by Claire Adams
“Oh,” Lexi said, looking embarrassed.
I brushed some of her hair back from her face, deciding it was time to get this evening back on track. “You're really beautiful,” I told her.
“You're really handsome,” she responded, but from the way she blushed and ducked her head, I could tell that she was pleased by my words.
“No, really,” I insisted. “I've met a lot of the girls in this city. I've met a lot of girls around the world. And I have to say, there are very few women who are as beautiful as you are.” I paused, again, sensing her uncertainty. “It's your eyes,” I told her, lightly stroking my thumb against her collarbone. “They're hazel, I guess, but I swear that in the right light, they are the most bewitching shade of green. And you have the cutest freckles scattered across your nose and cheeks. And those legs. God has never given a woman a better pair of legs.”
She laughed a little at that, pushing me away. “Are you drunk or something?” she asked.
“I'm complimenting you!” I protested, taking a sip of my wine to hide my answering smile. “You must have guys complimenting you left and right, though, Ms. Jordan.”
She rolled her eyes. “Is this a line? Are you just trying to get me in bed with you? Because you don't have to keep talking about how pretty I am.”
“Oh, really?” I asked.
“Really,” she said, a breathless note to her voice.
I blinked at her for a moment, wondering if it was really that simple, but from the guileless look in her eyes, I had to conclude that it was.
I smiled at her and plucked her wine glass from her hand, carefully setting it down on the coffee table. Then, I took her into my arms and kissed her again. “Let's move this to the bedroom,” I whispered against the shell of her ear.
She shivered and nodded in agreement, letting me lead the way.
In the master suite, I pushed her up against the wall and kissed her thoroughly, feeling my cock rapidly harden in my slacks. I sucked at her lower lip, and I bit gently at her tender skin, then kissed an apology into the pain. She moaned, and her mouth fell open. I took that as an invitation to explore the softness, playing my tongue against hers.
I tugged her dress up, running my fingertips across the smooth skin of her hips and dragging them higher. I had almost reached her breasts when she jerked and pulled away from me, her eyes wide.
I pulled away, too, and let her dress fall back down into place. It pained me to do so, but I wouldn’t push her to do something she didn’t want to.
“If you want to stop, that's okay,” I told her. I cleared my throat. “That is, if you don't want this to go any further than it already has, then as much as I'd like to lay you out and ravish you, I'll respect your wishes.”
I hated saying those words, and I really hoped that she wasn't going to ask me to stop. I was aroused. I was excited for this in a way that I hadn't been in a long time. Sex had become mostly routine by this point. Not that the women I brought home never thrilled me. They did. But I almost never felt this raw, carnal desire for a woman. It felt as though if I didn't take her, I wouldn't be able to satisfy the burning need inside of me.
But I couldn't bring myself to do anything that she was uncomfortable with.
After a moment, though, Lexi exhaled noisily and shook her head. She reached down and caught the hem of her dress, pulling it up and over her head. “Let's just take it slow,” she said softly. “Please.”
“Okay,” I agreed, already fumbling with the buttons of my shirt. “Okay, we'll take it slow.”
Chapter Five
Lexi
Andrew laid me back on his bed, and his fingers gently stroked over my lacy bra and skin. I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. I didn't know why I felt so nervous and out of my depth, despite the desire zinging through me as his fingers ghosted over my curves.
I guess the truth of it was that this entire night had been so overwhelming. Going out to one of the newest, fanciest restaurants in town and eating my way through dishes that I couldn't even pronounce. Being here, with a billionaire, in his home that must have cost millions of dollars. Having his full attention on me, his fingers reverently touching my skin as his dark eyes eyed me hungrily. It was nothing that I could have expected when I stepped foot in Orinoco's office building the previous day.
And yet, it felt so deliciously perfect at the same time. I was under no illusions, of course. Andrew Goldwright wasn't the kind of guy to keep girls around. This was just a one-time thing. But I knew it was going to be a night to remember. It already was, and we hadn't even gotten on to the main attraction yet.
“We can just kiss,” Andrew told me, proceeding to do just that.
The kiss started out slow and gentle, and I could tell that he was trying to set me at ease. But it wasn't long before the kiss developed into something filthy and heated. Our mouths worked one another's, sending surges of lust shooting to my very core. He teased me, giving me time to adjust. He was carelessly winding me up with no end in sight.
My needy body betrayed me. I couldn't help rocking up against him, trying to get his hands to do something other than bracket my face or lightly touch my hips. He raised an eyebrow at me, but this time when his fingers slipped along my skin, I didn't stop him. I arched towards him, and he grinned, reaching behind me to unclasp my bra.
His fingers played against my dusky areolas. The pads of his thumbs dragged across my nipples and made pleasure swirl inside of me. He brushed his knuckles against my curves, leaving a line of goosebumps along my skin. He chased that line of goosebumps with his mouth.
Despite my nerves, I felt curiously comfortable with him. He made no pretenses and no apologies. He was exactly who I expected him to be.
I only wished I could calm down a little more, to fully enjoy what he was doing to me.
“Are you all right?” Andrew murmured, his lips tickling my side as he moved lower on my body.
I giggled and tried to escape the feeling. He grinned, nuzzling me for a moment, taking that as answer enough. He paused as he reached my panties, looking quizzically up at me, and I nodded, holding my breath as he pulled the thin material off from me, revealing the soft, pink skin between my legs.
Andrew hummed quietly and began to play his fingers across the delicate skin, skimming lightly over the bundle of nerves there. I gasped and shifted against the sheets, my legs falling open in an attempt to give him better access to me. He smiled and began to touch me with more obvious intent.
I made a soft, punched-out noise as his fingers found their way inside of me, plying my walls and testing the wetness there. They weren't inside me for long, though. He pulled them out and returned to playing with my folds, skimming his fingers along in an aimless fashion, designed purely to torture me. I whimpered helplessly, looping my legs around his back and pulling him forwards with my heels, desperate in a way that I had never been before.
Andrew laughed. He braced himself with one strong arm and used his other hand to give his cock a few firm strokes. He pressed his tip lightly against my slit and paused. It was tantalizing, having him so close to me, but no matter how I wriggled, no matter how I urged him on with my ankles, he refused to give me what I wanted. What I needed.
I sobbed, aching and desperate, unable to think of anything except how badly I needed to be filled.
Andrew grimaced. “Should I use a condom?” he asked.
I tried to process his words through the haze of my need. “What?” I asked, unable to make sense of them.
“Should I use a condom?” he repeated. “I have some, somewhere, but I hate using them. Hate the feel of them.”
“That's okay,” I groaned, trying to get him inside me. “I'm on the pill. It's fine.”
Andrew looked relieved, and the next thing I knew, he thrust into me, a throbbing poker that burned me from the inside out. He paused for a moment when he was fully seated, giving me time to adjust, and I focused on just breathing, something which I seemed to have forgotten how to d
o in the face of my lust.
Then, he began to move, drawing all the way out of me, until I was barely clenching around his tip. Then he sank back into me, as though he belonged there. With each thrust, he rocked his hips upwards, dragging the head of his cock against my inner folds, nudging at the pleasure spots deep inside of me.
I slid my hands down his back, digging in my fingernails and catching at his hips. I pulled at them, urging him to move faster, to thrust harder. He complied, giving me exactly what I needed until I was a shaking mess beneath him in bed. I might have guessed, but he was good at this, bringing me to the brink but not letting me fall over into ecstasy just yet. He forced my pleasure to spike higher and higher until I was almost overcome by it.
I needed to come, more than I'd ever needed anything in my life, but Andrew wasn't letting me off that easily.
He had his mouth on me again, kissing a line of fire from my jaw to my breasts. He lingered there, kissing and sucking at my nipples, swirling his tongue around the left nub and then repeating the motion on its pair. His teeth brushed over the sensitive skin, and then he pulled back with a smirk on his face as he continued to pound into me. His fingers pressed into my hips with a bruising grip.
“Come for me,” he whispered a command that I couldn't resist.
I cried out his name as I arched towards him, my toes curling. All the tension that he'd pounded into my body flooded out of it, leaving me limp and wrung out against the sheets. He came nearly at the same time as me, pulsing hotly inside of me, spilling his come deep in my folds.
It felt like an eternity before either of us could move again. Andrew propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at me. His fingers traced sweetly along the same skin that he'd held so possessively minutes before.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly.
I stared at him for a moment, unable to comprehend the question at first. Then, I burst out laughing, shaking my head. “Yeah, I'm 'okay,'” I told him. I stretched widely. “I am so beyond 'okay,'” I mumbled, the words interrupted by a yawn.
Andrew smiled as though that genuinely made him happy. Then, he pulled the covers up over us and tugged me into his arms, kissing my temple lightly. “Good,” he said. It wasn't long before we both fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter Six
Andrew
I fumbled at the bedside table for my phone, only half awake but knowing that I needed to answer it in case it was something to do with work.
I frowned, unable to find the phone where I normally put it. As the thing continued to ring, I pried open my eyes and stared down at Lexi for a moment. She was still curled into my chest, and even though I normally didn't let women stay the night, I was irrationally glad to have her there still. She looked cute like that.
My phone.
I rolled out of bed and managed to locate the thing in the pocket of the slacks that I'd been wearing the night before, which I'd left in a pile on the floor. They were going to need a serious ironing before I could wear them again, I thought distractedly.
I picked up the call right before it rang over to voicemail. “Hello?”
“Still in bed, I guess,” the woman on the other end of the call sniffed. “Should have expected that.”
I glanced at my watch and groaned when I saw it was Saturday morning. “Katie, I can explain,” I said.
“You can explain what?” my younger sister asked, her tone clipped. “There's nothing to explain. I know better than to agree to have breakfast with you. This isn't the first time I've ended up sitting by myself in a café, and I doubt it's going to be the last.”
“Something came up,” I told her, glancing back towards the bed where Lexi watched me uncertainly. She'd made no move to get up yet, though, and I moved back to the bed, sitting down next to her. I splayed a hand across her back and rubbed absently at her skin as I continued to talk to Katherine.
“What's her name, then?” my sister asked mockingly. “You probably don't even know.”
“It's not like that,” I protested.
Katherine sighed. “Sure, it isn't,” she said, and I could practically hear her shaking her head. “When are you going to settle down, Andy? Sleeping around like this isn't healthy for you, or for the women that you're with. You should know that by now. Anyway, you deserve better than that. I know you've been busy with work, but I'm sure there's some beautiful woman out there who's willing to put up with all the late nights and weekends away.”
I sighed. “I'm not looking for that,” I told her, momentarily ignoring the fact that Lexi, my latest conquest, was right there in the bed next to me. Based on my side of the conversation alone, she was probably smart enough to figure out what I was talking about, even if she didn't know who I was talking to. But that didn't really matter. I was never going to see her again. We both knew that.
“But the women that you're sleeping with are looking for that,” Katherine insisted. “I don't care if they've told you otherwise. Women are always looking to settle down into a relationship with the right man. And despite all your flaws, you are a kind man, deep down.”
I snorted. “They all know exactly what they're getting into,” I said, hating the defensive note that crept into my voice.
“I don't think they always do,” Katherine sighed. Her tone was somewhere between exasperated and annoyed. “And even if they do, I'm getting sick and tired of always being stood up when we're meant to meet up. You may not give a shit about any of them, but it hurts to know that you don't care about me, either.”
“Katie, you know that's not true.” I sighed, running a hand back through my hair. “Look, I'm sorry about this morning. We can reschedule. Let's meet up for lunch instead.”
“The whole reason we agreed to meet up for breakfast, even though I knew you weren't going to be there, was because my flight leaves at three, remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, falling silent for a beat. “Well, I'll see you when you get back. You're only going to be gone for, like, a week.”
“Try three weeks,” Katherine said, sounding pained. “It's not just San Francisco, remember? That's just the first stop. Then I'm going to London for that work thing, and then I'm going to Barcelona to visit some friends.”
“Right,” I said. “But it's not that long. I'll see you soon, okay?”
“Sure, whatever,” she said, abruptly hanging up.
I winced, but there wasn't much that I could do now.
“Who was that?” Lexi asked, sounding mildly jealous.
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. “My sister,” I told her, feeling irrationally annoyed at her for still being there, despite the fact that I'd been glad for it when I'd woken up. But now, it was all too easy to transfer the blame for that missed brunch meeting onto her.
I rolled out of bed and dug through my dresser for something to wear, beginning to throw clothing on. “Come on,” I said, glancing back towards the bed. “Hurry up and get your clothes on so that I can take you home.”
For a moment, her feelings were naked on her face. She was taken aback by my words, and she was hurt by them. I felt my lip curl at that. Like I'd said to Katherine, they knew that this was a one-night stand. Lexi, especially, must have known, because, beyond the vibes that I'd been giving out the night before, beyond everything that I'd said to her, there was also that small matter of the fact that she had done a presentation for me at work. I was under no illusions that she must have researched me prior to giving her presentation. She must have read all the newspaper articles.
She had known exactly what she was getting into. I felt no remorse.
She rolled out of bed without a word, though I could see the tightness around her lips. She yanked on her bra and panties and then pulled her dress on over her head, covering those curves. For a moment, I almost wanted to take her back to bed, to strip her down again and kiss apologies into her skin.
I wasn't sure where that notion had come from. I shook my head, shook away the thought, and grabbed my keys, w
aiting impatiently for her to follow me out of the house.
As we drove, I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel, feeling a surge of pent-up energy course through me. “Look, I don't care if you want to tell your friends about this,” I finally told her.
“What?” she asked, looking aghast.
“I know there are certain bragging rights that come along with sleeping with me,” I told her, speaking slowly, as though she were dumb. “I don't care if you want to tell them all about how good I was in bed or about what my place looks like. I don't care if you want to share those photos that you took last night. I do ask that you don't talk to the press about it. I'm not going to make you sign an NDA because you can't tell them anything that they don't already know. But you also can't talk about this to anyone at your office, for obvious reasons.”
She scoffed, and out the corner of my eye, I could see the way her hands clenched into fists against her thighs. “Sure,” she said, sounding bitter. “To be honest, there wasn't much to brag about.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I'm not going to insult your prowess in bed, and you don't need to insult mine. It's nothing personal. Hell, you're beautiful, and you're great in bed. I haven't come that hard in forever. You interest me in ways that most women never manage to.”
“But,” Lexi spat, looking angrily out the window.
“But,” I sighed. “Lexi, I just can't commit to anyone at the moment. I made that very clear before we slept together. I can't be your boyfriend. I'm sorry. We had a great night, but it can't happen again.”
“I'm not asking you to be my boyfriend,” Lexi said, sounding irritated. “A couple dates, or a few fucks, doesn't make you my boyfriend. I'm not asking you to commit to me or anything even remotely like that.”
“In my books, that's exactly what a couple dates mean,” I told her peevishly. “A couple dates is a commitment that I can't give. A couple dates, and you'd probably be expecting me to text you every morning when you woke up and every evening when you got done with work. A couple dates and you'd probably be expecting me to whisk you away to some romantic weekend retreat. A couple dates and you'd be telling your parents all about me. I know what a couple of dates means to a woman.”