by Penny Wylder
It seems almost strange, how my life has changed in less than a month. I was broke and about to be evicted, and now I’m working for one of the most famous designers in the world. “This is crazy.”
“A little,” May says, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiles. “But a good kind of crazy, I hope.”
“Definitely,” Fleece says, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the door.
I twist around to wave. “See you later, May!”
We pile into the big black car waiting outside, breathless and giggling. I feel like Cinderella going to the ball, only better because I know that this won’t evaporate at midnight.
“So,” Fleece says, giving me a look. “What are you going to do tonight?”
“I’m going to drink and dance, but I’m assuming from that look that’s not what you’re talking about?”
She shakes her head. “No. I mean about Andrew.” She mouths the last two words.
I shrug, swimming in my own imagined fantasies and trying to resist the sting of disappointment that they won’t become real. “What can I do? He doesn’t want me that way.”
Fleece snorts. “My ass. He dressed you like that.”
“I have to be dressed well,” I say, “he knows people will be watching me because of the shows.” I lower my breath so that the driver can’t hear. “I practically threw myself at him during the last show, and afterwards he avoided me. So clearly, that is going to be that.”
The look on her face says that she still doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t argue. The car pulls up to a gorgeous building in midtown, and there’s a huge crowd of people outside. Along with a real-life red carpet. “Oh shit.”
“You didn’t realize this would be part of it, did you?” Fleece is trying to hold in her laughter.
“Don’t mock me,” I say, even though I’m smiling.
She grabs my hand. “I would never. But you are adorable. Just a few poses and they’ll let you go. Come on.”
The flashes when I exit the car are blinding. Shouts of my name and questions that range from the most innocent of ‘what’s your favorite color?’ to racier things like ‘do you like to be on top?’ echo around me as I walk toward the entrance. I follow Fleece as she breezes down the carpet, and follow her lead. I stop, pose for the cameras, even though I don’t really have a clue what I’m doing. For the hundredth time in the last month, I ask myself what the hell I’m doing here. The photographers seem happy though, so I must be doing something right.
It takes longer than I expect to make it all the way down the carpet, but I do, and Fleece is waiting for me. She loops her arm through mine, and together we walk into what I think must be a wonderland.
8
Never in my life have I seen anything like this. There’s not one theme, there’s ten, or so it seems. The only thing that connects everything is ‘excess.’ In the main room, fabric cascades from the walls like a circus tent and aerialists swirl above our heads. Lights pulse and the bass of music thrums through my chest. Another room looks like it landed from the future, metal and chrome and what seems like a thousand computer screens playing different music videos and fashion ads. Everywhere I look there’s glitz and glitter, drinks, and people in gorgeous clothes. It’s more than overwhelming.
Fleece, however, is totally in her element. She’s chatting with people she knows, model friends and people she’s met on jobs. It’s really too bad that Andrew generally doesn’t hire models with her look because this feels like it was meant for her, not me.
A hand lands gently on my shoulder and I jump, turning to find Andrew behind me. “Mr. Xellum,” I say. Damn. He looks hot all the time, but just the sight sends a thrill through my body. He’s wearing an absolutely incredible suit, dark fabric with a sheen of color that seems to match the fiery colors in my dress, though the lights make it hard to tell. His shirt is definitely the same dark maroon, and I realize he’s the dark flame to my bright one. The shadow behind it. It’s a perfect statement for designer and muse, and I wonder who here will notice. The suit shows off his body perfectly, broad shoulders and trim waist. God, I want to see what’s underneath that fabric.
The lights highlight the planes of his face, making him more angular. Striking. I’m suddenly finding it hard to breathe, and realize that I’m just standing there staring.
He smiles, and it’s not that little one that he seems to always be wearing. This one is genuine. “You can call me Andrew,” he says. “We’re going to be working together enough. Besides, Mr. Xellum feels too formal.”
I smile back at him, “Okay, Andrew.” At least now I don’t have to keep biting my tongue before saying his name. “Thank you for the dress.”
“You don’t have to thank me. Dressing you is a pleasure.” I blush, and look away, but he reaches out to stop me. “That embarrasses you?”
“Not really…I’m just not used to people saying things like that to me.”
Andrew grabs a drink off a passing waiter’s tray and presses it into my hand. “You should be. You’re beautiful, and more than that you’re smart and talented. People should be making a big deal out of you.”
“Thank you,” I say, blushing. “For what it’s worth, I’ve really enjoyed working with you. It’s strange, and I’m not sure how good I am at yet, but it’s better than I ever expected.”
“Well,” Andrew says, “I’m glad. It’s been awhile since working with someone has felt this…natural, so I know what you mean.”
“Tell me something about you,” I say spontaneously. “Something that has nothing to do with fashion.”
His voice is deadpan. “I’m allergic to peanuts.”
“I’m serious,” I say. “I feel like you know everything about me, but you’re still this mysterious handsome fashion mogul.”
A raised eyebrow. “Handsome.”
“Of course that’s what you would pick up on,” I roll my eyes.
“Something that has nothing to do with fashion,” he says, like he’s rolling the question over in his mind. “I love to travel.” His voice is as soft as it can be in this party and still have me hear him. “And not the kind of ‘let’s fly on a first class jet and go on red carpets’ travel that people probably think of when they think of me. I like to walk. Take trains. Find hidden little places off the beaten path that make for a good story later. I never get to do that now.”
A small smile creeps up on my face, “That was perfect. But why don’t you get to go? If you want to, do it.”
“Honestly, it just seems like I never have the time. There’s one opportunity and then the next and everyone is asking for more. Before you know it, a year goes by.”
I reach out and touch his hand on instinct, and I get a jolt of electricity from his skin. “If you want to go, you should make the time.”
“You’re right,” he says. “I should.”
He’s leans closer, and I know it’s so that we can hear each other in the crowded room, but my heart rate speeds up, and my body remembers the pleasure I’ve given it while imagining him. Muscle memory is a thing. Is pleasure memory a thing, because the way I’m wet between my legs seems to say that it is.
“And for the record,” he says, “I don’t know everything about you, but I’m very excited to learn.” My breath catches as he continues. “Your turn to tell me something.”
“I don’t have anything glamorous like that.”
Andrew chuckles. “It doesn’t have to be glamorous.”
I shake my head, words barely coming.
“I just never thought this would be me,” I say. “I never wanted to be a model. A month ago I worked in a department store.”
His mouth curls up into a half-smile. “What did you want to be, then?”
“I hadn’t really figured it out yet.”
Andrew puts a finger under my chin and lifts it so that our eyes meet. “When we first met I told you I liked honesty. But what you just told me isn’t the truth. What’s the truth?”
A fla
sh of pain and memory go through me, but I plaster on a smile. “It’s not a story for a party like this. And I’m sure you’ll hear it some day since we’re going to be working together.”
He searches my eyes, and I’m not sure what he’s looking for, but he seems to find it. He drops his hand from my chin to my shoulder, his thumb tracing absent circles on my skin. I take a deep breath, trying to control my heart and I get a hint of cologne that only makes things worse. What is he doing to me?
I’ve had a handful of boyfriends and one-night-stands in my life, but nothing has ever affected me as viscerally as Andrew’s looks or touches. This is only a touch on the shoulder. What on earth would happen if that hand went elsewhere? I shudder, and his thumb stops moving. He’s looking at me, and that hungry look from the audition is back. “Dance with me,” I breathe. It’s barely loud enough for him to hear over the music, but he does. I can see the words surprise him.
He’s opening his mouth to answer me when a loud, drunken shout comes from behind him. “Xellum! My man, how are you?”
Just like that the spell is broken and whatever moment we were trapped in together is gone. Andrew’s hand drops from my skin, and I feel it’s echo like a brand. It’s probably for the best. He was probably about to say no, that he can’t dance with me, that we can’t do this. I’d rather be interrupted than actually hear him say that.
I knock back the champagne he handed me, and walk away while his back is turned, talking to the man who called his name. I find Fleece at the bar near the dance floor, already buzzed and giggly with another model friend of hers. She throws her arms around me as I appear. “Delia! My friend. The woman of the hour!” She raises her glass. “I love you, you know that?”
I laugh. “How much have you had already?”
“Just a couple, but they make good drinks here. I would know.”
“Yes, you would,” I say, grabbing what’s left of her drink and finishing it. “Want to dance it off with me?”
She jumps up off her stool and nearly trips. “I’ll dance it off and then I’ll have more!”
I pull her with me through the party into a room that looks like it’s entirely made of stars and is the center of the dancing. “I’m certainly not going to tell a bartender how much she can drink.”
“Damn right!” Fleece raises her hands above her head and lets the music take her, and I follow suit. The lights and the music, it’s all perfect. I dance with Fleece as the alcohol starts to go to my head and I feel really good. I really didn’t think that this would be my life, but right now I’m not complaining. I spin around with Fleece, arm in arm, laughing as we dance. I can’t remember the last time I felt this carefree.
The song changes to something just a little slower, the beat moves through the room and makes it seem a little darker. A handsome man takes Fleece’s hand and then they’re dancing together, moving together like they’re one. Fleece has always been a good dancer.
I dance on my own, I don’t need to be swept of my feet or attached at the hip to have a good time at this party. A hand touches the small of my back, and I turn to decline the dance when my mouth goes dry. It’s Andrew. “I believe,” he says, “that we were interrupted.”
I let him pull me closer, so our bodies are pressed together as he leads. “We were,” I say. “But I thought you were going to say no.”
“Why would you think that?” His hand strokes his hand down my back, fingers resting right where the fabric meets my skin, so close to skimming under my dress. That same arousal I felt earlier roars back to life, and I press closer to him, doing some roaming of my own. I can feel the body that his clothes are hiding, and just the thought of what it might look like has my mouth watering.
Andrew Xellum is notoriously private when it comes to his own life. I couldn’t find any shirtless pictures of him anywhere, and believe me, I tried. But what I feel beneath his shirt, and what I can feel growing hard in his pants, would be well worth waiting for. His hand strokes down my back again and I get goosebumps. “You avoided me after the last show,” I say. “And I heard that you don’t do this with people who work for you.”
He moves us in circles with the music, hips locked together as we move. It’s so dark in here—the lights having faded to nothing but the starry backdrop—that I can barely see anyone else. It feels like we’re alone.
“We haven’t done anything yet,” he says, fingers teasing that line of fabric. I’m very aware that I have nothing on underneath it. I wonder now if that was intentional.
Tilting my face up towards his, I try to see his face in the dim light as he spins us together. “Yet?”
I say it like it’s a joke, and yet I know I have way too much riding on his answer. He doesn’t brush it off, and doesn’t laugh. He meets my eyes, that fiery heat rising through me as he stares. “Yet.”
The music changes again, faster and more urgent. I dare to ask the question, “Would you like to do something?”
Andrew spins me so my back is pressed against his chest, his arms holding me against him while we dance, hips and bodies in time with the music, and now his lips are at my ear. “You have no idea the kind of things I want to do.”
He slips his hand in the side of my dress, and I gasp. Blood rushes to my face as his hand strokes across my stomach, lifts to cup my breasts. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since that night. You were absolutely everything, and it took everything in me not to fuck you right there in the middle of that gallery.”
“I would have let you,” I moan.
His chuckle makes me shiver. “I know. That’s why I had to leave. I couldn’t do it. I knew I wouldn’t be able to control myself if I were near you.”
His hand drops, teasing a little bit lower. “What changed?” I manage to ask. I can’t even think while his hands are on me.
“I’m tired of fighting it.”
I try to laugh, but it comes out as a moan. “Thank god.”
Andrew’s voice drops even lower. “I saw you that night. I saw how everything turned you on. You were in the middle of a room crowded with people and you didn’t care. You like to be watched.”
Heat rises to my cheeks and I shake my head. “No, not by everyone. Just you.”
“Is that so? Because I think you love it. I think that the idea of being caught with my hand inside your dress excites you.”
My eyes flutter closed, and I try to protest, but I can’t because he’s right. The idea that someone—anyone—in this crowd of dancers can see what he’s doing to me turns me on. “You’re already wet, aren’t you?” he whispers, not waiting for an answer he already knows. “You would have let me take you in the middle of that gallery. And now?”
I arch my back against him, “Please.” It comes out like a prayer, begging him to just give me this, even if there’s nothing else. I need to know what it feels like to have him touch me.
His hand slides further down my stomach, and I shudder. His hand is getting closer to where I want it, to where I need it. Andrew needs it too. I can feel how hard he is behind me, his hips pressing against my ass while we dance.
“You think I didn’t think about this when I gave you this dress to wear?” he asks, voice in my ear. “Because I did.” His hand slips lower, fingers dipping between my legs, teasing and searching. I thought about what it might be like to touch you, to feel that fire.” A finger slips inside me, and I bite my lip to keep from moaning. I close my eyes and let my head fall back against his shoulder like I’m enjoying the dance. But god it’s so much more than that. His finger is deep inside me. Andrew strokes his thumb across my clit. His whole hand moves, pressing against me and into me again and again, and I’m so wet that it’s dripping down my legs. How many nights have I thought about this? How many times have I done exactly what his hand is doing and wishing it were him?
“I’ve never done anything like this,” I breathe.
“What?” I can hear the smirk in his voice. “Danced?”
“Yes I’
ve danced…” He moves his hand and my words run dry. Pleasure ripples through my body, and I can’t even take a breath. “I’ve never…”
He smiles against my skin, “Come in the middle of a crowded room.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
Andrew laughs, dark and sensual, “Oh, yes you are. And you’re going to fucking love it.” He slips a second finger inside me, and my knees buckle. The only thing keeping me standing is his arm around my waist and his fingers in my pussy. I’m not even dancing now, just standing pressed against Andrew, and no one has noticed. But they could. This dress is to thin not to see that his hand is inside it. Not to see the way his arm is moving, fucking me, grinding his palm against my clit.
It’s everything I wanted it to be. More. Pleasure coils in my gut, and spills over into my veins. I’m so close, I can feel it, and Andrew doesn’t slow down. He pumps his fingers into me, curling them deeper, hitting my G-spot so I’m panting with every movement. “Oh god,” I say, and I think I might scream with the mounting pleasure. If I scream everyone will know what’s happening and I’m not sure if I want to hide or if I want everyone to see and oh god this feels so good I can’t hold on.
Andrew growls in my ear. “Come. I want to feel you come on my hand. I want it dripping down your legs in the middle of all these people.”
His words send me over the edge and my body goes rigid with the orgasm. Fiery pleasure rips its way through me, and I bite my cheek to keep my voice inside. He keeps fucking me, letting my orgasm pour over his hand and down my legs and onto the floor. My body is covered in tiny spasms and aftershocks, each one caused by the way he keeps teasing my pussy. A stroke, a brush across my clit.
I try to gain control of my breathing. “I think it’s safe to say we’ve done something now.”
He chuckles, his tone low and full of promise. “Want to do some more?”
9
We crash into the small room off the club together, and before the door is even closed, Andrew’s mouth is on mine. I can feel him everywhere, his kiss running through my entire body, and even though he just gave me the best orgasm of my entire life, I want more.