by Hannah Ford
He asked for it, and even though I know I shouldn’t, I want to.
It’s a want so clear and so deep that I don’t even have to question it. He may be daring me just for a fun diversion, but it’s me who won’t back down.
I listen to make sure Regina isn’t clicking her heels back here, then I point my phone at the full-length mirror, turn my right hip out and pop my knee. I focus in on my hip and the curve of my butt, the milky white of my thigh, and then I snap the picture. It’s not exactly what he asked for, but it’s a taste.
Heart pounding so hard that I can hardly hear myself think. My body is shaking with adrenaline, and I feel almost dizzy.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
I’m impressed. Wear it tonight.
I didn’t think it was possible for him to surprise me further, but here I am, nearly dropping my phone onto the marble floor in my shock.
Tonight? I respond.
His follow up text comes just a split second later.
To Renew. 8pm. My driver will pick you up.
I sit down on the cold bench in the dressing room and stare at my phone, trying to process what’s happening, how I went from majorly screwing up at covering for Jared King’s assistant to trying on slinky lingerie to accompanying Jared King to dinner. Because apparently tonight the woman in the expensive lingerie at the hottest restaurant in town with the most eligible billionaire?
Will be me.
And then comes the final text of the day.
Don’t be late.
Chapter 3
I charge the lingerie to his account, trying to overlook the fact that Jared King even has an account at Délicat. That perhaps he’s done this before.
In all likelihood with another employee, someone I know or have seen around the office.
I don’t care. Tonight he’s doing it with me. And the thrill it gives me both turns me on and frightens me.
Because what exactly are we doing? That’s the question that keeps running through my head on a continuous loop while Mr. King’s — Jared’s — driver takes me back to my apartment to “get ready.” I have a black bag perched on my lap, my — my — new lingerie folded in tissue paper and tucked into a gold box inside, a black satin ribbon so soft it looks likes blank ink, tied around the top. The final total? $1,250. Which is exactly what I pay for my not-very-nice studio apartment.
The car glides to a stop in front of my apartment in Somerville, a shabby building with peeling white siding that does not look a like a place where a luxury car often stops. Even though I reach to open my own door, the driver is out of the car and opening it for me before I can make it.
“I will be back to pick you up at 8pm, Miss Carson,” he says, his face professionally impassive.
“Thank you,” I reply.
I climb the four flights to my apartment with my shoes in my hand until I reach the door of my tiny studio, which faces an alley. Even with the walk-up and the dank, dark view, I can still just barely afford. Sure, my salary at King Advertising is decent, but it’s still an entry-level job, and I’ve just begun starting to pay off my massive student loans from Boston University.
I toss my purse on the floor near the door and gently place the Délicat bag on the card table in the kitchen. The clock on the oven reads 5:30pm, giving me just over two and a half hours to “get ready,” per Jared’s instructions. Whatever that means. I glance at the black bag and realized it might take me that long just to get back into the bra, panties, and corset. But there’s something I need to do first.
My laptop is sitting on my coffee table, a scratch-and-dent purchase from IKEA, sitting in front of the shabby floral couch from my parents’ basement in Worcester. I open it and pull up a fresh Google search page and type in Jared’s name.
For having such a common name, he comes up immediately. The first page of search results are all him. I guess that’s what comes of being a billionaire bachelor. No one is going to mistake you for Jared King the plumber from Nebraska.
The first hit is the company website, which of course I’ve scoured top to bottom. I’d done my fair share of research on the company before I interviewed for the job. Founded four years ago and quickly grew to be the biggest firm in Boston, third largest on the East Coast. Specializes in luxury brands and high-end corporations. Has an entire division devoted to low-cost assistance for nonprofit organizations specializing in children and families.
All facts that had made King Advertising my dream company from the time I started job searching during my senior year. And because I’d graduated at the top of my class in the business school, with internships in Boston and New York and stellar references from faculty and supervisors, I’d had no trouble landing the job.
But in all my research, I’d paid very little attention to the company’s founder, Jared King. It didn’t seem necessary, when my interview was with HR and I was applying to be a junior copywriter. I didn’t expect to ever see Jared King, much less work with him. And besides, what did I care about some rich playboy anyway? I knew his reputation, and that seemed enough. He would be my boss’s boss’s boss, so his personal life didn’t seem like much of my concern.
But now I’ve got a bag filled with over a $1,000 worth of lingerie and instructions to wear it on a date tonight for a meal that will probably cost just as much, with a man who has a photo of my lace-covered ass on his phone right now.
Suddenly Boston’s Most Eligible Billionaire seems very much my concern.
So I skip the King Advertising website and pull up the profile from Boston Magazine, the very one that’s framed across from his assistant’s desk.
It’s not very long. Apparently being eligible doesn’t make him very forthcoming.
Four years at the Naval Academy, where he graduated first in his class. Four years as a commissioned officer in the Navy post-graduation, yet despite a bright future in the military, he left as soon as his commission was up to start King Advertising at the age of twenty-six.
According to the reporter, Jared had been linked to several prominent names in the last four years, from supermodels to CEOs to heiresses to daughters of revered political families, but none of the women stuck. It seemed they served mostly as arm candy, and then he moved on.
After reading the article twice, I click on an image search and feel my stomach instantly bloom with desire.
Photo after photo of Jared King, almost all of them showing him in an impeccably tailored suit.
There’s one of him shaking hands with the President at his Naval Academy graduation, Jared looking dashing and sexy in his dress whites.
There are several of him in a tuxedo at various charity functions looking like a dirty Disney prince with his dark, smoldering eyes and light stubble across his chiseled chin.
And buried far down the search page is one photo of him wearing swim trunks, a vintage cut that make him look like a classic Hollywood movie star, his skin tan, his abs rippling into a perfect six pack. I swear to god just looking at it makes me come.
What could he possibly want with me?
I glance around my apartment, the walls mostly bare save for a bulletin board and a couple of movie posters that had migrated over from my dorm room. All my furniture came either from the side of the road, my parents’ basement, or an IKEA special. None of the clothes in my closet were purchased at full-price, and the only store on Newbury Street I frequent is H&M.
My parents aren’t politicians or professional rich people. My mother teaches kindergarten at a Catholic school in Worcester, and my dad is a mechanic for the MBTA. The most exotic place we traveled was Bar Harbor for a week every summer, where we feasted on lobster rolls and tried to convince ourselves that the water wasn’t too cold for swimming.
But none of that even compares to the biggest barrier that stands between me and Jared King. This sexy, chiseled billionaire photographed with beautiful women, who buys them expensive lingerie and speaks in that liquid growl, whose employees fantasize about getting bent over his d
esk, is not going to want anything to do with a virgin like me.
Twenty-two and a virgin.
I did not have sex in college, when everyone else was busy getting it on. My virginity has nothing to do with a religious preference or any of the scared straight lectures we got at my Catholic high school. It doesn’t even have anything to do with lack of opportunity.
I dated a few guys in college, most of who kissed like a wet vac and groped me like they were trying to perform a TSA strip search. Every time I’d come close to getting naked with a guy all I could feel was massive amounts of disappointment coupled with extreme awkwardness, so I’d stop them, fake a headache or plead an early exam and say goodnight.
They never called again, and I never much cared. Instead I spent my Friday and Saturday nights studying or working in the library, trying to earn as much as I could to offset my student loans and studying hard enough to make them worth it.
But something about Jared tells me he’ll be anything but a disappointment, which means I can only be a disappointment to him. I have no idea what to do with a man like that. I don’t know where to put my hands, or what to do with my hands.
I lean back on my couch and let my mind wander for a moment, from the photo of his tanned body on the beach to the man himself sitting behind his desk daring me to try on lingerie for him.
Perhaps even now looking at the picture I texted him, a picture that I never should have sent. What was I thinking?
With only an hour left until the car comes — and Jared’s warning not to be late ringing in my mind— I jump up from the couch and start to get ready. After a shower, where I carefully shave my legs and make sure my bikini line is in shape, I spritz myself with the ocean water body spray I got in a gift bag at work. I dry my shoulder-length hair into loose, beachy waves (my only runway-ready feature) and dig through the drawer in my vanity to pull out all my best makeup. Then I retrieve the Délicat bag from the kitchen table and slip into the lace and satin. I adjust my full breasts into the bra, snap the elastic cupping my ass, and then carefully tug at the strings on the lace corset, just like Regina showed me back at the store. When I feel the corset pull at my skin just beneath my breasts I feel a burst of heat rush through me. Good lord. This underwear has already gotten me closer to an orgasm than any man ever has.
I give myself a few moments to stare at myself in the mirror, wondering if maybe, just maybe I could be the kind of woman Jared King would want in his bed.
I shake my head, my long bob brushing my bare shoulders, to let go of that idea. I have no idea what tonight is — a date, a punishment, a delicious torture, a prelude to being fired — but I can’t let myself think about Jared King’s bed.
I go to my closet and pull out my one and only cocktail dress, a short silk number in a dark plum color with a deep v-neck and a full, flouncy skirt. I found it at a consignment shop, a steal thanks to a tiny pull along the hem, which my mom happily repaired for me. I figured working for a company like King Advertising, with their top-shelf clients, I’d need something for the inevitable work event.
This was not the type of work event I had in mind.
I step into it and carefully zip the exposed gold zipper, then slip on a pair of black peep-toe heels, another consignment store purchase.
I step in front of the mirror and give myself a final once-over, practicing the kind of bored, distracted look the women Jared is known for dating wear all the time, but it doesn’t look right.
No one has ever described me as sexy.
What I get called most often is “sweet,” with my blond hair, blue eyes, and pink lips that are most often curved into an eager smile. And I’ve always been happy with that. I’ve never been down on the way I look.
So instead I look at myself in the mirror and smile the smile of someone who looks amazing, who’s wearing $1200 worth of lingerie, who works at a top advertising firm and is eating dinner with a billionaire. And that’s when I realize I look fucking great. Whatever is happening tonight, at least I look the best I’ve ever looked. I can take whatever’s coming.
I hope.
A horn honks outside my window, two short, polite blasts, and I peer out the window to see the Mercedes waiting on the street below. I take one final deep breath, dab at my lipstick with my pinkie finger, grab my purse, and hustle out the door to meet my fate.
Chapter 4
The car takes me straight to Renew, located in a refurbished brownstone in the South End. Though the street is narrow, unassuming, and mostly residential, several chauffeured cars like mine idle outside the restaurant. The driver once again opens the door for me, and I only wobble slightly on my heels as I step out.
Inside the restaurant, the walls are dark, the restaurant lit only with exposed Edison bulbs casting the tables in a warm glow. The restaurant is crowded, but thick oriental rugs layered beneath the tables keep the conversations from bouncing around the room.
Everyone leans across flickering candlelight to speak in hushed tones to speak to their companions, as if everyone is participating in something elicit simply by ordering dinner.
I stop at the hostess stand, a sleek black pedestal with a single rose in a clear case perched atop it. “I’m meeting Jared King,” I say.
The hostess, a tall, lithe woman whose white blond hair is pulled into a high, severe ponytail, gazes at me with a question on her face, but it remains unasked. Instead she eyes me from my head to my toes as she cocks her head towards the back of the restaurant. I follow her. I want to stop her and say, Don’t worry, I have as much idea about what I’m doing here as you do. Or, Just wait, I’m probably just here to be fired, and then you can go home with him.
She leads me to a table is near a back window looking out onto a garden lit with tea lights and covered in early spring flowers. Jared is already seated, his gaze out the window, but when he hears me approach he turns and lasers his focus on me so fast I swear I feel the heat of it in my bones. I have to force myself not to wobble in my heels at the sight of him.
He stands from his seat while a maître d' appears and pulls out my chair. He looks tall and broad in his dark Armani suit — the only thing he wears, according to Boston Magazine. He didn’t shave, either because he was late at the office or because he somehow already knew my weakness for a strong jaw with a five o’clock shadow. Either way, it definitely gives him an upper hand with me.
My inner thighs quiver as I move to take my seat.
His eyes roam the length of my body, but his face betrays nothing. If he’s impressed with me, he doesn’t show it.
“Quinn,” he says simply by way of greeting.
“Mr. King,” I reply, because even though he’s seen my ass in the underwear I’m currently wearing, he’s still my boss.
We sit, and he leans forward on his elbows. “I think Jared will be fine.”
“Okay,” I say.
Okay?! Dammit, why can’t I be sophisticated?
Before I can open my mouth and say something else pedestrian, a waiter appears with leather-bound menus, but Jared waves him off, instead ordering an array of food that I assume is for both of us. Whether these items are actually on the menu or not, the waiter doesn’t say.
He simply nods.
He’s used to giving people what they want, which is good, because one thing I know about Jared King is that he’s used to getting what he wants. Jared orders a bottle of wine, something French and likely very expensive. He pronounces perfectly and sends my mind spinning as I think about the things his tongue could do.
Jesus, Quinn, calm down.
When the waiter disappears to put in our — his — order, Jared turns his focus back to me, and I’m instantly pinned to my chair.
“So Quinn,” he says in that deliciously gravelly voice, “tell me about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
He pauses for a beat, never taking his eyes off mine. “Everything.”
I inhale sharply, feeling myself starting to get nervo
us. Ok, more nervous.
But the sommelier appears tableside with our wine bottle and a corkscrew. He uncorks the white with a satisfying hiss and pop, then pours Jared a taste.
Jared brings the glass to his nose and inhales deeply, leaving me imagining his breath on my bare skin, then expertly swirls the wine in the glass and takes a sip. He lets the wine rest on his tongue in a way that once again sets my mind to thoughts of the filthier persuasion, then swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
How does this man make tasting wine into a sexual act?
Jared gives the sommelier a brief nod, and he proceeds to fill first my glass, then Jared’s. I reach for mine to take a sip — anything to calm my nerves — but Jared holds up his glass.
“To new experiences,” he says.
“To new experiences,” I repeat, the words feeling hot on my tongue. Then we clink glasses, and I take a long pull from my own. The wine is spicy and smoky and tastes expensive. It warms me immediately, like a cashmere blanket being pulled over my bare skin. I take another sip, and finally I feel ready to have a conversation with Jared King.
“Let’s start with where you went to school,” he says.
“Boston University. Summa cum laude,” I add, for reasons I can’t explain, and I hate myself for blushing when I say ‘cum.’
He cocks an eyebrow at me that sends my stomach flipping. “Impressive. And you studied business?”
“Yes. I focused on advertising.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” I ask, firing back a little too quickly.
Jared scoffs. “That’s a little girl’s answer. You strike me as a woman who knows why she does things,” he says, and suddenly it’s not just the wine that’s making me feel hot.
But I like the challenge, that he makes me think about it, because when I answer, I know it’s true. “Because I love business, but I also wanted to be creative. I like design and writing, and advertising encompasses both.”