by Claire,Ava
I wet my lips, dropping my eyes to his crotch then worked my way back up to his lips. I waited there, his mouth an erogenous zone that I could explore for days. The curves of it when he gave me a rare full smile. The stern line when he was trying to wrangle his desire and keep a handle on his moans, struggling to not lose control. The tongue that knew how to tease and probe my body until I was a wet mess and completely his. The tense flickers when he gave me orders that weren't to be denied unless I was gunning for punishment.
Now, there was a hint of something on his lips that told me he knew all too well what my answer would be, but he still loved to hear me say it nonetheless.
“You,” I whispered, swimming in his blue eyes. Losing myself in the current of lust that swept through him and knocked all the air from my lungs. “I need you.”
He held my gaze for a few more moments, the warmth in his eyes flickering from a passionate inferno to something gentle. To love.
“And I need you,” he said softly, peeling off his jacket and sliding closer to me, taking in my dress like he couldn't wait to start peeling things off of me. “Have I told you how fucking gorgeous you are tonight?”
I shook my head coyly. “Beautiful, yes. Gorgeous? Nope.”
“That won't do,” he answered, leaning down and slipping my foot in his hand. He massaged my swollen ankle. “These shoes...” He slipped it off and kneaded the sole of my foot and I could have come on the spot it felt so good. He draped my foot across his lap and captured the hem of my dress, fondling the studs as he slipped his fingers beneath and drew it upward, exposing my bare skin. “And this dress...” He left off any descriptors, probably because he was a man and ultimately a dress was just that: a dress. Besides, the predatory gleam in his eye told me he was much more interested in what was beneath the dress.
He paused when he hit my knee, bending my leg and leaning forward to plant a kiss on the peak.
I was holding my breath, barely able to contain myself. Only Jacob could turn hiking my dress up into foreplay. Make me wish we could tell Martin to pull over and grab a coffee so we could take our time.
“And your skin...”
He pushed it over the edge, my dress spilling to my upper thigh. I thanked God that I decided to go with a dark dress with a lining that would hide just how wet he was making me. I wanted to spread my legs and show him. Or better yet, pull my dress off altogether and let him taste my lust. My need.
But he hadn't given me permission.
And I knew, even though my patience was already out the window, that he was steering this and would take me where I needed to go.
His intentions reverberated around us, a low muted, moan that spread my thighs and filled me up like he'd pulled out his thick desire and thrusted deep inside me.
“Lie back,” he told me.
In a haze of need, I obeyed, not even looking behind me to make sure I needed space or wouldn't bang my head on the window. He was on it, pulling out a pillow from a wood grained lined console.
I smiled to myself as he tucked it behind my head. He really had thought of everything.
He eased to the floor of the car, and adjusted my body gently, draping the leg he'd teased over his shoulder and bending the other around him. He was in between my thighs, zeroing in on the part of me that was hot and wet for him. Only a slip of fabric was keeping me from being exposed. I was free to the world and it felt damn good...but not nearly as good as Jacob lifting my hips like I weighed nothing at all and letting out a low grunt of approval when he saw I was going commando.
When he eased forward and blew on my wet, naughty flesh, I couldn't help but let out a coo.
“Oh my god,” I said hoarsely, gripping the leather cushion, glad it was made of hearty stuff because otherwise, my nails would have shredded it to nothing.
His tongue traced one side of me, then the other, and he spread my lips wide and blew again. The wetness that drenched me, combined with the cool gust of air he created, had me twitching, writhing, begging for more.
“Please,” I whined, looking between my legs and seeing dark waves. The crown of his head was the only thing visible because he was a man on a mission.
If that mission was to make me come, he was guaranteed to be successful.
His fingers slipped inside me as he wrapped his lips around my clit and sucked. I tossed my head to and fro. I didn’t know what way was up and down, wasn’t sure how close we were to our destination and I didn’t really care. What I knew, without a shadow a doubt, was that heaven was Jacob's mouth. Forever was his fingers, pumping in and out of me at a frenzied beat as he buried his mouth inside my warmth.
“Yes,” I groaned, holding onto my climax, and my sanity, with both hands. “I am so close.”
He pulled his mouth from me, his eyes wild with need. “Don't tell me, love. Show me.” He dropped his mouth back to my epicenter, swirling his tongue around my clit as he forced a second finger inside me. A third.
I squeezed my eyes shut, the usual stars and sparks of light traded for something else. Behind my eyelids, I saw a future that once upon a time would have seemed so unlikely, so impossible that it was laughable. A happily ever after with the most beautiful man, inside and out, that I'd ever known. A lover that kept me guessing.
And coming.
The eruption started deep inside me. I felt like I would float right off the cushion, right out of the car, and touch the moon. I felt like all the stars in the sky exploded like fireworks, raining down on my trembling body. A supernova that he rode until I stopped shaking.
How I was supposed to move, better yet walk after he turned me inside out was beyond me.
A light flashed on the intercom in the back and Jacob pressed a kiss on my inner thigh before he reached for it.
His voice was husky and thick with sex. “Yes?”
“Sorry to disturb you, sir, but we're about five minutes away from the venue.”
“Thank you, Martin.”
My voice came out in steady gasps as I struggled to sit up and make myself moderately decent. “Just long enough-”
“To make you come at least one more time,” Jacob finished for me, his eyes still voracious. “I'm not done with you yet.”
Chapter Twelve
“So let me get this straight: you and Jacob were...” Megan's jade colored eyes went wide as saucers, like saying that Jacob and I were having sex was just too scandalous.
“No wonder you and my mom get along,” I sighed, deciding I was going to stick with being obtuse and vague from here on out rather than walking on eggshells, terrified that I'd offend someone.
I focused on our mission—finding Megan the sexiest gown for her event. We were spending the day at Margot's on 5th, a consignment shop that boasted the same dresses that celebs found fresh off the runway via their connections, for a fraction of the cost.
Cade had a movie premiering next month called The Eye. New movies meant an excuse to get fancy and drum up support and anticipation for the feature film.
‘The Eye’ was a code name for a covert spy unit within the CIA, and Cade was starring in the thriller as an operative who learns that the unit is being run by men with nefarious intentions and is determined to shut it down, by any means necessary. I'd seen the film, three times, and I knew it was going to be another hit.
I paused when I hit a beaded, strapless black dress. I tugged it off the rack and held it up for her inspection. "What do you think?"
She narrowed her gaze, clearly wise to the fact that I'd changed the subject. She played along briefly, fingering the fabric before she shook her head. “Gorgeous, but it's not the dress, you know?” She nudged me with her hip, steering us back to the lunch date I was officially regretting sharing with her. “Now, back to the baptism lunch and ensuing drama!”
“I regret to inform you that it's not nearly as riveting as you're making it,” I said cryptically. Personally, I was trying to forget about it myself. I wouldn’t have mentioned it if Megan hadn't asked me how i
t went.
After foolishly thinking that it was the prologue to having a real conversation with Alicia, my mother-in-law had set the record straight with a single look. Last night, I'd run into her when I was scouting locations for a reception W&C was hosting for one of our clients. She'd been at the bar alone, nursing a glass of red wine. When I officially apologized for forcing her to listen to her son and I go at it, she'd looked at me with a blank stare, completely void of emotion, and told me not to mention it again.
Ever.
“Hold up, you can't tell me something that big, that juicy, and just pretend it's no biggie,” Megan pressed.
“You're relentless,” I groaned, opting to go to a different rack. Away from her questions. Away from thinking about baptisms and mothers and mother-in-laws. I wanted to enjoy my Saturday, the chill time I'd carved out in between trying to chip away at my task list for the next week. Chill time was officially becoming an unwanted walk down Memory Lane, reminding me that I'd been foolish to think that anything had changed.
Which made me wonder what else I was being foolish about. Like chalking up Angelique's clipped texts and email exchange since our lunch to a busy schedule.
Or wondering if I wasn't taking the text thing seriously enough, and my ‘meh, it's nothing’ approach was gonna bite me in the ass.
“Psst!”
I smiled in spite of myself, knowing full well that the call came from Megan, even though chatter rang out from the other shoppers. For one, the key of annoyance that I was annoyed was one I was familiar with. We'd known each other since college, and had been driving each other crazy ever since. The dead giveaway was the fact that we were surrounded with women either too enlightened to 'psst' or too busy posting their finds on social media.
Megan was holding a rainbow colored monstrosity and wiggling her eyebrows. “What about this one?”
I snatched my hand to my mouth, my eyes bulging in faux wonder.
Oh my God, Meg—I think you found the one!”
A uber fashionable middle aged woman in a bonafide bowler hat, a Beatles t-shirt I bet she bought from someone old enough to truly appreciate the band, and suspenders looked at the dress. She misread our sarcasm for genuine interest and when Megan stuffed it back among the glittery and sequined things, she snatched it up with the hunger of a Black Friday shopper.
Since it appeared that we were off the topic of the past and focused on the task at hand, I ventured back to Megan’s orbit. I paused on a turquoise and black dress with beading that gave off a tie-dye yet elegant vibe.
I pulled it from the sea of choices so she could check it out. Megan thumped her chin with her pointer finger, mulling it over. I had a feeling she wasn't gonna say yes to the dress if it required thorough contemplation, but she gave me a ‘maybe’, draping it over her arm and diving back in.
“By the way, Cade asked me to marry him.”
I stopped browsing, whirling to face her. "Say what?"
She casually flipped her scarlet and gold hair. “Cade asked me to marry him.”
I stuffed the dresses I was going to offer her back onto the rack however I could, earning stink eye from the sales associate. Considering the other patrons were just dropping the things they didn't want on the floor, oblivious or ignoring her altogether, I figured I deserved a little bit of slack.
Apparently not.
I quickly pushed the dresses back and straightened the ones I’d reinserted, then hustled over to where Megan was cycling through dresses like she hadn't just shared huge news.
“What are you doing?” I gaped at her.
She frowned at me like I was the one acting strange. “...Looking for a dress?”
“Megan,” I put my hand on the hangers, stopping the cycle and keeping her from pretending that a proposal was no biggie. “You can not tell me that Cade proposed to you like it's the same as you deciding to get a haircut.”
“Of course not,” she said with an uncomfortable chuckle. “Me getting a haircut would be a big damn deal.”
I slowly retracted my hand, my stomach dropping. What was really up? Clearly they were still a thing if she was on the prowl for a dress for a premiere that was a month out. But the way she was acting, so flippant about something that was a life changing kind of thing, was really bizarre. She was all over me for not divulging that my mother-in-law shared that she overheard me having sex, but she thought it was cool to just shrug about Cade proposing?
“What happened?”
Megan hunched her shoulders. “We were having dinner.” She beamed a little. “I made pot roast.”
Now that really was bizarre. Our culinary skills combined would make anyone seeking an edible dish run for the hills. “You made pot roast?”
She nodded emphatically. “You can figure just about anything out on YouTube.”
“If you say so.” Whenever I tried following videos or good ole fashioned recipes, I still ended up with a frightening, straight-to-the-garbage dish. I was getting pretty good at scrambled eggs though.
“Anyway,” she continued, turning back to the dresses and proving something was awry. “So I made the roast-”
“If you're trying to act like nothing’s wrong, it would be helpful if you at least looked at me while you recount how your boyfriend proposed to you.”
Her sharp gaze almost injured me and a woman beside us pointedly cleared her throat, trying to get her shopping on.
I was stepping on everybody's toes today.
“You are blowing this whole thing way out of proportion,” she told me, her face turning as red as her hair. “And when you hear the story, you're gonna laugh, believe me.”
I had my doubts, but I decided to stop being so combative and let her tell it how she wanted to tell it. She steered us out of the danger zone, a growing number of women reaching around us to get to their bargain deals. In a minute, someone would probably just bump me out of the way, pregnant or not.
There was an empty chair near the dressing room and Megan scowled at another woman who almost dashed in front of us to take it.
She waited for me to sit down, then leaned against the beam beside it. “After I blew his mind with my awesome skills, he said, ‘think we should get married?’.”
My eyes almost fell out of my head.
I reached for her, to show my support, to let her know that I was here, but she playfully dodged me.
“You're not laughing, Leila!” she exclaimed.
I twisted my mouth to the side, my heart aching because she’d shared fantasies of candlelit dinners and grand gestures when the right guy popped the question. I also knew the question she was hoping for was closer to ‘will you marry me?’, not some noncommittal thing tossed around like it was something to be checked off the list.
I was aware of Cade's history: he was a vet with unresolved guilt about his service and infidelities abroad. When he lost his wife, he blamed himself. I thought that love helped him heal. I'd seen the way Megan and Cade were together; the glow and chemistry they had lit up every room they walked into. That he'd propose to her so flippantly just didn't fit—and neither did Megan neglecting to tell me that he asked to marry her.
Call me a hopeless romantic, but when a man wants asks if you want to spend the rest of your life with him, he shouldn't pose it as a question, like he's waiting for feedback. He should stake his claim to your heart, show you that he's ready to invest in the relationship. In the future.
Megan deserved that.
I scanned her face, knowing something was amiss and she confirmed it when her pale brows arched expectantly. I waited for her to say something along the lines of, 'Crazy, right? This is how this whole thing really makes me feel’ or 'I asked him if he was suffering from a concussion from some stunt or if he'd just lost his mind proposing to me like that'.
Instead, I got another bewildering statement from my best friend.
“You're not laughing.”
I knew it was important to choose my words wisely despite the fact my kne
e jerk reaction was to ask if she'd lost her mind.
I drew a mindful breath through my clenched teeth. “I'm not laughing because what you just told me isn't funny.” I pulled out my phone, ready to call up Dr. Google. “Are you in shock?” Another thought crept in and if my heart sank any lower, it would be thumping in my shoes. “Are you okay? Like, really okay? Because the Megan I know wouldn't find any of this amusing, either.”
She held onto the charade for a few more minutes, picking at a thread on her blouse. When she dropped her arms to her side and let out a weary sigh, I knew I was about to get the real story.
“Leila?”
I recognized the smoky voice instantly, but had to see it with my own eyes, just to be sure.
My eyes didn’t lie.
It was Angelique.
She was standing a few feet away, holding a sunflower yellow dress and the friendly smile she'd worn when she'd snuck up to the executive floor.
I braced myself on the arms of the chair, preparing to stand, but she rushed over, tossing her dress at Megan and sitting me back down.
“Please don't stand on my account!” she said quickly, her eyes rounding with worry. She flicked her blue opals at Megan, the warmth draining from her eyes. “You're her friend, shouldn't you be making sure she's taking it easy?”
“I am her friend,” Megan bristled, tossing Angelique's dress in the go-back bin. “Who are you?”
Megan righted herself and relief flooded me when she all but bared her fangs, giving me a sign that Megan, my badass and confident bestie, was here to stay.
“I am Angelique Entoine,” Ang replied curtly. Once the whispers started up and a cluster of women who knew exactly who she was gathered, she raised her chin, too.
Megan didn't bat an eye, but I did...especially when I realized the paparazzi were hot on Angelique's trail and were snapping pictures out on the sidewalk.