by Simply BWWM
She realized that she was reading too much into it again, and she let the worry go, as Chris would have told her to do if he had been there. Then she followed Nick out of the car and stood with him on the sidewalk, looking up at the same building that she had been taken to the first day she had met him.
“What are we doing here?” she asked, gazing at it in surprise.
“We’re hitching a lift to the restaurant,” he answered with a grin, as he led her into the building and over to the private elevator that she had gone into before.
Her eyes grew wide. “Are we taking the helicopter?” she asked curiously. She could think of no other reason why they might be in the building, taking the elevator up.
“We are! Clever girl.” He winked at her and held her hand firmly in his. His cheeks were slightly pink from the heated moments in the car, and she wondered if she had worried for nothing and if everything really was just fine between the two of them.
The elevator rose to the top as it had before, and minutes later they were strapped into their seats, and the metal bird was lifting off of the building and rising up into the evening sky.
“Is that your office that we walked through to get to the roof?” she asked him, looking back down at the building.
He nodded. “It is.”
“It’s nice that they gave you the top floor for your office, so that you could get to the helicopter easily.” She smiled at him, and he laughed as he gazed at her. Then he reached his hand up and touched her face.
“You really are an angel, aren’t you?” He chuckled softly. “It’s my building. I chose the top floor.”
Realization dawned on her, and she nodded and smiled, surprised that she hadn’t realized it, but also realizing that it was a far cry from any world she had ever known or even heard much about.
She took her eyes from the building and looked back up at him again. “Where are we going to dinner that we needed a helicopter to get there?” she asked with curiosity. She couldn’t imagine where they might be going in such an extravagant fashion.
He eyed her with interest. “You’ll see soon enough.” It was all that he would tell her. She grinned at him and took his hand in hers.
“I don’t care where we are, as long as I’m with you,” she said earnestly, and she leaned close to him and kissed him sensually and sweetly.
When she lifted her head again, he looked at her with incredible intensity and narrowed his eyes just a little. “You really mean that, don’t you?” he said quietly.
“I do,” she answered him with a smile, and then she lifted his hand in hers to her mouth, kissing his fingertips, before setting his hand back down and looking out of the window. All the while, he watched her, totally amazed by her.
The helicopter flew northward, and she was stunned when she saw them coming down in one of the single most recognizable cities in the world, even at night.
“Manhattan? We’re having dinner in New York City?” She blinked in utter amazement, and he grinned and nodded.
“Well, there’s this little place that I really love, and I thought that you would love it too, so we’re going there for dinner.” He shrugged as if it was nothing, and she laughed at him.
A short while later they were walking up 42nd Street, looking at the lights and the traffic, at the brilliant displays and businesses, and even at the tourists, and then he took her hand and walked her down a little side street to an Italian restaurant that was tucked into a little corner.
When the manager saw him enter the restaurant, he was immediately taken to a special table in a private area, and they were promptly seated. Wine was poured and menus were given to them. Nick took a look at the menu and then spoke to the manager in Italian, ordering their meal, and the manager vanished to the kitchen to instruct the chef to create it for them.
Chanel stared and shook her head in amazement. “You know them here personally, and you speak Italian?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes,” he answered simply. Then he lifted his glass of wine and held it aloft to her. “A toast, to one of the most amazing women I have ever had the honor and privilege to know. You are a gift.”
“To you, a gift for me that I never could have imagined,” she answered his toast, and they tipped their glasses together and sipped, before leaning toward one another and sharing a tender kiss.
Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin crooned love songs in the background, and they enjoyed a delicious meal, taking their time with it and with each other, loving every moment of it. When the meal was done and they had both had a few glasses of wine, as well as dessert and an excellent cappuccino, they thanked the manager and the chef of the Italian restaurant and walked back out onto the blazingly bright city streets of New York.
He wrapped one arm around her and walked with her down the sidewalk, and a short while later, she grinned when he stopped before the art deco doors of the Empire State Building where the doorman gave them a bow and a smile and pulled the door to the great building open for them.
They were taken to the top, and when they walked out onto the landing to see the city, it looked more magical to her than it ever had in the past, and she knew that it was because of the company she was with. The whole world seemed more magical with him, more perfect, more wonderful, from the smallest things to the biggest, and it amazed her to no end that it could feel like that with anyone.
They walked around the perimeter once looking at everything, but then they stopped walking on the darkest side of the roof the massive tower, and he took her into his arms, holding her close to him as he gazed down into her eyes and at her face. He drew his fingertip along the lines and curves of her cheeks and jaw and then over her soft full lower lip. She gazed back at him, not even sure if she believed that it was all real, or if it was some incredible dream that she was having.
Nick drew closer to her and brought his mouth to hers, kissing her tenderly for a long moment, but as she kissed him back, sliding her hands up around the back of his neck and pressing her body up close against his, their kiss grew heated.
Fire ignited in both of them, and as their mouths moved more fervently, his hands moved lower down her back to the top of her hips, where he held her firmly and pulled her against his hardening groin. She gasped with pleasure, and he answered her with a groan, deep and husky, breathless with need and desire.
Chanel slid her hand down his chest and very subtly reached it down over his belly to his groin, massaging her fingers over his solid erection. He moaned again and pulled himself away from her, letting her go in an instant.
She gasped again, though in surprise, and stared at him. He was panting, his breath short and shallow as he turned away, his lips parted, his eyelids heavy, as he closed them and tried to regain his composure.
In that moment, she knew that there was something wrong. She knew that they had to talk about it. It wasn’t her believing that something was amiss when it was nothing. Something was definitely happening, and she needed to know what it was.
“Nick…” she began, keeping her voice quiet, and grateful that no one else was around them. “Nick, what’s going on?”
“Nothing is going on,” he said as he continued to keep his eyes closed while he steadied his breath.
She moved closer to him and closed her hands around the lapels of his jacket, turning him toward her. He opened his eyes and looked down into hers. “Yes, Nick, there is something wrong. When we were on the boat, you couldn’t get enough of me. You wanted me the whole time that we were there, and I wanted you too, just as much.
Now we’re back in the city, and you said you wanted to keep seeing me. You said you didn’t want this daydream of ours to end. You didn’t want to wake up, and I agreed with all of that. You said you wanted more of me, more of us, and that you wanted to take the chance to see where this might go, but now every time we get close, every time we’re turned on, every time I want to make love with you, you turn away and leave.
If we weren’t standing on top
of this tower right now, if we were somewhere like my place and you could turn and go back to your car, you would. Now I want you to talk to me. You are my friend, you are my lover, and I want the truth. Trust me, Nick. Find a way to trust me, and for heaven’s sake, talk to me. Tell me what’s going on, because I know something isn’t right between us, but I have no idea what it is. I want it fixed. I want us to be okay. Please! Talk to me.”
Her pleading tone undid him completely. He sighed heavily and nodded slightly. “All right,” he breathed out slowly. “Yes, there is something going on.” He took a moment, gazing at her, and looking as if he was weighing the consequences of being totally honest with her.
“I’m falling in love with you. This is happening so fast between us, and I love it, and it’s perfect. It feels so right with you. It’s never felt like this with anyone, and nothing like this has ever happened so fast for me. I just think it’s important to be careful.” He sighed and lifted his hand to his head, raking his fingers through his hair as he continued.
“There’s something big that you don’t know about me. Before I was with you, I was with another woman, a woman I loved, who I thought loved me in return. I asked her to marry me and she said yes. I gave her a ring. We had a date set.” He grew quiet, and looked down at his feet as he spoke, and Chanel listened to him in total silence, taking in every word.
“I thought that it was perfect. I thought it was right, and that we were going to be married and happy and spend the rest of our lives together making a family. I wanted a family with her. I wanted the whole dream with her. Then she just left one day. She said she didn’t want it anymore, and she got in her car and drove away, and that was that. It was done. Just like that, everything was gone. My whole future, my whole world was gone.”
He turned to face her again then. “Now there’s you, and I have never been so attracted to anyone in my life. I have never wanted anyone in my life the way that I want you, and I am falling head over heels in love with you, and it’s so fast. I didn’t expect this. I just think we need a little time, you know, to take it slow. Yes, I want you. You can’t imagine how much I want you, and I know that you want me too. I would love to have the confidence to just indulge myself in you, but that’s just not possible right now. I can’t just dive in.
It wasn’t that long ago that she left me. When we were on the boat I didn’t think I was going to feel so much for you so soon. I thought it was just going to be a physical attraction, and then it wasn’t. It was so much more than that, in almost no time at all, and the more I know about you, the more time I spend with you, the more I want to be with you, and the more I fall in love with you. Can you understand all of that? Do you see what I’m going through here?” He looked at her with hope in his eyes.
She felt tears welling up in her eyes, and she bit at her lower lip, forcing herself to keep the tears and emotion in. With a slow nod, she reached for him and pulled him into an embrace. “Yes, Nick. I understand all of it completely, and I want you to know that I’m falling in love with you, too. I didn’t think that anything like this could happen, that it could happen so fast or feel so strong, but here we are, and it is definitely happening for me. So yes, I understand your concerns completely, and I’m so glad that you told me. Thank you for trusting me with that.”
She saw tears in his eyes and her heart went right out to him. She closed her fingers around his hands and held them gently. “Take all the time you need, but please remember that I’m falling for you too, and that I want you so much. I want to spend time with you as we have been, but I want to be your lover as well. It’s so amazing between us. I don’t want to miss out on any of that because of a ghost from your past.”
He nodded and sighed softly. “It is amazing, and I really want to be with you, too. It’s been so difficult keeping my distance from you and pushing myself away. I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you, and I’ve been torn up about this, needing to touch you, to feel you, and denying myself that pleasure, that which I want most of all, because of… as you so rightly put it, a ghost from my past.”
She peered up at him with pleading eyes. “Then don’t let a failed engagement encroach on us. Take a chance on me, Nick. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just as much at risk in this as you are, and I’m willing to take a chance on you. Give me that same faith back, please. I want you.” She leaned up and kissed him softly. “I want you,” she whispered as she kissed him again, long and slow, and then she whispered it one more time, “I want you so much.”
He groaned softly and closed his arms around her tightly. “I can’t hold back from you anymore. I need you too much.” He kissed her in return and then took her hand and led her from the rooftop of the Empire State Building, calling a taxi at the front door, and not much longer after that, the taxi was pulling up in front of a big building on Fifth Avenue.
The taxi driver looked in the rearview mirror and cleared his throat loudly, eyeing the two lovebirds in the back seat who wouldn’t stop kissing one another. Nick paid the man and then took Chanel into the building and up to the penthouse.
“You have a place here?” she asked in surprise as he unlocked the front door and brought her into a massive condo that overlooked much of the city and Central Park. He smiled at her as he closed the door behind them.
“Yes, I work up here often enough that it just seems more convenient to have it here than to go back and forth between here and Boston.” He went to her and took her into his arms, kissing her passionately. “I don’t want to talk about anything but you and me right now and how many times I can make love with you before we have to leave in the morning.” He smiled widely at her and walked with her, as he kissed her, into his bedroom where a large bed was set against the corner of the walls where they conjoined.
He stripped her of her clothes and laid her back in the bed, staring at her body as if it was the first time that he had ever seen it. “How is it that you’re more beautiful than the last time I saw you?” he asked, his eyes sweeping slowly over her form. His fingers and hands followed, canvassing her skin as if he was sculpting it himself.
His mouth followed behind his hands as he took his sweet time kissing and tasting her, until he had savored nearly all of her, saving the core of her for last, and by that point she was so on fire for him that he had only devoured her for a few moments before she came hard, her body tightening from head to toe as she trembled with a tidal wave of pleasure.
He entered her then, just as the tension in her was easing, and he filled her with his rock-hard erection, pushing it into the depths of her as he held her against him, kissing her and losing himself in her.
She kissed him and he paused in their lovemaking and looked down into her eyes as she gazed back up at him. “I love you,” he told her, and a feeling of utter freedom washed through him, sweeping his worries and fears away.
“I love you, too.” She smiled wide at him, and they began to move together again, losing their breath and their hearts as their passion consumed them, igniting them in overwhelming pleasure and release, and more than that, in a total surrender of love.
They rested for a while in each other’s arms, then made love again, long and slow, teasing and touching, tasting and loving, until their releases came, and they rested again. The night was long and they set it on fire until the wee hours, wrapped around one another, until sleep demanded domination, and they passed out in a tender embrace.
When the morning light streamed in through the windows, he awoke first and watched her for a long while feeling grateful and blissfully happy at having found someone he believed that he could trust his heart to. He knew that she was a good woman, and that he was lucky to have her. He knew that given a chance, their love could grow strong and beautiful over a long while, perhaps even a very long while, sometime much further down the road.
He waited as long as he could, watching her sleep, but his desire for her overtook him, and he began to kiss her dark flesh slowly and sensually, until h
is mouth on her breasts woke her from her dreams, and she reached her hand down to his erection to massage it and bring it into her. They made love twice more before he finally got up with her out of his bed and showered with her.
They dressed and he took her into the big kitchen where he sat her at the bar and prepared a breakfast for her. She was impressed that he knew how to cook, and she was even more impressed when he handed her a plate with an exquisite omelet on it, and it was the best she had ever tasted.
After the first bite, she looked at him with wide eyes and laughed. “How on earth did you ever learn to cook like that?”
He shrugged. “Cooking is actually a passion of mine. I love doing it. It’s a creative side of mine, and I decided to indulge it, so I took some classes and I learned some basics. Then, when I travel for business, especially to other countries, I take classes on local cuisine wherever I go, and I’ve gotten to be pretty good at it. That omelet was something that I learned to do in France.”