My arousal is intense — but it is growing. Xavier rests the tips of his fingers against the silk there for a moment, very lightly. I gasp at the sensation, my gaze dropping reflexively to the graceful curvature of his hand.
“Ah, ah. Bad girl,” he says, his voice suddenly becoming an achingly erotic mix of strict and playful. He shifts his fingers, and his touch is gone — there’s an emptiness at the separation. A slight whimper escapes my lips, and I once again let his eyes hook my own, my expression now more than a little pleading.
“Much better,” he says, a thin whisper of approving smile spreading across his faultless lips. His fingers return again to the thin piece of silk covering my sex. They begin to move, teasingly at first, then with authority.
“Ah —” I say. My voice is hoarse. It’s a sound I don’t recognize — an unchained vocal offering of pure and wild desire. Xavier’s expert fingers soon find the swell of my clit, and I feel him begin to massage me there with the softest of teasing strokes. My eyes swim deeper and deeper into the abyss behind his eyes, and I feel my hips draw me forward into his touch, silently yearning for him to bring me closer to the edge.
Xavier strokes my cheek. It’s all I can do not to close my lids, lose myself completely in his touch. Xavier sees the longing behind my eyes, the desperate and immense hungering for him. His hand brings my chin upward once again, and it’s no use — my eyes slip shut at last as I quiver to the feeling of his lips against my own.
His searching tongue still exploring my mouth with its endless tenderness, Xavier’s fingers slip around the taut elastic of my panties; he skillfully caresses the delicate place where my thighs meet my moistening sex. With the subtle command of a virtuoso playing some rare instrument, Xavier slips a finger into me. My deep moan escapes into his mouth, mingling with the sweetness of his kiss.
I want this to continue, I need it to . . . but I have to tell him. He needs to know. I let my lips part from his mouth.
“I . . . haven’t before. I mean, not completely . . . ”
Xavier is just a bit surprised for a moment, but his face soon becomes gentle. “It’s fine,” he says calmly. I can detect no disappointment in his voice. Still, his finger hesitates inside me; I find myself worrying that the cascading waves of pleasure flowing through me might come to an end.
My hands drop to his wrist to steady him. “No. It’s alright. It’s good,” I say, my voice unrecognizable. I take a deep breath, and he nods in response, the warmth of his finger resuming its ministrations. And it is good: I can feel my muscles gripping his now-slick finger in response. He smiles. “Can you come for me, Veronica?” he asks, his voice kind. The soft flesh of his thumb moves upward to my clit, his touch the kiss of a butterfly’s wing. I nod, my breath puffing from my lips in small stunned gasps. I cannot speak.
His voice grows insistent. “Come for me, then. Come.”
I arch my back as my universe explodes around me, a billion lights from some unknown heavens swimming in the black depths of my tightly-shut eyes. I fall toward Xavier and he catches me, guiding my body, holding my head close against his chest.
I stay there and he comforts me as I listen to the sounds of his heart and his breath.
I’ve never felt more danger.
I’ve never felt so safe.
* * *
At last we arrive.
We’re decidedly flushed, but more or less ready to be seen in public now; we’ve taken the last couple of miles to straighten ourselves up a bit. Our hand-smoothed clothes are as presentable as can be hoped, and I’ve given myself a quick once-over with Jayla’s bag of cosmetics. I owe you one, girl, I think, as the hotel’s sharply-attired valet opens the limo door for us. I give him a smile of thanks, gently waving away his attempts to relieve me of my overnight bag.
Xavier takes my arm to assist me from the car; as my heels meet the stones of the hotel’s cul-de-sac I can only stare upward in awe.
The building in front of us is a modern palace of polished glass. I’m in love at the sight of it. We’re high in the hills now, and the twinkling view of the electric city below us surpasses that of even the secret rooftop garden.
We saunter through the perfume of the kindly-tended lilies that greet every late arrival to the Thousand Arms Hotel. We’re walking arm-in-arm now, through the tall Venetian doors that swing open at the nudging of a well-attentive doorman. It takes me just a moment for my senses to adjust, and the warm and glowing vision of the lobby makes me just a little bit dizzy. The building’s architecture is beyond my understanding. High and sweeping arches of finely-brushed steel criss-cross above our heads, keeping a silent watch on the sparse nighttime mishmash of starlets in haute couture and the neatly-styled haircuts of red-eye weary diplomats.
Even at this late hour, the hotel maintains a muted energy. My heels click along next to Xavier, across the crystal-shiny marble of the mirror-polished floor. He drops my arm for a moment and has a few words with the friendly-yet-never-familiar staff at the front desk.
I see Xavier slide the room’s keycards into his calfskin wallet — then he returns. I can still see the flush of our adventure in the limousine on his face, and I smile at the sight of it.
It’s a smile that Xavier does not return.
His face is a sudden impenetrable veil, neither kind nor unkind. He fixes me instead with the dispassionate calm of his thundercloud-colored eyes and lifts a hand, indicating the gleaming row of elevators on the far side of the lobby.
It’s as if I’m with a different person. I feel a pang of doubt. Something is wrong. My certainty of it only continues to grow as we step into an elevator and the doors slide silently shut. Xavier touches the topmost button, and my heart starts to pound again as it illuminates beneath his finger . . . but it’s more from apprehension than excitement now.
I can trust the Xavier I met last night, I think. I can believe in the Xavier I kissed on the roof, even the wild side of him he showed me in the limousine. But this cold stranger in the elevator . . . am I truly ready to give myself to him?
The elevator doors slide open, and we walk side-by-side over the lush carpet of the hallway until we arrive at our room. Xavier checks the room number, reaches into his wallet for a keycard . . .
And hands it to me.
I utterly balk at him. While there’s no denying the feeling of the plastic against my palm, I find myself completely unable to grasp the reality of what it means.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” he says, his voice now strangely formal. “If there’s anything you should need during the night, room service will be more than happy to —”
I can’t believe this. “What!?” I cry, my voice cracking. I’m not precisely sure if it’s anger or sadness I’m feeling, but the quick heat of my own emotions is better than the wall of nothing I’m suddenly getting from Xavier.
I look at him, seething, full in the face. My tears are coming, I can feel them, but I’ve got a few seconds before I break down completely. He’s going to hear this.
“I came all the way across the country for you,” I tell him, my voice a quivering whisper. “I trusted you. In the garden, in the limo. So now what?” A tear of pure disbelief rolls down my cheek and splashes against my dress.
No — not even my dress, I think. His dress.
This has all been about him.
Xavier’s face now looks distorted by the wet cloud of my tears, but I think I see it soften slightly. He closes his eyes, touching the palms of his hands together in a sudden pantomime of prayer, as if trying to summon the correct words from a place divine.
“Please . . . ” he says, his voice quiet yet still powerful. “Please understand. I am a man of . . . so many responsibilities, so many obligations. Not a day goes by that I don’t make more.”
He lets his hands fall to his sides as he opens his eyes once again . . . but he isn’t looking at me. His stare is fixed somewhere in the middle distance, scanning for something known only to him. Somehow his difficulty make
s my anger and frustration fade, just a bit. This is so hard for him, I realize . . . I wipe at my tear-stained face with my wrists, not speaking, just willing him to continue.
“I like to think of myself as a problem-solver,” he says. “A man who can make things, fix things. But people . . . people aren’t problems, they’re not machines . . . ”
His voice is strong yet, but now I can hear the heat of some fierce conflict raging within him. There’s something heavy behind his words. I touch his arm. Whatever he’s thinking, I need to know.
Xavier gives me an impossibly heavy look, then reaches past me to tap the door at my back.
“Whatever is behind this door,” he says, “whatever happens tonight, whatever we do . . . I need to know that I’m not making another problem. For the both of us.”
I get the message then, and it nearly knocks the wind out of me. I lean back into the door for support. There’s a sign nailed firmly to Xavier’s Black’s heart, and it’s now easy to read: No Strings Attached. Whatever dream I’ve been walking in could end at any moment — and he wants me to know it.
And yet . . .
The plastic key I’m holding in my hand is important. It means something.
He’d been ready to leave me alone tonight.
He’s trying to protect me . . . from himself.
Whatever Xavier’s plans had been for this evening, whatever was supposed to come after the cocktails on that laminated schedule he’d sent me . . . something has changed in his master scheme. His chill in the lobby, this hallway confession — none of it was part of his plan. I’m certain of it.
It’s all still scattered . . . but the shape of this reclusive billionaire is beginning to resolve in front of me. The pieces are slowly clicking into place. I very nearly know him now, this Xavier Black, and the sudden realization is pure electricity:
Xavier Black has never been in love.
I see him now for what he is. A neverending loneliness surrounds him like a cloud — a constant dark companion that goes with him each and every day. I sense that I am here to stand between him and it . . . that this grand adventure he’s whisked me into is the closest he has to the connections that form with real relationships. It’s all he has. This is his hell.
I feel his searching eyes on me. There’s a flash of recognition behind his cloud-swept gaze. He knows that I understand him. His hand is once again at my shoulder.
“Veronica,” he says, “do you remember what you told me in the car? About beauty? About that life you want for yourself?”
I nod.
“That’s when I truly understood how special you are. I knew then that all those things you want for yourself . . . I want them for you too. I truly do. But if we go in this room tonight . . . I’m sorry, Veronica. With me, about the future . . . there are no guarantees. I really can’t offer you anything more than a maybe.”
Somehow, in some locked-away part of him . . . he wants this to last.
He wants it to last and he’s afraid that it won’t.
Is that the responsibility that he doesn’t want to shoulder? The thought that we’ll lose each other?
People come to Los Angeles to become people, he’d said . . . and I now know the two things that I need from this city. I need to complete myself. And I need to complete Xavier.
I rest my hand against his chest, looking up at him with eyes of peculiar strength. My tears have stopped and I feel my voice returning to me. It’s surprisingly clear, and when I speak it’s as if I’m hearing myself for the first time:
“I’d like it very much if you came inside, Mr. Black.”
* * *
The room beyond the door nearly takes my breath away. It’s a suite much larger than the apartment I left in Chicago, with vast windows opening out onto a magnificent view of the nighttime cityscape below. There’s a separate living room with a crackling fireplace that ignites at the touch of a silver button, an elegant marble-topped writing desk, and an enormous bathroom with an inviting-looking whirlpool tub.
I get the impression that the bedroom is more than lovely as well, but as I’m already pressed back onto the soft mattress of the room’s four-poster bed, I don’t have much time to drink in anything but the face of Xavier as he stares down at me.
He puts a hand on my chest and pushes me backward with a force that makes me half-breathless. His gaze crashes into mine, and the moment hangs there — it’s as if our spirits are connected by the spell of some strong and invisible thread. Long aching seconds tick by. Neither of us can break free.
His face is taut with gravity; he’s still weighing the implications of a deeper physical relationship. And he knows that I’m a virgin. I’m not afraid of the initial pain, exactly — a run-in with a grade-school jungle gym had taken care of that. Still, the memory of Xavier’s exploring finger in the limousine makes me wonder just how sore I am going to be afterward.
My need, though, cannot be denied. Xavier knows this. “I can’t say this won’t hurt,” he says. “But we’ll go slowly. Slowly, and together.” I bite my lip, nodding.
The strong lines of his face soften a bit. He gives me a kiss then, a gentle one, at the crest of my forehead, then another, and another, his lips slowly working their way to my brow, the bridge of my nose, down at last to meet my own mouth. I drink in the wet electricity of his kiss, and I feel it spark along every facet of my body. His tongue meets my own, and I surrender all, tasting him, willing him to take me.
With serene authority, his experienced hands roam beneath the fabric of my dress. There’s a confidence there, a mastery. He moves them then across the surface of my skin, his touch a bit rougher now, yet not unkind. I put my hands on his powerful forearms, guiding him, the entirety of my form singing with a silent permission.
It is more than that, though — I ache for him, I demand him. A moan of savory pleasure slips from my lips. My mouth forms the shape of his name, again and again and again . . .
Xavier.
Xavier.
Xavier.
He guides my hands to his waist, to the cloth-and-zipper bonds that hold him. I gently caress his stiffening cock lightly and with shaky fingers . . . it’s firm and insistent, tenting the soft cotton weave of his dark pants. The thought of it sends a thrill trilling its way through me — but he is here and I am here and I am somehow unafraid.
He wants me to invite him in, and so I do, my fingertips fumbling just slightly with his unfamiliar zipper and clasp. His erection strains the thin cotton of his briefs, and I hesitate — I don’t want to, but I do. It’s reflexive.
Xavier takes it as an opportunity. His arms are around me in an instant, and he pulls me from the soft surface of the comforter and to his chest with a surprising force. My breath is coming faster now, and I feel my body go just a bit rigid. I can’t help it. I wonder if it isn’t all a bit too quick for comfort . . .
He feels this — feels me — and there is a slight shift in his bearing. He cradles my back with a firm hand, smoothing my hair with the other, bringing his mouth close to my ear:
“Remember: slowly and together,” he whispers. I want him so, so much . . . my arousal earlier was nothing compared to the fire Xavier has started within me. He knows so perfectly what I need, and I find myself yielding to him entirely, as the warmth of his embrace gently quells my shivering.
His fingers find the clasp of my dress, and he undoes it with a deft motion . . . then he’s lifting it lightly, up and over my head, tossing it over the side of the bed. I’m so very aware of his eyes on my body, how they flick their way across my exposed flesh.
I’m his. I’m his and he knows it.
“You’re simply too lovely,” he says. He’s captivated, his voice is ringing with complete and utter conviction. His hands begin again to explore — his fingers dancing across my skin, along my arms and underneath them, over the low padded peaks of my satin-clad chest, down to the soft flesh of my navel, tracing some pattern known only to him. He has the controlled hands of an artis
an.
The whole of my being is in a place beyond amazing, and I feel all my reluctance blend into ecstasy and desire. I find that I simply cannot help myself now . . . I hook a finger between two of his shirt buttons and tug, my naked need completely on display for him.
Xavier immediately understands. In a moment his shirt has joined my dress on the floor, then his pants disappear along with his socks, and then —
Then they are joined by my padded bra.
I close my eyes, suddenly feeling the old emotional wounds, cursing my lack of development, the breasts that never saw fit to arrive. Wondering what he’s thinking, as his eyes take in the barely-there rise of my bosom . . .
But when my lids flutter open to look at him again, there’s no disappointment on Xavier’s face. He smiles, gently.
“Like I said. You’re much too lovely.”
He lowers his mouth to my chest, caressing his lips over the soft contour there, over my now-erect nipples. My lips part at the sensation, whispering for him to give me more, to suckle at them . . . but he only allows me the lightest peppering of his kisses. The sensations go straight to the damp place between my thighs, my desperate ache for him suddenly threatening to consume me.
Some carnal instinct seems to tell Xavier just how very turned on I am for him. “I want you,” he says. “Now. I want you and I’m going to have you.” His powerful hands fly down my body, his fingers slipping around the elastic of my panties. He pulls with a force that makes me gasp, and I quake at the sensuality of cool air on my wet and needy sex.
I moan, caught in a haze of need and want. The control he wordlessly demands — I can feel its insistence throughout me now, making my clit pulse with a naked lust. Any last resistance melts and slips away as I bend to him completely. He is in total control — and I can barely comprehend how very hot that makes me.
He slips his boxers off, and there it is: all I can do is feel the heat rising in my skin as I drink in the the vision of his beautiful cock. He leans down, and I feel the warmth of his breath as his whisper flutters against my ear. “I’m going to fill you, Veronica . . . feel you in a way that no one ever has. I’m going to fuck you and make you my own. I’m going to teach you all the luxuries of your body . . . and when you come for me, you’re going to know, Veronica. You’re going to know what pleasure truly means.”
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