“Not as much since I’ve been with Jennifer, but work is work. And work is good.” He casually removed his hand from hers and signaled for a waiter. “Wenn keeps me busy. Jennifer keeps me busy in other ways.”
Immaculata swallowed that poison pill as if it was a clear glass of water. I had to give it to her—she was cool. “The last time I saw you was two weeks ago. At The Met fundraiser. I saw you both leave in such a hurry. Everyone was buzzing about it.”
Oh, she wasn’t going to go there.
“There was an undercurrent,” she said. “It didn’t look good. People said Jennifer removed her jewels and then some overheard a choice exchange of words. It was on everyone’s lips for a week. I’ve been worried about you, especially because I haven’t seen you.”
She was talking to him as if I wasn’t at the table. I rested my chin in the palm of my hand, turned to her, and just listened with a half-smile.
The waiter Alex signaled stopped by the table.
“Would you like a drink, sir?”
“Actually, we’d like another table. I see only half the room is seated at this point, so it shouldn’t be an issue. Please tell your host that Alexander Wenn and Jennifer Kent would prefer to be seated elsewhere. Or I can do that for you.”
“I’d be happy to assist you, sir.”
Conversation at the table stopped. Everyone who was pretending not to listen to Immaculata’s conversation with Alex started to listen and watch openly as the moment stretched and unfolded.
“Alex,” Immaculata said. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did. You meant everything. And I’m tired of it. I don’t play games—ever. You will not insult Jennifer—ever—even if you fail when you try to do so. She’s smarter and quicker than you. You should have learned that by now.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
One man at the opposite end of the table cleared his throat.
I felt a sudden rush of affection for Alex. He was finished with her. He pushed back his chair and stood, and then he gently pulled back my chair so I could stand next to him.
“Have a fine evening, Immaculata,” Alex said. “And please remember what you learned in boarding school.”
“Boarding school?”
“That’s right, boarding school.”
“What did I learn in boarding school?”
“Obviously not your manners, because they have been absent since we were seated next to you. Good night.”
He took my hand and turned to find the host. “Is there another table for us? Or should we leave?”
“Of course there’s another table for you, Mr. Wenn. Right this way.”
“Thank you,” he said.
As we cut through the crowd, he pulled me near him in such a way that was at once protective, possessive, and apologetic. “I’m not going to promise that won’t happen again, but if it does with another person, the results will be the same. No one treats you like that in front of me.”
He was furious. I could feel his anger coming off him in waves.
“It’s OK,” I said, wanting to calm him down. “I got in a few licks.”
“You did,” he said. “But this town can go to hell before that happens again. And I’m sorry that it happened. We never should have sat next to her in the first place. I should have known better. I should have asked for another table when I saw that she’d set us up. I wasn’t thinking. I apologize.”
I dodged a waiter coming toward us with a lifted tray of cocktails, ducked my head, heard his apology, and kept moving. “There’s no need to.”
“Yes, there is.”
“Then, thank you.”
“You’re my girlfriend,” he said. “There’s no need to thank me. No one treats my girlfriend like that. OK?” He turned to look at me, and I could see on his face just how furious he was with the situation. “OK?”
“OK,” I said.
He put his hand against my back, and we walked together toward our new table. He’d just called me his girlfriend twice, and this was only our second legitimate date. That is, if we were considering burgers at the diner a date. What the hell was I to make of that?
Nothing.
Because, if I was being honest with myself, what he just said is exactly what I wanted to hear, though I’d never admit it to him. Not yet. We’d moved beyond the past and into another stage. To him, I was his girlfriend. And I was as thrilled about it as I was nervous about it.
What the hell was I going to do when he wanted to become intimate?
CHAPTER TWO
The next week passed in a blur. And while I didn’t see Alex as much as I wanted to because we both worked nights—me at the restaurant, he at the events he needed to attend—we met twice for breakfast, we spoke when we could by phone, we texted each other throughout the day, and he always picked me up when the restaurant closed.
Each night, he was fresh from a party and in a tuxedo, looking dashing. Though increasingly, he also looked either distracted or stressed. Tonight was no exception.
When I left the restaurant, he was leaning against the limousine with his feet crossed at the ankles and his arms folded across his chest. He smiled when he saw me, and we kissed for a long, lingering moment, but something was off. I could sense it, and I had to wonder if he was having second thoughts about reigniting this relationship, probably because we still hadn’t slept together. By today’s standards, that should have happened after the event at the museum. But, despite his efforts, it didn’t.
At the end of the night, he asked me up to his penthouse at Wenn and made an effort to progress in that direction, but I told him I wasn’t ready. He said there was no hurry, but he might go nuts if he had to wait much longer. He had no clue that I was still a virgin. And he didn’t know the reasons why I was still a virgin. At some point, if I was going to continue this relationship with him, I would have to tell him all that I needed to tell him about me and my past. Sooner rather than later. It was unfair to him otherwise.
When we were in the limousine, I put my hand on his leg, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Hey,” he said.
“How do you feel about taking me to your place tonight?” I asked. “I need to talk to you about something. Well, a few things, actually.”
“Is everything all right?”
“I just need to talk to you, Alex.”
“That sounds ominous.”
He lived on the top two floors of Wenn, where his parents once lived. The space was now his. When I first saw it, I wasn’t surprised to find how beautifully designed and decorated it was. Save for the colorful, original paintings on the walls, everything was white, from the furniture to the marble floors. At this height, the city views beyond the sweeping surround of windows were spectacular.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked when we stepped out of his private elevator and into the foyer.
“A martini would be nice.”
“You are a martini girl, aren’t you?”
“Guilty.”
“Actually, after today, I wouldn’t mind one myself. Give me a few minutes. If you’d like, take off your shoes and relax in the living room. You’ve been on your feet all night.”
“You sound tense,” I said as I moved into the room.
“A little. But we’ll save talking about that for another time. Right now, I just want to be with you.”
Why is he tense?
I looked out at the views, listened to him shake our drinks in the kitchen, and then turned to him when he entered the living room with them. He handed me mine, and we touched glasses. He kissed me meaningfully on the mouth, and we took a sip before sitting down next to each other on the leather sofa.
“Have I told you that you look beautiful tonight, Jennifer?”
“Maybe once or twice. And I’ll repeat—you look very handsome yourself, Mr. Wenn.”
“How was work?”
“Busier than usual. You?”
We sat on the sofa.
“An
other time. What’s on your mind? You’ve made me curious.”
My stomach started to turn, but there was no stopping this now. I had to go through with it. I took a sip of my martini, and put it on the table in front of us. “Alex, I need to tell you something.”
He didn’t respond. He just stared at me, concern and maybe even a trace of fear on his face. But why fear? Did he think I was going to break this off?
“This is going to sound ridiculous,” I said. “I’m twenty-five, for God’s sake.”
“Jennifer, nothing you have to say to me is going to sound ridiculous.”
“Are you sure? Because here’s one for you. I’ve never been with anyone before.”
His brow furrowed as if he didn’t understand.
Just say it.
“I’m a virgin.”
His eyes widened. “You’re a virgin?”
I nodded and felt a rush of shame. There were reasons why I had never given myself to a man. Reasons that made me feel insecure in this relationship now.
“Is that why, you know, the other night...?”
“That’s right.”
A weight seemed to lift off him. And there was something else, something in his eyes. A thrill? He reached for my hand. “You didn’t need to tell me that.”
“Yes, I did. You needed to know. I can’t expect you to wait for me forever. And I didn’t want to send you mixed signals, or make you feel that I didn’t want to be with you, because I do. I want to be with you more than anything. I think about it all the time. But there’s something bigger behind this. It’s one of the reasons I blew up at you at The Met fundraiser. It’s the reason why I protect myself so fiercely. It’s something from my past that sometimes creeps into the present.”
“You don’t have to talk about this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Not if you feel unsafe.”
“I do feel safe. I need to get this out into the open and just be done with it. When I tell you, you might be finished with me. You might think, ‘too much baggage.’”
“I seriously doubt that.”
“OK. Well, when I was a kid, my father beat me. He’d get drunk, and he’d take out his anger on me and my mother, who never reported him to the authorities or to child services. I’m not going to go through the laundry list of all that he did to us, but you need to understand that sometimes those memories come flooding back. I have trust issues with men because of it. I still have nightmares about what he did to me, which is another reason I didn’t stay the other night. I didn’t want to freak you out if I had one.”
He studied me for a moment. “I reminded you of your father that night at the Four Seasons, didn’t I? You saw something in me that frightened you. That’s why you stayed away. I made you think of your father, didn’t I?”
“To a degree, yes.”
“Jennifer, I’m sorry.”
“Alex, this isn’t meant to be a guilt trip. It’s just so you have a deeper understanding of who I am. I’m twenty-five, and I have zero experience with men beyond my father’s abuse. I know you can sense me holding back. I needed you to know that it’s not you. It’s me.”
“No, it isn’t.” He put his drink beside mine and moved closer to me. “It’s him. I’m not going to ask what he did to you. That will come in time, or it won’t come at all. It's your choice. The only question I have is whether it was sexual. Because if it was, and if you need additional time to feel like you can trust me before being intimate with me, that’s not an issue. When and if it happens, it will just make that moment better.”
“None of it was sexual. He just abused me verbally and physically.”
“Just?”
“Just. It could have been worse. A lot worse. And to be honest with you, I don’t know if I want to wait much longer. Everything in my life is positive right now. I’m in a good space. I’m with a good man. I know you’re a good man. I know that night at the Four Seasons was a blip. I get it now. And I’m tired of having my father hold me back. He’s not going to do so forever. It’s time to get on with it.”
“It’s time to get on with what?”
I just looked at him. My emotions raw and naked. I felt fully exposed and vulnerable at that moment, but also safe with him.
He was looking hard at me. “What’s the other reason you wanted to come here tonight, Jennifer?”
“I didn’t have a reason until a moment ago.”
“What is it?”
It was difficult for me to say the words, but I forced myself to. “I want to be with you. I feel like I’ve cheated myself by waiting so long. I’ve lost years because of my hangups. And now here you are, the one man I can see myself with. I think that when we begin, I’m not going to want to stop. Even now it’s difficult for me not to touch you. And I want to touch you.”
A darkness that was brooding with desire came over his face. His eyes, framed by his thick lashes, narrowed slightly. “Where do you want to touch me?”
“Everywhere,” I said.
“You’ve thought a lot about this, haven’t you?”
More than you know. I nodded and felt myself begin to tremble.
“What was the last thought you had?” There was a roughness to his voice that had never been there before. It was intoxicating.
“Touching your chest. Finally seeing it.”
“When was this?”
“At work tonight.”
“What brought that on?”
I started to feel hot. “You did. I thought of you, and then my mind went there. I want to know every inch of your body. I want to know it better than you do.”
He wasn’t touching me. He wasn’t judging me. He was just listening to me and watching me, but in a way that was different. It was as if he was planning what he was going to do to me. There was a predatory look in his eyes.
“Jennifer, how far do you want to take this?”
“All the way.”
“That can be pretty far, and you don’t even know how far I’ll go. I need to warn you of that, because I will go far. And once I start, it will be a long time before I stop.”
“I don’t care so long as I feel safe. But I want it to build. I want to be surprised. I want to learn and I don’t want you to hold back. If there’s something you like to do or that you’re into, I want to try it. I want to experience everything.”
“Everything?”
“I want you to teach me what you know.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I am.”
“That could take some time, you know? And stamina.”
“I’ve got both.”
“I can take you to places by barely touching you that will send you out of your body.”
“Then do it,” I said. “Do it now.”
CHAPTER THREE
“You said you wanted to touch my chest,” Alex said, licking his upper lip. “Is that right?”
We were sitting on the white leather sofa in his living room. Beyond the windows that surrounded us, the Manhattan skyline twinkled and gleamed, not unlike his turquoise eyes, which met mine with a disarming intensity I hadn’t seen in them before. He seemed different to me. Almost primal.
“I do,” I said, but as much as I did, my voice nevertheless sounded uncertain. I felt slightly light-headed because I knew what was about to happen. Having sex after so many years of waiting wouldn’t just change my life. It also would change my relationship with Alex, and that frightened me.
What if I didn’t please him in bed? What if I was too frigid, despite feeling like parts of me were on fire at that moment? He had been married before. Regardless of what Blackwell said, he must have had experiences with other women. Were any of them virgins, like me? I doubted it. Would he be gentle? Looking at him now, at the way his unwavering stare was feasting on me, that seemed unlikely.
He moved closer to me. “Then, why don’t you do it? And why not start by removing my tie?”
He was close enough now that I could smell the faintest
scent of his cologne, which somehow made me want him more because, like him, it was masculine. I reached out a hand to tug on his tie, and when I did, I surprised myself when I pulled it swiftly off him, casting it to the floor.
“That was quick.”
“Sorry.”
“Are you in a hurry?”
“I don’t know.” But I was. I knew I was. I was anxious to have him on top of me and inside of me, even though I knew there would be pain. Or would there be? I had no clue. Maybe he knew a way around the pain. Maybe he had a few tricks coming my way that would alleviate the pain. It was embarrassing that, at this point in my life, I had no idea what to expect other than what I’d heard from Lisa and a few other girlfriends. I felt pathetic.
“Unbutton my shirt, but don’t do it quickly. Don’t be in such a rush.”
“I can’t help myself.”
“I don’t care if you can’t help yourself. Do it slowly. When it’s time, I want you wet for me.”
I already am wet.
“The top button,” he said. There was a new note in his voice. Deeper. Rougher. When he spoke, it was a command. “Unbutton it.”
I did as he said, exposing his throat.
“Keep going. One by one. That’s right. Don’t hurry.”
“You’re wearing a T-shirt.”
“Of course I am. Otherwise, you’d see my skin beneath the shirt.” He cocked his head at me. “Do you feel cheated?”
“In a way.”
“Good. Now finish.”
“You’re going to have to stand,” I said. “The rest of your shirt is tucked into your pants.”
“So, it is.”
The trace of a smile crossed his lips, but only fleetingly. He stood, tapped my feet apart with his shoes, and moved directly in front of me. And then I saw the reason for the smile. His excitement was clearly visible in his pants, and it now was only inches from my face. He put his hands on his hips and looked down at me when I looked up at him.
“The shirt, Jennifer. Why don’t you focus on that instead? You’ll see the rest of the package later. Untuck my shirt. Unbutton it. Wait for me to tell you what to do next.”
He was being dominant with me, but, despite my past with my father, I somehow didn’t mind it. It was sexy, actually something of a turn-on, so I went with it. When I had the chance later, I’d just take control of the situation and do the same to him—once I knew what the hell I was doing. But for the moment, I didn’t. So I did as I was told, but when I lifted his shirt so I could finish unbuttoning it, I also lifted a portion of his T-shirt and revealed a trace of tanned flesh before the shirt fell back to conceal it.
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