by Lila Veen
I haven’t spoken to Erika since our lunch together on Monday, but I get the impression that she’s avoiding me and I’m doing the same with her. I have no real reason to be angry with her, except something about the way Ash ditched me for her on Monday is still nagging at me, making me wonder what he couldn’t possibly tell me. I’m also on the outs with Heidi. I pretend I’m too busy to care, but things at the hospital are on edge with security and investigation with regard to the baby napping, so it’s at the top of my mind as to whether that baby is actually Eleanor’s. My mother has gone over a few times to see Heidi and make sure she’s okay, but she knows something isn’t right. Per my mother’s reports Heidi has been less than gracious to receive her as a visitor, and still won’t let anyone hold the baby. Everything is wrong but I’m completely oblivious to it when Ash is around.
When I ask Ash if he will go with me to visit Eleanor and Drew, he springs another invitation on me that I wasn’t expecting. He wants me to attend dinner with his family at Normandy tomorrow night.
“Did you just completely ignore my invitation and replace it with another one?” I demand to know. We’re lying in my bed on a Thursday evening, limbs twisted together. The four layers of blankets I normally need to sleep with in the middle of November have been kicked off the bed and onto the floor. The heat from our bodies radiates like a glow around us.
Ash kisses my shoulder and I can see his grinning face illuminated in the dim moonlight streaming through my window. “Maybe,” he admits. “I’ve wanted to ask you all week, actually.” His fingers trace my collarbone, making me inhale sharply. “Perhaps you need some gentle coaxing.”
“And how do you plan to accomplish that?” I ask him. In response, his hand moves between my thighs and I feel his fingers plunge into me and press forward. A surge of pleasure overcomes me. “Ohhh, you’re going to play that card, aren’t you?”
“I can’t help but want to touch you whenever I’m with you,” he tells me, moving his fingers slowly out of me and then roughly back in. I cry out and arch my back to feel his fingers move deeper inside of me. “Is that so wrong?”
“So. Very. Wrong.” I press my fingers into his shoulder blades and feel his mouth take in my nipple and bite very gently. “Yes, dinner, fine,” I whisper. “But you have to come with me.”
“I plan on it,” he says, looking up.
I giggle like an idiot. “I mean to see Eleanor.”
“Oh,” he replies, and moves down the bed, flipping me on my back and crouching between my thighs. “Alright,” he says, murmuring right by my clit, sending me writhing in delight against his face. “I’ll come with you. After I make you come and then come some more. There will be lots of coming.”
“Just as long as you’re never going, I don’t care,” I say, turning my head to the side and into the pillow to stifle my moans. His tongue flicks over me and his fingers continue to plunge in and out, the steady rhythm from both motions sending a swirl of physical pleasure through me until I’m shuddering and pulling on his hair and pushing my hips against his face in a long and drawn out orgasm. He climbs up my body on all fours like a cat stalking prey and I pull him toward me to kiss him and taste myself on his mouth. My hips push up and feel his hardness press inside of me, making me swell and tighten around him until he moans.
“You and I are a perfect fit,” he whispers in my ear. Our hips move in sync with one another and the room feels like it’s spinning, as though we’re in the tornado from Wizard of Oz and my bed is in the center of the vortex. I nod in response to his comment, even though he can’t hear me, but I can’t bring myself to say anything. Soon I’m rolling through the waves of pleasure right along with him. I feel the long muscles in Ash’s back tense under my hands. His stomach muscles tighten against my own. He rolls to the side of me and we lie still, breathing in the cool night air, panting as our bodies relax and untangle themselves from each other. When I’ve caught my breath, I curl up against his side and trace the thin line of hair from his bellybutton and lower, noticing he’s still hard. I take him in my hand, feeling the slippery wetness of myself. “You’re going to kill me,” he groans.
“You’re one to talk,” I reply. “Didn’t you just make me come twice?”
“I don’t know, did I?”
“How are we going to get through a dinner with your family without keeping our hands off of each other?” I ask him, leaning up on my elbow and squeezing him with my hand. “I won’t be able to look your mother in the eye if you’re under the table giving me face.”
“Giving you what?” Ash says, laughing. “Are women supposed to be as crass as you?”
I snort. “What the hell should I call it? I don’t like clinical terms and anything else sounds ridiculous or obscene.”
“I like obscene,” Ash replies. “And chances are, at Normandy, half the people at the table are engaged in some sort of sexual act during dinner. My house is like a giant orgy.”
“Yeah, right, nice try.”
He looks at me with a completely straight face. “You have no idea, Leah. Dinner tomorrow will be like nothing you’ve ever experienced.”
“I don’t even know what to make of that,” I say hesitantly. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Dinners at Normandy are definitely something to remember,” he says, looking up at the ceiling. “Especially for your first time.”
“Well now I have to go,” I tell him. “I’ll come with you tomorrow night for dinner and then the next morning we’ll go see Eleanor and Drew, how’s that?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Ash agrees. “I hope you have something formal to wear.”
“Not really,” I say.
“Good,” Ash replies. “You go to work tomorrow and I’ll shop for you.”
*
True to his word, when I get home from work the next day, there is a large black box sitting on my bed with Isabel sitting down next to it. “I couldn’t wait until you got home,” she says, sitting on my bed next to the box. “First of all, you’re washing your own sheets if you’re going to have company over.”
I cover my face in my hands. “Oh god.”
She laughs. “Whatever. You act like I’ve never seen anything like it. You were never a good girl, Leah, but apparently someone likes you enough to get you into what’s in that box.”
I can no longer stand it and lift the top of the box to see what’s inside. “Not enough bling,” Isabel jokes as I pull the dress delicately out. The dress is the thinnest gold material I’ve ever felt between my fingertips, and scandalously sheer, with strands of what look to be gold coins draping all over it. I’m not really sure where they go and what goes where.
“Is this the back or the front?” I ask Isabel, looking at a low dip in the fabric. Either my ass crack or my belly button will be exposed.
She stands up and takes the dress from me, holding it way above her head so it doesn’t drag on the floor. “Here,” she says, stepping up onto my bed, holding the dress a little more comfortably lower. “Try it on and we’ll figure it out.” I strip out of my work clothes and toss them aside in a pile on the floor, causing Isabel to give me a nasty scowl. “Get out of your underwear,” she commands. “There’s no way you’re going to be able to pull off anything underneath this.”
“Ugh,” I make a noise that clearly depicts how much I like to dress up. I strip until I’m as naked as the day I was born, which is nothing Isabel hasn’t seen considering how many years she’s been in my life. I hold up my arms and allow myself to be strangled into the insane contraption that Ash has selected with me in mind, swearing and sweating profusely through the entire process. “I’m going to beat him senseless for this,” I complain as Isabel works to arrange and straighten out all of the moving parts. “I bet it’s going to be a bitch to go to the bathroom. And what asshole would design a dress that doesn’t allow a girl to wear Spanx?”
“You’re a walking contradiction,” Isabel says. “First you complain about not being a
ble to pee and then you pine for Spanx? You can’t have both.”
“I know, I know,” I agree. “I’ve never worn a long dress like this. What if it accidentally dips in the toilet? What if I fall and smack my head on the dining room table? I’m never going to be able to eat more than a mushroom stem and a cube of cheese in this.”
“You should look at yourself in the mirror and shut the hell up,” Isabel says, jumping down from her perch on my bed and pushing me over to my full length mirror to check myself out. “Are you still complaining?”
My mouth has been open the entire time I was getting dressed and while it remains open, it’s finally silent. My first thought is that I look hot, and I’m always the girl who looks in the mirror and immediately finds something wrong. Whether it’s the dark circles under my eyes, oily hair, a zit on the side of my nose only I can see or unruly eyebrows, I will find the blemish. For once, I don’t focus on that, but rather how the sheer gold fabric drapes along my waist and over my hips to show my hourglass figure. The strands of gold coins fall over my breasts in front, accentuating their size but not overly so. The dip in the dress is actually in the back, grazing down to my waist and showing off my smooth, white back and the sharp lines of my shoulder blades in a becoming way. The skirt is long and flows down to my ankles, and I find that there is a hidden slit up the side all the way to my thigh that will allow me to move – and bonus – also to pee. “Only a gay man would be able to pick out a dress this perfect,” I finally say.
“I would marry a gay man who bought me a dress like that,” Isabel says. “It’s perfect.”
“What shoes will I wear?” I wonder. “Will you help me do my makeup?” Isabel silently holds up a pair of strappy gold heels that aren’t too tall that match the dress perfectly. “Where did you get those?”
“They were sent with the dress,” she tells me. I am skeptical they will fit, but sit down on the bed and try them on. “How did he know my shoe size?”
She shrugs. “For your giant feet? Had they not fit you could have worn the box.”
I look on my bed for something to throw at her but come up empty handed.
I sit at my dressing table while Isabel puts gold eye shadow and a few layers of black mascara on me. She lines my eyes with a sparkly gold pencil and puts small gold rhinestones in the inner corner of each eye, plus a larger tear-shaped one on my forehead. Leave it to Isabel to add more bling, but I have to admit, it works with the dress. She pulls my hair away from my face and twists it in back. Then she curls the loose parts until I have something like a southern belle up-do. “So what are your plans for tonight?” I ask her.
“As of right now,” she says. “Popping some popcorn and sitting around the house with that fat cat of yours.” I miss Carlton something fierce, but Isabel swears she is enjoying him as a companion. “I swear Leah, I had every intention of putting that beast on a diet so that he’d be all fit and trim when you saw him again, but instead he’s causing me to gain weight.”
I rake my eyes up and down Isabel’s tiny frame. “You’re insane,” I tell her. “You’ll never gain a pound for the rest of your life.”
She shrugs. “All I know is that I’ve been baking. I hate baking. I only cook, you know that.”
“You don’t have to bake if you want to get fat,” I tell her. “You can just get fat off of mint chocolate chip ice cream.”
“Don’t I know it,” she agrees. “I have a freezer full of that too. Something about that cat brings out the pig in me.”
“He brought out the sloth in me,” I admit. “It was so easy to just stay home and snuggle with thirty pounds of fur than to go out sometimes.”
Isabel’s waist length blonde hair swings forward as she leans over to shadow my cleavage. It’s not as though I don’t have enough, but she puts a bit of makeup in that region and suddenly I’m a luscious beast. “Since I don’t have a purse to match,” I say, “I can just put my money in between these puppies.”
Isabel laughs. “Your gay boyfriend thought of that too,” she says. She produces a small clutch, complete with gold coins draping down from the bottom seam. “If you’re looking for a small dog to match, though, you’re out of luck.”
“No, I think this should be fine,” I say. “Oh! Wait! I have no matching coat!”
“Why don’t you borrow one of your mother’s coats?” Isabel suggests. “Her full length fox would look perfect.”
I agree and Isabel leaves to go get the fox. I stand and look at myself in the mirror, unable to recognize who the woman in the reflection is. I no longer look like a girl trying to be grown up, I officially am an adult. It only took twenty nine years.
“Leah, you look stunning,” I hear my mother say behind me. I turn around and smile, silently agreeing with her for a change. I think it’s always been in me to disagree, but tonight, I just can’t. “You’re lucky this coat was always too long for me to wear,” she says, and I see the reddish fox fur coat draped over her arm. “Your father bought this for me a few weeks after I told him I was pregnant with you. It’s as though he knew-“ she cuts herself off and shakes her head. “It’s yours.”
I take the coat from her and feel the soft, long fur against my bare arms. Isabel and my mother help me put it on, and it’s comfortingly heavy on my shoulders.
Chapter 21
“I feel like I’m going to the prom,” I say as we coast down the drive to Normandy. I can’t get over how Ash looks in black tie. Even the lock of black hair that normally hangs in his eyes is gelled back into place, showing off his high cheekbones and smoldering eyes. A little thrill runs through me, knowing that the handsome man at the wheel is mine. An even bigger shock is that they make tuxedo pants long enough to fit him.
“I didn’t get you a corsage,” he says. “And you didn’t get me one of those corsages for men.”
“A boutonierre?” I suggest. “Honestly, for someone who grew up in Blackwater, your French is atrocious.”
He grins, his large mouth turning up at the corners. “I was just testing you.”
“Bullshit.”
I’m frantically nervous. Even though I’ve met Lisette and Olivia already, he tells me there will be the majority of his brothers at the dinner as well. Michael’s family was small and not as terrifying, with only his mother and his sister to deal with. I never got along with either one of them, and so of course I’m worried about the impression I’ll make tonight. I’m dressed to kill, but I’m grateful for the fox fur so Ash can’t see me shaking as significantly as I am right now. As Ash mentioned, I feel like I am being tested tonight, and not just in French.
My heart pounds harder as we approach Normandy, and Ash pulls over to the side between a black Corvette and an Aston Martin. “Hey,” he says, putting his hand on the back of my neck. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I admit, biting my lip. “I’m petrified.”
He doesn’t laugh. Instead, he nods and leans close to me, simultaneously pulling me toward him and resting his lips against mine. “You’ll be fine,” he murmurs and I feel him bite on my lower lip, causing me to moan.
“Don’t make me wet,” I warn. “I’m not wearing any underwear.”
His eyes widen and he parts my coat at the legs and finds the part of the dress where the slit goes up the leg. I feel his warm hand slide over my bare leg and over my thigh, into my center, where he glides a finger over me. He pulls his hand back and puts his finger in his mouth to taste me. The gesture makes me shudder with desire. “I love your taste,” he tells me. “But I’m still hungry so we ought to go in now, don’t you think?”
I’m practically plastered to the car seat now. “Asshole,” I say facetiously. “Now I’m going to be all riled up during the entire dinner.”
“You’ll just have to save room for dessert.”
James answers the door almost immediately, as though he is waiting on the other side and Ash doesn’t have his own key. “Welcome, Miss Holt,” he says to me warmly, and helping me out of my fox fur. “The
Grande Dame and everyone else are seated already.”
“Are we late?” I hiss to Ash, upset with him for already causing me to commit a faux pas. I was ready when he picked me up, so I can’t imagine what I would have done to make us late, other than kiss back only a few minutes ago.
“I wanted you to make an entrance,” he tells me, taking my arm and leading me to the dining room. “It’s not every day I get to introduce and show off my catalyst to my brothers.”
The sounds of voices grow louder and boisterous the closer we get to the dining room. I feel my legs wobble and can’t tell if it’s the heels or nerves. Despite the drops I’ve been taking from Erika, which appear to be working, I have a backup inhaler in my gold clutch should a panic attack occur. “Stop,” I tell Ash, and he complies. We’re very close to the entrance to the dining room. I can smell the food and hear laughter. I turn to Ash and reach up to twine my arms around his neck. “I love you,” I say.
He blinks, looking down at me from his black eyes through eyelashes so long it should be illegal for a man to possess them. The center of his mouth goes out as the corners turn up. “I know that,” he tells me, brushing a loose curl away from my cheek. “I’ve always loved you, I just needed to discover you first.”
I flush with relief. “Technically,” I tease. “I discovered you in the intersection of Emerald and Center.”
He replies by pulling me close and crushing his lips against mine. Ripples of heat pervade my body. We end the kiss with his arms clutched around my waist and his lips on my neck, kissing it softly. He backs me up so we are pressed against the wall and he lifts my free leg around his waist. I feel him hard and pressed against me and wonder how I’m ever going to keep my damn dress dry.
“Can you two either get a room or come to dinner already? We’re ravenous,” I hear a voice like water flowing over stones say from the entrance of the dining room. My breath catches in my throat and I turn toward the source of the sound. I anticipated an asthma attack but I didn’t anticipate what actually ends up happening.