months,” Dante blabbered as he ran a warm cloth between my legs. “I’m always clean. I’m usually so careful. I’m so sorry.”

  I managed to lift my hand and wave it in the air, trying to convey it was okay and to stop his litany of apologies and reassurances. Dante had been kind of a slut in the past, but I believed him when he said he’d been careful and tested. I’d even seen his test results a few times when he’d left the paper on the dresser in our bedroom at the clubhouse.

  When he’d finished with the cloth, I slowly crept up the bed, so I could rest my head on my pillow. All I wanted was for him to curl up beside me. I smiled when he pressed a kiss to my temple. After that, I think I drifted off, because the next time I parted my lids, the room was dim, and Dante had showered and put on his clothes.

  “I have to go.” His voice rumbled sexily in my ear, beard scratching my jaw. The move was intimate and affectionate and squeezed at my heart. “I have to be somewhere at ten-thirty and need to get ready.”

  I grunted into my pillow, and, replete and sleepy with Dante’s juices still deep inside me, I fell back to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Dante

  “I’ll pay.” Brower Abbott-McNeil was an elfish-looking ginger with a sprinkling of freckles over his nose and a pointy chin. I’d known him in high school and, although our parents were friends, his arrogant manner and caustic wit had kept me from liking him.

  He took out his Louis Vuitton wallet and flipped it open, fingers moving over the edges of the crisp hundred-dollar bills inside in an obvious move to show them off.

  Carson Banks immediately whipped out his platinum Visa and argued that he’d pay.

  Felicity glanced at me, but I hadn’t chosen to have brunch at the expensive Waldorf Astoria and wasn’t going to argue over paying. I would have happily paid for Felicity’s and my portion, but if these twats were intent on showing off, whatever.

  Carson won the pissing contest by forcing his Visa into the server’s hand with a triumphant look. An African American with large, dark brown eyes and the physique of a boxer, he’d recently married the woman sitting beside him, whose name was Bijou, of all things. Bijou Banks was one of those very pale blondes with eyelashes and brows that would be difficult to see without makeup on them. Her eyes were a faded cornflower. Carson’s and Bijou’s babies would probably be drop-dead gorgeous.

  I took the last bite of my lobster omelet and pushed away my plate. Despite the delicious food and steady stream of mimosas, I couldn’t wait to leave. Brower’s date, Gemma, who was petite and had her hair dyed gray, mentioned she and Brower planned to go to Aspen over Christmas.

  “Really? Dante and I were thinking of doing the same thing, weren’t we?” Felicity looked at me. I hadn’t given a yes or no about that. My mind immediately went to Isaac. I felt bad at how fast I’d left after we’d slept together, not to mention how the condom had broken. That had never happened to me before, but I supposed we had been going at it pretty hard. My loins tingled remembering how he’d met me at every thrust.

  The encounter hadn’t cured me of wanting to see him, but I chalked it up to how fucked up I was about the changes in my life. I’d given in to my attraction to him and now was finding it hard to let go because, being a friend and a lover, he symbolized everything I was losing.

  Isaac couldn’t be a part of my future. I needed to find a suitable wife, and I supposed Felicity was about as suitable as any of them. The sooner I got that into my head, the better, so I smiled at her and nodded.

  “Sounds fun.”

  Felicity’s eyes brightened, and she turned back to her friends. I managed to get through another half an hour before I interrupted Brower’s description of their kitchen remodel and announced we needed to go.

  “You didn’t enjoy yourself, did you?” Felicity asked when we were alone in her apartment. This was the first time I’d been inside. The place was minimalistic with white walls, pictures featuring muted colors placed in perfect lines, and modern furniture.

  “It was—”

  “Don’t say fine,” Felicity interrupted, surprising me. “What’s wrong with you? You can’t be as boring as you seem to be.”

  I felt my eyes widen. “What? I’m not boring!”

  Felicity crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes, you are. You never say much, even when it’s just the two of us. This is the first time you’ve been up to my apartment, and we’ve been dating a month.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. We’d never officially said we were dating, although I wasn’t sure I knew what dating was.

  Felicity was on a roll. “You don’t even want to have sex with me. Are you in the closet, because, by God, if Uncle Jonas fixed me up with one of his gay friends—”

  I rubbed at my eyes. “I’m bisexual, I’ve told you that, and nothing’s wrong with me. I just don’t enjoy long conversations about how rich I am, like your friends do. And maybe I don’t like jumping into the sack early in a relationship.” The irony of that statement was not lost on me. All I knew was that I wasn’t ready to sleep with her.

  Felicity relaxed a little and perched on the edge of the couch.

  “My friends are business oriented.”

  I barely refrained from rolling my eyes and saying, Whatever. Business-oriented, my ass. They were in love with money; it was as simple as that.

  “And I guess as long as you’re attracted to me, I don’t mind waiting. It’s just, I wasn’t so sure.�
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  “You’re a very beautiful woman,” I said automatically.

  “That doesn’t mean you’re attracted to me, and you know it.”

  Man, I was fucking this up. I didn’t want Felicity to dump me; I’d have to start all over again, going out with woman after woman my mom paraded in front of me. I’d always known nothing about my future was going to appeal to me, so I needed to bite the bullet and move forward.

  Felicity eased from the arm of the couch to sit in my lap. I felt myself stiffening, and I’m not talking about my cock. She smelled of Chanel No. 5, which made me think of my mother.

  When we’d arrived, she’d changed out of the dress she’d worn to brunch and into a pair of leggings and a loose shirt than hung off one shoulder. She moved to straddle my lap and lifted my chin to kiss me.

  I tried to enjoy the kiss, to evoke every hot date I’d ever had. I really couldn’t understand why I wasn’t into her.

  I moved my lips over hers and held her loosely on my lap, unable to help getting a little hard as she undulated over me.

  But when she pulled her top off, I just couldn’t go through with it. She wanted sex, and I couldn’t give it to her. Not right now. Later, sure. Just not now.

  Gently moving her off me, I stood up. She looked at me with shocked blue eyes.

  “What’s the matter? You were into it. I felt it.”

  “I’m going to be honest with you.” Yeah, right. Like I even knew what honest was anymore. “I don’t want to have sex until we’re married.”

  I thought she’d be angry, but she cocked her head, studying me, and then a slow smile spread over her face. She stood up and put her hand on my arm.

  “Why didn’t you say so before? Of course, we can wait.” She pulled her top back on, and I sighed with relief. “I wish you would have just said something before—would have saved me the worry that I was doing something wrong.” She moved away from me and straightened her hair. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I wish more men were that way.” She blinked. “But...you do have a bit of a reputation among our set as a love ‘em and leave ‘em type.”