He smiled when he saw me, and despite my nerves I did an admirable job of smiling back.
“You look very handsome in a jacket,” he said casually.
“So do you. Not that I’ve ever seen you in anything but a jacket.” Suddenly I thought that sounded weird, as though I desperately wanted to see him naked. Which I kinda did, but he didn’t need to know that. In a panic, I managed to completely overcompensate. “Not that I’m asking you to take your jacket off. In fact, you can keep it on for as long as possible. Or not. I mean, if you wanted to take it off I’d be more than happy with that too. Well, not more than happy. Just normally happy. Like a normal person. Everything about me is… normal. Very, very… normal.”
All I could think to myself at that moment was—Ah, so that’s what a babbling village idiot sounds like.
Cal simply said, “Perhaps we should just get in the car?”
“Good idea.”
“After you.”
I had never been inside a limousine before. It was bigger than my bedroom, low and squeaky with leather, with nightclub lighting and tinted windows. I wasn’t sure whether to feel like a high-powered politician, a Hollywood star or a very well-paid prostitute. I felt like all three rolled into one when Cal popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and poured us each a glass.
“Cheers,” he said, handing me my glass and clinking it with his own. “This is to show my eternal appreciation for what you did yesterday.”
“Thanks, but like I said, I don’t feel particularly deserving of anything. Let alone the bike. And the champagne. And the limo ride.”
“Is it too much? The limo, I mean. I hate the disco lights. I feel like I’m on stage with the Village People.”
His comment made me grin. “Singing what, exactly? YMCA or Macho Man?”
He laughed. “To be honest, I’m more of a Can’t Stop the Music kinda guy. Nobody can take the spark from love…”
“…Or make the rain fall up,” I added.
We clinked our glasses together again.
In that moment I thought to myself, maybe Mrs. Mulroney was right. Maybe I’d enjoy getting to know Calvin Croft after all.
* * *
Despite the exquisite views, the lavish décor, the gold-plated dinner settings and the abundance of staff on hand, the restaurant that Cal took me to couldn’t have been that great, given the fact that apart from us and the wait staff, the entire place was deserted. At least that’s what I thought.
He obviously saw the dubious look on my face as we were seated, as he leaned over and whispered to me, “Don’t worry, the food here is great. It’s normally packed.”
“Where is everyone?”
“I might have mentioned to you before, I don’t really like the spotlight. People tend to stare or point or ask me for advice about their offshore investment funds.”
As a waiter poured two glasses of champagne, the penny dropped in my head. “You mean… you booked out this entire place? Just for us?”
“It wasn’t that big a deal. The owner doesn’t mind at all.”
Another penny dropped. I hoped he couldn’t hear them rattling and rolling around my empty skull by now. “Oh wow. You own this place, don’t you?”
“It’s really just a tax right-off. And great for an after-midnight snack and a nice bottle of merlot when everyone’s gone home.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, just how rich are you?”
He shrugged coyly. “That depends on your definition of rich… I guess.”
“Cuban-cigar rich?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Miami-beachfront-mansion rich?”
“I don’t do drugs.”
“Learjet rich?”
He paused a moment. “Are you talking just one or a whole fleet?”
My eyes turned to saucers. “Oh my God, you have a whole fleet?”
Cal cracked up laughing. “I’m just kidding. I don’t have a fleet of Learjets.” He took a sip of his champagne then added, “Just the one.”
“Are you serious? I can’t afford to upsize my popcorn at the movies. How the hell does someone get Learjet rich? I really wanna know.”
“I wasn’t born rich. My father was a mechanic in Brooklyn and my mother, well, she left us a year after I was born. I guess she wanted a life for herself that we just couldn’t give her. My dad was a good person, but he had it kinda hard. He tried to look after us as best he could, not that he could cook or anything. We lived off a lot of Chinese takeout. Sometimes he’d get mad. Like I mean, really mad. But who could blame him? I guess he was just angry at life, so I kept out of his way as much as I could. I didn’t have a lot of structure in my life, but I found some sort of order in numbers. I clicked with numbers. I worked a paper route for twelve years and saved enough money to start buying shares when I was old enough. It turned out to be something I was good at. One thing led to another and… here we are.”
“Wow. You did good. But I get the feeling that’s the short version.”
“The rest is a very long and boring story, trust me. So, tell me about you. Do you have any family here in New York?”
“Just my crazy neighbors,” I told him. “My parents both died of cancer when I was in my early twenties. One straight after the other, like their bodies just knew they couldn’t live without each other. In a weird way, I always thought of it as romantic.”
“Is that what you write? Romance novels?”
“What makes you say that?”
“You’re a writer, yes?”
“I try to be. Most days, at least. How do you know?”
“I saw the typewriter in your apartment last night. And a piece of paper with the words Chapter One typed at the top. How’s that going?”
“Well, I’ve written Chapter One.”
“You finished a whole chapter this morning?”
“No, I mean, I’ve written the words Chapter and One. It’s a slow process.”
“I can’t imagine… how amazing it must be to write a whole book. To hold something in your hand and say, ‘I created this. Every word of it.’ That must be a thing of awe.”
Hearing it from him, hearing the genuine respect in his voice, I fleetingly recalled the first time I ever held one of my own books in my hand. And yes, it was a thing of awe. I took a deep breath. Calvin Croft had just done something I hadn’t managed to do for a very long time.
He made me feel like I had achieved something with my life.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
“For the shot of self-esteem you just jabbed into my arm. Compliments like that are like a flu shot. They stop you from curling up in a ball under a blanket and blowing your nose into tissues that have been recycled way too many times.”
Cal was in the middle of a sip of his champagne and some of it fizzed back into the glass as he chuckled at my joke. I thought he was going to reach for his napkin to wipe his mouth, but instead he used the back of his hand.
I watched as miniscule bubbles of champagne popped against the hairs on his hand, and my heart started pounding against my chest.
“You make me laugh,” he said once he’d composed himself. A waiter approached the table, and Cal asked me, “Is there anything you don’t eat? Do you mind if I order for you?”
Order for me?
Nobody had ever ordered for me before.
Except that one night when I turned up at Johnny Kwong’s Takeout so inebriated after a date from hell that the kid behind the counter couldn’t understand what I was ordering and ended up giving me whatever orders were left over from the night before. But I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count.
No, this… this was a gesture of chivalry.
This was the offer of true gentleman.
This was someone who wanted to impress.
At that moment, I think a shimmering four-carat gemstone of pre-cum made an appearance in my briefs.
“Please, order away,” was all I could say without choking on my own s
aliva.
Cal didn’t have to look at the menu. He smiled at the waiter and said, “We’ll both have the seared Tasmanian scallops on the shell to begin with, thank you Gerard. After that, Mr. Darcy will have the lamb rack, medium rare, and I’ll take the mushroom risotto. And oh, for dessert, we’ll try the honeycomb cheesecake with fresh blueberries. Just one plate… with two dessert forks please.”
I held my breath and considered opening a jewelry store in my underwear.
“Does that sound all right?” he asked me before Gerard left us.
“Yes,” I nodded emphatically. “It sounds delicious. Thank you. You know, it’s not every day I get to meet someone like you.”
“How so?”
“Well, you’re a billionaire. I’ve never met a billionaire before.”
“There’s more to me than just my money. Besides, it’s not every day I get to meet someone like you. It’s not an easy thing to do.”
“I know, my schedule is packed. You’re lucky I could squeeze this lunch in today.”
“I’m serious,” he laughed. “Everyone I meet is… I dunno… rich.”
I nodded. “I think all of my rich friends suck too. Can’t stand them.”
He was still smiling. “But you… you’re not obsessed with million-dollar mergers and Swiss bank accounts and always being seen in the right circles. You’re someone who doesn’t care about that stuff. You’re someone who’s just… real.”
Damn that handsome billionaire knew how to turn on the charm. “You certainly know how to make an impression, Calvin Croft.”
“A good one, I hope.”
“So far so good. Although initially I wasn’t quite sure what to make of you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, you were certainly dashing, that was obvious. And clearly you have absolutely no road sense whatsoever. But it was the very first thing you said to me that set the scene for intrigue.”
“What did I say?”
“You said, ‘Your life is about to change forever’.”
Cal seemed surprised. “I said that? Out loud?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I remember reading the text.”
“That was from a text message?”
From the look on his face, Cal realized that he wasn’t making a whole lot of sense at that stage. “Every morning I get some crazy message of wisdom and fortune from my…” He suddenly paused and hesitated a moment before saying, “…roommate. I get text messages from my roommate.”
“You have a roommate?”
“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly.
“A roommate who sends you random messages from the cosmos?”
“They’re not really from the cosmos. It’s more like he’s trying to send me good vibes or helpful hints. They’re not all deep and meaningful. Today’s message said, ‘Don’t pat alligators on the nose unless you want to lose an arm.’”
“Odd but undeniably sound advice.” I paused, then added, “Why do you have a roommate? It’s not like you need help paying the rent.”
I tried not to sound like I was puzzled. I tried not to sound like I was prying. Most of all, I tried not to sound like I was being petty. Apparently, it didn’t work.
“Forget it. Please, forget I even mentioned it. Besides, he hates people talking about him. It’s rude of me, I shouldn’t have brought it up. Let’s change the subject.”
I suddenly felt like an idiot and did as he suggested immediately.
“So… seared scallops. All the way from Tasmania. I’ve always wanted to visit New Zealand.”
He eyed me with a curious smirk, trying to figure out if I was joking.
“I’m kidding.” I said. “Of course, I know Tasmania is an island off the coast of South Africa. Uninhabitable, I hear. On account of all those Tasmanian Devils spinning around, tearing the place up.”
He laughed out loud.
A moment later the scallops arrived.
Over food we chatted, getting to know each other a little better, just like Mrs. Mulroney said.
We talked about the places we loved to go and hide in plain view in bustling, hustling Manhattan. I told him how I had a weakness for climbing unsecured fire escapes to the top of random buildings where I’d sit in the shade of a water tower and plot novels I might never write.
“Some people might call that trespassing,” Cal grinned.
“I prefer to call it inspiring.”
He told me how he loved hiding out in the Guggenheim, staring at the works of art on the spiral walls for hours until he reached the bottom of the gallery’s viewing ramp. After that he’d catch the elevator all the way back to the top and start over again.
“Once I’m done there, I head down to the Met and visit the Temple of Dendur in the Ancient Egyptian gallery. I try to picture myself in another place and another time, where the sand and wind try in vain to wear down the stones of the temple.” He took a sip of wine he had ordered for the both of us from the restaurant cellar. “After that, I stroll through the park till I reach Strawberry Fields on the Upper West Side. I can sit on a park bench and listen to the buskers sing Imagine for hours. There I’m just another anonymous soul amid the tourists and travelers. They don’t know me and I don’t know them, and we like it that way.”
“You really do know how to lose yourself.”
“I need to. If I didn’t lose myself every now and then, I think I’d lose my mind.”
After I ate my lamb rack with a side of poached asparagus and he devoured his risotto like a growing teenager, we talked about places in the world we’d love to go. I thought no doubt he had seen every corner of the globe, but he told me that apart from business trips to the Middle East and Europe, there were countless other places he dreamed to visit.
“I’ve never been to the Amazon,” he said. “I’d love to just get lost in the rainforest and find myself on a trip in a canoe down the Amazon.”
“Why don’t you do it? You’ve got the money to go anywhere you like.”
“I have… responsibilities.”
“Your business empire.”
“There’s that. What about you? Where do you wanna go more than any other place in the world?”
A sigh accompanied my smile. “I have this dream of standing on the Spanish Steps in Rome with someone… special. All those flowers, all those colors, all those lovers falling in love.”
“So, you do write romance novels,” he smiled like a detective who had just cracked a case.
As a single serving of dessert arrived with two forks, I wondered for a fleeting, fanciful moment whether or not I was living a romance novel right then and there, or just stuck in a happy dream that I didn’t want to end.
Was I falling in love here?
The evidence was indeed mounting, particularly since love’s dark nemesis jealousy was still threatening to rear its ugly green head after the mention of a roommate.
I’d never thought of myself as the jealous type.
But maybe that’s because I’d never met someone like Cal.
With a smile, he handed me a small silver fork. He even offered me first bite of what was possibly the most divine cheesecake I’d ever tasted.
“How is it?” he asked.
“Too good to be true,” I sighed.
When Gerard the waiter came to take our empty plate, Cal said, “Please tell Chef Curtis that lunch was simply superb.”
“I’m glad you and your guest enjoyed it, Mr. Croft.”
“Can you please ask Maurice to bring the car around front?”
“Why of course, Mr. Croft.”
Gerard left us and Cal looked at me. “You know, I could cancel all my meetings for the rest of the afternoon and take you to the Guggenheim where we can hide out together.”
“Or you can come back to my place and fuck my brains out.”
At first, I thought maybe I just said those in my head because it was what I really, really wanted to say.
I expected the actual word
s to come out of my mouth to be much more polite and well-mannered.
But no, without realizing it, I had just asked a billionaire to fuck my brains out.
“Oh God, did I really just say that?” I breathed, utterly mortified. “Oh fuck! I’m so sorry! Oh God, please don’t think I’m a slut for saying that.”
A wide, boyish grin spread across his face. “Please don’t think I’m a slut for saying, ‘Hell yeah!’”
Suddenly Cal launched himself out of his seat so fast he bumped the table and almost knocked it over. He took my hand, pulled me to my feet and said, “We’ll do round two at your place. But we have to get there first.”
I almost creamed my pants right there and then. “What are you saying?” I gulped.
He grinned again. “Have you ever done it in the back of a limo?”
* * *
According to Cal, the black-tinted screen between Maurice, the chauffeur, and the back of the limo was completely soundproof. This made me happy for a number of reasons. Firstly, while getting a blowjob from a handsome billionaire might have ranked reasonably high on my wish-list to Santa, being watched through the rearview mirror by an elderly gentleman in a chauffeur’s hat was not something I needed to cross off my bucket list. Secondly, I didn’t need anyone witnessing the acrobatics that were about to take place. Up until that moment, I had no idea how slippery leather limo seats actually were, and while Cal was busy with his head between my legs, I was busy gripping onto seatbelts and coat hooks and armrests desperately trying to stop myself from sliding around like a pound of butter on a hot skillet with every turn the limo took.
Within seconds of us getting into the limo, Cal had managed to unbuckle my belt, unzip my trousers and yank my underwear down to my ankles.
My cock was obviously in a state that needed sucking, and Cal wasted no time getting to work on it, his welcoming lips and warm mouth enough for my eyes to roll instantly into the back of my head.
The flicking of his tongue against the slit of my cock, the thrust and bob of his head up and down my shaft, the brush of his beard against my balls all made me catch my breath.
“Oh God, yes,” I begged for more.
That’s when the limo took the first turn and my bare ass slid to the left.
The Billionaire's Boyfriend Page 4