“And what about you?” I ask. “Where would you be if you could be anywhere in the world right now?”
A shiver runs through me when he smiles at me. “I’d be here with you, having this conversation, Essie.”
What the actual fuck? How can he be so damn charming? How can he look at me like that and, for the tiniest of split seconds, make me not hate him?
“I don’t believe it,” I say. “There are so many far more exciting places than here with me. Come on. Tell the truth.” To my horror, I find myself nudging him with my foot under the table like some flirting school girl. Aidan ducks his head briefly, eyes on his plate in front of him.
His face has taken on an odd glow when he looks up at me. “Fair enough. I stand by my first response, but if I had to choose again, I’d be back on a beach in Hawaii, out surfing, giving lessons. I think that was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. When I had no money and often no roof over my head. Just my Jeep and the surf. I never needed anything else.”
I raise an eyebrow. I’ve only ever seen him in the button down shirts and the pressed pants. I try to imagine him on a beach, shirtless, wearing board shorts, sand in his hair, and I can’t. Is he making all this up? Trying to make himself relatable?
“That’s what I was doing before all this. I was happy. My parents didn’t understand it, and neither did my brother. They thought it was a phase I was going to outgrow. That I’d eventually realize I wanted to work for the family business and not live out an endless summer on a beach. I didn’t have a ton of money, but I sure as shit didn’t wake up every morning and put on a white-collared shirt.”
“You’re not happy now?”
“It’s all relative, I guess. We’re conditioned to use money as a measure of success, so when you suddenly find yourself as one of the world’s richest men, it’s hard not to feel that you’ve succeeded on some level, even if you didn’t do much to get the money to begin with. I mean, I didn’t build this business. I didn’t amass the contacts and the employees. It just all sort of fell on me, because that’s what it said in my dad’s will. But you want to know something?” He leans forward a little. I find myself doing the same thing. “I was going to sell it all to the highest bidder. Or just let it crumble into ash, one of the two. I was just going to cut and run. But then…I realized I had people I needed to take care of here.”
Everything he’s said tonight is a surprise, but this even more so. He thought about leaving it all behind? He really didn’t care? That makes me nervous. After all this time and effort and nights spent awake, dreaming of how crushed he’s going to be when I take every last red cent he owns away from him…after all of that, he’s not even going to care if he loses it? At this stage, it sounds like he might even thank me. I’m going to be giving him exactly what he wanted all those years ago.
It’s okay, though. I have other plans now. Losing the business will sting, but it won’t finish him. No, it’ll be falling for me that does that.
A third martini appears. This time I catch the waitress; she brings it over when she clears our plates. My face is starting to feel warm, my mouth drawing into the ghost of a smile, despite the fact that none of this is funny. Not really.
I stretch my legs out and feel Aidan’s leg with my foot. Instead of pulling back, I leave it where it is. I look him right in the eye as I move my foot up his leg, to let him know that I’m absolutely doing this on purpose.
Would I be doing this without the alcohol? Probably. Would I be feeling as good about it? Probably not. All I know is Aidan Callahan needs to invite me home with him tonight. And I’m going to make it happen.
FIFTEEN
AIDAN
Hot damn, she’s raising the stakes now.
It’s entirely possible that I’ve been misreading the situation all night. You certainly couldn’t fault me for it; she’s been sending mixed signals the whole time. Showing up almost an hour late because of some uninvited male visitor? I wouldn’t describe myself as the jealous type, but there was a part of me that wanted to know if this male visitor was someone that she’d slept with before. Maybe she was late because she was fucking him.
Regardless, I’m done playing cat and mouse with her. “You want me to fuck you, don’t you?” I say, lifting my glass to my lips. My dick is already stirring in my pants, growing hard at the thought of what might happen if she says yes.
Essie looks momentarily shocked, but then a slow smile spreads across her face. “Are you always this forward?”
“Are you?” I can still feel her foot rising gradually up the inside of my leg.
“Maybe. I just didn’t think Mr. Straight-Laced Aidan Callahan was so sexually charged.”
I grin, unable to help myself. “I’ve always been sexually charged, Ess. I like to fuck. I’d go so far as to say it’s my favorite pastime.” I’m imagining sliding my hands up her thighs, on my knees, pushing her dress out of the way as I open her legs. I can imagine what I’ll find there. Her pussy is shaved, guaranteed, one hundred percent. She’s not the kind of girl to even leave a hint of landing strip. I’m an advocate for a little bush every once in a while, but this girl’s naked pussy is going to taste sweet as honey, and I am going to die and ascend all the way up to Heaven while I’m eating it, I can already tell. Can already taste it on the tip of my tongue. Fucking perfect.
Essie shifts on her chair, squirming like she can tell exactly what I’m thinking and it’s setting her on edge. Her foot rises higher under the table, getting even closer to my crotch. If she carries on just a little further, she’s going to find out for herself how much heat I’m packing.
“Come back to my place,” I tell her. It’s not a request; it’s a command. “I do love getting down and dirty in public, I’ll admit, but I think the first time between us might be…difficult.”
She gives me a cocky look that tells me she’s intrigued. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I know just from sitting here and talking to you that you’re not someone I’d usually take home with me. I like girls who are a little more…subservient than you. And I know you’re just the kind of girl who likes to humiliate the guys she’s fucking.” Arturo told me as much. It was common gossip that went around the office when Essie started working at M, G & H. She fucked one of the junior lawyers and apparently ruined him for all other women. Even without the inside information from Art, I would have been able to read that on her anyway. I can see the cogs working inside her head from a mile away. Essie rocks back into her chair, eyeing me intently, a little color rising in her cheeks. She looks irritated, which just confirms my suspicions. She hates that I already have her figured out. Or at lease this one thing. Everything else is a total mystery.
“I’m not going to be your fuck toy, Aidan,” she tells me. “I just won’t.”
I raise my glass and toast her. “And I won’t be your puppy on a leash.”
“Then how do we proceed?”
The blonde waitress from earlier approaches the table, still twisting her pen nervously over and over in her hands. “How is everything for you this evening? Can I offer either of you our desert menu?”
“No.”
“No.”
Both Essie and I answer in unison, neither one of us looking away from the other. The blonde makes an awkward, strangled sound in her throat and backs away from the table.
“How do you want to proceed?” I ask.
“I don’t know. You could let me be in charge this once and see if you like it?”
I shake my head. “Not going to happen. Of course, you could defer to me and try the same experiment?”
“No way.”
“Then we’re water and oil. We both walk away.” I say this, but even as I shape the words and they leave my mouth, I know neither of us are walking away. We’re both too headstrong.
Essie’s foot finally rises up those last couple of inches. She places her sole in my crotch, the length of her foot resting heavily over the length of my hard
cock. Just the pressure of that contact is enough to make my heartbeat quicken. Fuck, I want her. If I’m honest, I’ve wanted her for years. She’s been the ultimate challenge that I’ve been smart enough to stay the hell away from. But, now, this is different because she came to me. She instigated this whole thing. To what end, I have no clue, but I’m going to find out.
“Oil and water?” Essie muses. “That sounds about right. It would be a real shame to waste this, though,” she says, curling the toes of her foot around the curve of my erection. I can’t help but grind my hips up, pressing my dick harder against her foot. The contact feels fucking amazing. “Perhaps I have a proposal to make,” she says.
“I’m listening.” I’m about thirty seconds away from dragging her into the restrooms and tearing that dress from her body. She wouldn’t know what hit her.
“I propose a compromise. I propose that I go home with you tonight, on the proviso that when we fuck, we are equals. No one person is dominant over the other.”
When she says fuck, I have to tighten my hands into fists in order to stop myself from lunging over the table at her. I want to kiss her so fucking badly. I want to bury my hands in her hair as she takes my dick into that perfect mouth of hers. I want to cup her breasts, pinch her nipples, make her scream.
There’s no way we’re not doing this. “Okay,” I tell her. “That sounds like a reasonable compromise. Would you like another martini, or would you like to go now?”
Essie looks at me like I’m crazy. She already has her purse in her hand.
“You can make me another martini when we’re done.”
******
She doesn’t bat an eyelash at my apartment. It’s not the penthouse my parents lived in for so many years, but it is far more space than any one person needs. It’s sparsely decorated. Looks like it could be out of the pages of a magazine. Could be that no one actually lives here at all. That’s how I’ve always felt about the place—it’s not somewhere I call home. It’s just a temporary dwelling where I come to sleep occasionally in between meetings and pointless fucking flights across the country to more pointless fucking meetings.
Essie’s high heels click on the hardwood floor as she walks over to the big window overlooking the city. The apartment’s open plan, essentially one giant room with the two bedrooms and bathrooms off a small hallway. I toss my keys onto the counter, watching her take it all in.
“Quite the bachelor pad,” she says as she circles the room.
“It’s all right.”
She stops circling and steps up to me. It’s surreal, being this close to her. I want to tell her that I know who she is, that she knows who I am, that we’re connected in more ways than she might realize, and we should cut the bullshit. But I don’t say any of that because she’s so close to me that I can smell the shampoo she used, I can see how perfectly smooth her skin is, and I don’t want to ruin this. Not yet, anyway.
“Hi there.” I touch my fingertips against her cheek, tracing the line of her cheekbone. She takes a deep breath, and then tilts her face toward mine.
She’s got lovely full lips. That’s actually quite an understatement. She has a perfect fucking mouth. I can just imagine her lips wrapped around my cock, her tongue teasing my hard flesh. It would feel fucking amazing, I’m sure of it. I’m about to lean down and kiss her but she stops me. She brings her hands up—right hand moving to her left shoulder, pulling her dress down, left hand going to her right shoulder, pulling the dress down. Jesus Christ. She doesn’t ask for my assistance, but I’m a dude. My hands are itching to help out. I gently tug at the fabric over her stomach, pulling it down.
The dress comes off easily, practically dissolving in my hands. The material gathers on the floor around her feet in a pool of silk. Her legs are long and lean, her torso slender, her breasts full and perfectly symmetrical. She stands there, shoulders back, unafraid and unashamed, the way any woman should be when a man is appreciating her. She lets me look. Her nipples visibly harden, the skin pulling taut, and I lick my lips, wanting nothing more than to press my mouth against them.
Man, she’s going to be the death of me.
I need to get the fuck out of my clothes. I start with my cufflinks, slowly unfastening the silver Callahan crest at my right wrist, removing it from the cuff and placing it beside my keys on the kitchen counter. “You’re an incredibly beautiful woman, Ms. Floyd.”
She smiles, her eyes meeting mine, not looking away. “Thank you.”
I nod, smiling too, because that is how a woman is meant to respond when she’s complimented. Thank you, instead of, no, I’m really not. Or you’re crazy. Or even worse, trying to cover herself up and hide. The female form is perfect in all its various shapes and sizes. It’s a work of art. A miracle, meant to be worshipped. I’ve worshipped at the altar of women who have been curvy and skinny, and so many other shapes in between. A woman can barely break a buck twenty and still be repulsive if she’s ugly on the inside. On the other hand, a girl can be a size eighteen and I can find her irresistible if she oozes confidence and loves herself.
Essie’s healthy. She has fantastic tits and an amazing ass—I can see both right now and I can safely say I’ve never been more turned on. I love that I can’t play her ribcage like a goddamn xylophone. She’s glorious.
I lose my shirt while kicking out of my shoes, my pants swiftly following after. My boxers are gone in a heartbeat. I step toward her, only the thinnest columns of space separating our bodies. The energy pouring off of her is electric. Fuck, my dick is so damn hard; it feels like my balls are about to explode. I take a deep breath, attempting to slow my heartbeat down.
“You like how I look?” she asks.
I glance down at my hard on, raising my eyebrows, then I look up at her, letting my amusement show on my face. “What do you think?”
“Mmm. Perhaps?” She’s trying to play it cool. Trying not to show that she’s really turned on right now, but I can see it in the way her lips are parted, the way her cheeks are colored. The way her chest is rising and falling faster and faster. She wants me just as badly as I want her.
I close the distance between us, my pelvis pressed against hers. Taking her face in my hands, I lean down and kiss her once, softly.
Holy fucking shit. Those lips of hers are just as incredible as I expected. She moves them against mine, opening her mouth a little. I slip the tip of my tongue inside, press my mouth harder against hers. My ears are fucking ringing. The high-pitched buzzing blocks out everything else. Everything except the sensation of touching her, of feeling the silk of her skin beneath my hands. We continue to kiss. I run my hands from her face down the graceful column of her neck to her collarbone, over her breasts, my breath catching, making me exhale sharply down my nose. She does the same, except she pants into my open mouth, swearing barely loud enough for me to catch it. Yeah, she’s affected by me. She may not want to be, but she’s loving this.
Her breasts are full and soft. I squeeze them, tweaking each nipple gently. They feel amazing, perfectly natural. I’ve fucked girls with fake tits before. If there’s one way to make me lose a boner, it’s a pair of fake double Ds. Essie’s maybe a B cup, verging on a C, and they’re perfect. Just the right size.
I duck down, slowly trailing my tongue across the sensitive bud of her hard nipple. My cock throbs when she sucks in a sharp breath, arching against my hands, which have moved to the small of her back, just above her ass.
I know she wants to do something to take control of this situation. The truth is, so do I. We’re both at war with our need to dominate. If I were with any of the other girls I’ve slept with before, I’d already be telling her to get on her knees and put her hands behind her back so I can tie her up. There’s something so satisfying about another human being offering themselves to you like that. Offering you their trust, and their bodies. I’m able to tamp down the need to wrestle with Essie over her submission for the simple reason that this is submission for her. Just being with me and not
demanding I lower myself for her is a kind of vulnerability. There will come a time in the future when she does allow me to tie her up, when she will be totally at my mercy, and she will love it. Until that time, I am more than willing to meet her halfway.
“Okay?” I ask. Is this okay? Are you okay? Are you about to grab your clothes and run? She looks me right in the eye. Her own eyes are pale green with flecks of blue, like some sort of precious gemstone. Fucking beautiful. Her lashes are thick and dark, and frame her eyes like eyeliner, even though this close to her face I can tell she’s wearing absolutely no makeup. She doesn’t need it.
“Of course,” she says. She reaches down and palms my cock, which I’m not expecting. Normally, I make a girl work to be able to touch me. Essie just takes what she wants. I guess this is my submission, too. A ragged gasp slips out of my throat. “Fuck, Essie.”
She runs her hand up and down the shaft of my hard on, pressing the ridge that runs along the underside. My hands return to her breasts. I begin to feel like a sculptor, working with clay. Her skin is so soft and supple. So goddamn responsive. I trail one hand down over her flat stomach, fingertips lightly brushing the folds of her pussy. Just as I knew she would be, she’s completely shaven. I’m never wrong about that shit. I’m about to dip my fingers lower to find her clit when she closes her legs tight, preventing me from going any further.
“You don’t want this?” I ask softly. She’s still working my cock.
“I don’t know.” She’s not telling the truth. Her breath is coming in sharp, short bursts now; I’m having a hard time believing she doesn’t know exactly what she wants. If she tells me to stop, my hands will be off her in a heartbeat and I’ll be across the other side of the motherfucking room, but until that moment, I’m going to be listening to what her body is telling me. And right now, it’s telling me it wants me to be balls deep inside it, making it shake with pleasure. I skate the tips of my fingers closer to her clit, close enough that she’ll feel that undeniable ache between her legs, but distant enough to let her know I’m also respecting her wishes. Kind of.
Heart Breaker Page 10