“I do smile. In fact, I think I’ve probably smiled at you a dozen times since we sat down,” she countered.
Jason Miller shook his head. “I’d like to keep my money invested with you, Tracy. But I’d much rather take you out to dinner.”
It was the first time he’d ever used her first name. And it made all the difference in the world. Suddenly he seemed like a genuine . . . possibility. She rewarded him with one more smile.
Brendan was upstairs in the kitchen when she let herself in, and looked over the railing down at her as she entered.
“Hey!”
Tracy waved up at him,
“Happy Friday,” she said.
“Friday is when the work begins at Lounge Two-Twelve though,” he called back. “You want to come with me tonight?”
“Maybe. I’d need to go back to Brooklyn to get something nice to wear though.”
“What?” he called down as though he hadn’t heard her.
“I’m coming up.” Tracy went to join him in the kitchen.
He was standing by the refrigerator, wearing sweats and a t-shirt, drinking Vitamin water. He’d finally given up on the argument against her stocking it up, so inside there was fruit, veggies, meat for the breakfast sandwiches she made him almost every morning, juice, eggs and cheeses.
“I said I would have to go back to Brooklyn to get something to wear if I’m coming to the Lounge with you.”
“Not worth it,” Brendan said. “Go buy something new. And the next time you go to Brooklyn bring back some stuff to leave here.”
He said it so casually, like it was just a common-sense solution, that she almost missed its significance. Brendan was inviting her to leave clothes at his apartment? The key was one thing, this was one step even further. This was the step just before moving in.
“You have no room for me,” she said quietly, sitting on one of the breakfast bar stools.
Brendan came over and grabbed her about the waist, planting a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll make room.”
Tracy’s heart thundered in her chest.
Oh God, why did she want this?
She couldn’t stop to dissect it right now, but she really, really wanted this. And what was worse, she couldn’t remember ever having been with a man who she wanted to spend as much time with as she did with Brendan. For most of her adult life, she’d been convinced she wasn’t the relationship type, because she was always eager to be rid of the men she was sleeping with after the sex was done.
And once she realized that she did want a relationship, she was frustrated that no one came along who measured up, who made her . . . crave him. A couple of men lasted a month or two but when they were gone, their absence barely registered. In one case, she recalled feeling nothing but relief at the affair’s end. Just her luck that she would find someone she did crave, but who might not even be real relationship material. Although lately, her reasons for thinking that in the first place were beginning to seem so obscure she could hardly recall what they had been.
“If I go shopping for something for tonight, will you come with me?” Tracy asked.
Brendan looked at her. “Ahm, no. I’m about to pick up a basketball game downtown.”
Well, thank God. Because at least now she knew he wasn’t perfect or anything.
Brendan was back from his basketball game by eight and they lazed around on his bed channel-surfing and eating a light supper Tracy picked up from Zabar’s of seafood salad and basil bruschetta. Even as she enjoyed it, she felt almost outside of herself, watching the comfortable domestic scene of a couple in bed, and scarcely believing that the calm and content woman who was one half of that couple was she. Even the crumbs that Brendan managed to scatter all over the Egyptian cotton sheets did nothing dampen her mood. The few quiet hours they spent together until it was time to leave for the club were enough to make her night, no matter what happened once they got there.
Tracy’s quick shopping trip had yielded an inexpensive but chic Michael Kors Ikat-print mini dress with a cowl neck and cut-out sleeves, and a pair of black heels while Brendan wore navy pants and black dress shirt. He was handsome in dark colors, Tracy noted and shocked herself when it sprang to mind that next time she went shopping she might pick him up a shirt she’d admired in a store window earlier that evening.
Just as they were about to walk out the door, Tracy remembered she’d left her phone in the kitchen and ran back upstairs to grab it. On her way back down, Brendan, waiting at the foot of the circular staircase, watched her descent.
“You’re looking up my dress,” she sang, enjoying the clear appreciation on his face of the view.
“Except I can’t tell if you’re wearing underwear,” he said wrinkling his brow.
“I don’t always,” she shrugged.
She was almost at the bottom when he stopped her with a hand on her thigh. Just one step shy of having her pelvis directly in line with his face, Tracy could feel the pace of her breathing increase almost immediately. His touch did it, every single time, so much so that Tracy was sure if someone hooked her up to an EKG machine, the damn thing would go crazy.
Brendan slid his hand slowly northward, his fingers lightly caressing the smooth skin of her inner thighs. His eyes never left hers as he hooked a finger at the crotch of her thongs, briefly and just barely brushing her clitoris as he did.
“This doesn’t qualify as underwear,” he said.”This is just a torture device.”
“It’s not torture at all,” Tracy said, struggling to keep her voice even. “It’s actually surprisingly comfortable.”
“I meant that it tortures me,” he said and in one quick motion he yanked it sharply down and away with a flourish, like a magician performing a disappearing trick. His movement was so sharp, the strings on the side simply snapped, but not before chafing her hip.
“Ouch, Brendan!” she said.
He held up her now-shredded panties. “Useless,” he said, letting them drop from his fingers and onto the step closest to the bottom. Then he ran his open palm across her lower abdomen.
“Where does it hurt?” he said. “Show me.”
Tracy thought she would pass out just from how freakin’ hot his voice made her. She put a hand down to her hip and over the fabric of her dress rubbing the sore spot.
“No,” Brendan said, a smile playing about his lips. “Touch it. Show me.”
Her breaths were short and shallow now, like she was having trouble getting air to her lungs, and when she looked at him, it got even worse. Brendan took her hand and put it under her dress so she was touching her skin directly.
“Right here?” he used her hand to rub a spot near her hipbone.
Tracy shook her head.
“Here?” he moved her hand lower.
Tracy shook her head again and he smiled a slow, sexy smile.
“So . . .” he said, “where exactly does it hurt?”
Tracy moved her hand, still under his, so that it was directly over her mons.
“Maybe I should kiss it and make it better,” he said.
And before she knew what was happening he had grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up one step higher and raised the skirt of her dress, putting his head under it.
Brendan was shrouded by her skirt so that when she looked down, all Tracy saw was the mound that was his head, moving back and forth. But she felt him; god did she ever. He had captured her clitoris between his lips and was gently working it with just the tip of his tongue, making her feel as though she would dissolve into a pool of warm liquid at his feet.
With each licking and suckling motion he made, his head bobbed and her knees threatened to buckle under her, so she gripped the stair railings, hanging on for dear life, which was just as well since Brendan had put his hands on her inner thighs and was spreading her, burrowing closer as he took more and more of her into his mouth.
Tracy felt her hips beginning to buck uncontrollably against him, and he moved his hands, palming her buttocks and ho
lding her against him so she couldn’t escape if she wanted to. He held her there, his tongue lashing against her, his lips simultaneously sucking, and just when she thought her heart might literally stop from the intensity of it, Tracy cried out his name. Still, he didn’t stop, though he slowed a little, lessening the pressure, the strokes more delicate until she came down from the crest of her climax and could feel sensation in her legs once again.
After a moment, he lifted her skirt and using the hem, dabbed his mouth like someone in a fine dining establishment and licked his lips.
“Wow,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady. “It was hot under there.”
Tracy looked at him, and using the hem of her dress as he had, dabbed away a few tiny beads of perspiration that had formed on his forehead. Holding her by the waist once again, lifted her off the staircase and deposited her on the floor next to him, but not before pausing to kiss her briefly on the lips. She looked up at him and something deep in her chest, literally ached. Breaking eye contact because it was just too intense, she noticed for the first time the protrusion in Brendan’s slacks and looked back up at him.
“Oh no,” he laughed pulling away as she reached for him. “If we go there, we won’t ever get out of here tonight and as much I’d rather stay here, I need to go. Our PR people invited a bunch of bloggers to come check the Lounge out.”
“Well you can’t very well walk out of the building like that.” Tracy said smiling.
“I’ll concentrate,” Brendan said.”It’ll go down by the time the elevator hits the ground floor. ‘Cause I’ma Jedi mind-trick it.”
Tracy rolled her eyes. “Okay, why don’t you start on that while I go put on some underwear?” she said.
“No. No underwear. I want you just like you are. Raw, and wet.”
Tracy’s eyes opened wide for an instant, wondering whether she would ever get used to him saying things like that.
The rational part of her knew that Brendan was just that kind of guy who people were drawn to. Men wanted to hang out with him and be his friend, and women wanted to . . . be much more than that. It was obvious from the way they exploited his basic touchy-feely nature. He was the kind of guy who hugged you when he greeted you, who touched you, or nudged you, or took the fabric of your blouse between his fingers and tested the texture when he talked to you. And some women misinterpreted that. They got a bright, glittery look in their eyes and played with their hair, lengthened their neck, straightened their backs to showcase their chest, and worst of all, they touched him back.
After what happened on the staircase at the apartment, Tracy should have been mellower and more tolerant but far from it, she was tense, overexcited, and felt incomplete. She still needed to feel Brendan inside her. So she was stuck here, wanting him still and having to watch these bitches crawl all over her man. Okay, so he wasn’t technically her man, but dammit, he was her man.
Coming to the Lounge had been a blunder on her part. This only made sense if the goal was to drive herself crazy with jealousy. She had never come with him before when he was working and as long as he came home afterwards, hadn’t spared a thought about what it was like for him in the club, surrounded by scantily-clad women who mistook his natural friendliness for interest in their skanky asses. Now she would never be able to let him go alone again. If she did, her imagination would run wild, so she may as well be there to see with her own eyes what she was imagining anyway.
And to make matters worse, she was going to be forced to pretend it all didn’t bother her because if she breathed a word of complaint, Brendan would tell her she was “trippin’ again.” But who wouldn’t trip? She made a mental note to ask Riley to send Shawn to the club more often. It wasn’t fair that Brendan was carrying more of the burden for managing what was supposed to be a joint venture, after all.
Tracy leaned forward a little from her vantage point in one of the semi-private VIP areas and watched as Brendan grinned one of his signature grins at some woman in a white bodysuit. Anyone who wore a white bodysuit in a club that had black lighting was just an exhibitionist plain and simple, because everyone knew that the black lights made lighter colors glow. She sighed and leaned back in her seat so Brendan and the tramp in white were out of view once again.
What seemed like a long while later he came back to her, and Tracy smiled blandly at him. After pulling the gauze curtain to close off their sitting area, he collapsed next to her on the sofa. After a moment he slid his hand along her leg and Tracy clamped her thighs shut.
“Uh oh,” Brendan said leaning back. “What did I do now?”
“Nothing,” Tracy said. She reached for her glass of champagne.
“You sure?” Brendan asked, leaning into her line of sight.
“Positive,” she said, taking a sip and avoiding looking him in the eye.
“Okay, nothing’s wrong,” Brendan said, nodding his head thoughtfully. “So if I wanted to do something to fix the ‘nothing’ that’s wrong—hypothetically speaking of course—what would I have to do?”
Tracy tried, but couldn’t prevent herself from smiling. No one made her smile this much, or laugh as hard. No one made her feel as good as he did, or as bad as he could, or as beautiful, or as sexy, or as angry, or as jealous, or as alive. Or as completely herself. Ah, to be herself with a man—what a revolutionary notion.
Sensing that she was somewhere else, Brendan leaned closer.
“Huh? What can I do to fix it? Hypothetically.”
“If something were wrong,” Tracy said, playing along, “you could, hypothetically, kiss me. Maybe that would make me feel better. If something were wrong, that is.”
Brendan smiled and leaned in, brushing his lips lightly against hers and nuzzling her nose with his. When Tracy leaned forward to make contact with his lips again, he leaned just out of her reach.
“It’s a good thing then,” he said, “that nothing’s wrong.”
Tracy reached for him, putting a hand at the back of his neck and pulled him toward her. His lips opened for her and she slipped her tongue into his mouth, kissing him almost desperately. As he always did when she got this way, and maybe because he knew it would drive her crazy and make her want him even more, Brendan pulled back and slowed things down, taking his own sweet time exploring her, his hand lightly caressing her hip. When he moved his hand around, and down between her legs, this time she opened up for him without hesitation.
“Whoa. Better stop,” he said against her lips. “In a few minutes I might not be able to. And I still have some celebrity website bloggers to entertain.”
He stood and pulled her up, leading her out of the VIP area.
“C’mon, I want to show you off,” he said against her ear. “You’re the most beautiful woman in here, Tracy. I want everyone to know you’re with me.”
Somehow, he managed to pretend her neurotic insecurities were neither neurotic nor insecure. He never tired of it, and she wondered sadly how long that would last. A thought flitted through her mind and was gone in an instant, that maybe it wasn’t Brendan who was not good enough for her; it was she who was not good enough for him.
The Lounge had filled up nicely in the time since they’d gotten there, and Brendan continued to play the perfect host, but this time kept a firm grip on Tracy’s hand as he made his rounds. When he introduced her, he only told people her name, and didn’t clarify the nature of their relationship in any way which made Tracy strangely disappointed, even though she wasn’t sure what she would have had him say. Still, to even the casual observer, it would be obvious that they were together and that was good enough for now.
When one of his conversations, with the blogger from CelebHotSpot.com began to exceed her attention-span, Tracy pulled her hand out of his to head for the bar. To her surprise, Brendan excused himself and turned to her.
“You okay? Where you going?”
“To get a drink. You stay here,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I’ll come find you in a few.”
He nodded and tu
rned back to his conversation and Tracy smiled as she walked away.
See? Women were easy, really, she thought. All we need is a little acknowledgment sometimes.
She was fairly certain that she would be able to make it through the rest of the evening without getting irritated when women got pushy with Brendan again. Because now, you would have to be an idiot not to have seen that Brendan was most decidedly taken.
The bar was crowded, but one of the bartenders who Tracy thought might even be the young woman who had served her and Brendan on the launch night, approached her right away and took her order for a Two-Twelve martini, which had a fruity taste that Tracy was still trying to identify. When she tried to pay for her drink, the young woman smiled.
“No charge,” she said. “Earlier this evening Mr. Cole told me to make sure I take care of whatever you might need.”
“Thank you,” Tracy smiled.
She stood by the bar sipping her drink, taking everything in, including more than a few celebrities and a couple of radio deejays she recognized from posters around the city. There were even a few professional athletes among the crowd. If this was representative of the average Friday night, Tracy had no doubt the club was going to be a huge success, something that was no longer a foregone conclusion just because the owner was a celebrity like Shawn.
And Brendan was of course a natural at making people feel welcome. Watching him greet someone else who had joined his conversation with the blogger, she felt something suspiciously like pride. Tracy had never thought much about how good he might or might not have been at his job, but seeing him in action now, she could only imagine how essential he had been to smooth over the rough patches and run interference when managing someone as moody as Shawn. She made a mental note to begin telling her clients about the Lounge; something she often did with restaurants and nightspots around town that she liked and could vouch for.
“I don’t recall putting that sweet of a smile on your face,” someone said close to her ear.
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