by Parker Swift
Dylan and I chatted with Charlie for a few more minutes. When he handed us our coffees, I went to hand him the money, but Dylan grabbed my arm to stop me at the same time that Charlie shook his head. “On the house, kid. Don’t stay away so long, next time, okay?”
“Thanks, Charlie,” I said, depositing my cash into his tip jar.
As we stepped away, Dylan’s grip around my waist tightened again, not out of jealousy, but out of that lunatic-like desire we both apparently had to be touching each other all the time. “Do you know everyone in this town?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Don’t be silly. I just grew up here.”
But I looked up at him, and it was as though I could see him seeing me differently. Like he was realizing I had once been a part of somewhere else.
We walked around the park, and I pointed out my running route, the meadow where Daphne and I used to come on summer afternoons and make up stories about the couples and families we’d see and sometimes try to do the New York Times crossword puzzle, or at least see how far we could get before we started cheating. It reminded me that she was due back that day from Japan, and when I saw her, as I surely would the next day or the one after, it was going to be with Dylan. I looked down at the ring, and had my first giddy oh-my-god-this-is-happening moment of the day.
* * *
“There’s a suggested donation,” Dylan said with a frown.
After our leisurely lie-down in Prospect Park, we’d walked over the Brooklyn Bridge. He’d kissed me in the middle and held my hand as we reached Manhattan soil. We meandered through SoHo, and I showed him where the pop-up store would be, and the West Village, where we tried to inconspicuously spy into the magnificent brownstones that lined those precious streets. We watched waves crash against the pilings along the west side, and people watched along the High Line. And eventually we’d made our way onto the subway and up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“Suggested being the operative word,” I replied, pulling him past the membership desk.
“But we can afford to pay.” Dylan held his ground, his hands firmly in his pockets.
“Next time, we can pay double. Today is ‘what it would have been like to date Lydia if Dylan weren’t a duke’ day, and on that day we experience New York the way I did before I met you.”
Dylan grimaced and followed me reluctantly past the membership desk.
It was near closing time, and the museum was thinning out. All day we’d been talking. He asked so many questions, it was as though he was retracing my steps, learning my life backwards, exploring every corner of my experiences. But then, in the museum, he was quiet.
I caught him looking at paintings, getting lost in the photos of buildings in the architecture gallery. He was absorbed, but contemplative. So I let him contemplate, and I wandered on my own. I drifted from room to room, pausing when something caught my eye, letting time drift away.
I finally sat down in a tiny back room of the impressionist wing, with only a couple of paintings and one of those long narrow backless benches, waiting for weary visitors like me. I tipped my feet on my heels in front of me, looking at my flats and noting how scuffed up they were. I was alone in the gallery and slid my arms back behind me, locking them in place, tipping my head back, lengthening my body, stretching. This place was eerily empty—most people were probably gone or at one of the more popular exhibits, so I indulged in the private moment. When I opened my eyes and looked ahead, I found myself lost in a painting I hadn’t even noticed at first, a picture of a woman sitting on a window seat. Her features were clear as day, and even though they were painted with broad rough strokes, the concern and care in her expression were unmistakable. Even though there were shades of green and blue used to round out her cheeks, she looked so real, like I was intruding on her private moment.
I found myself wondering what or whom she was looking at, imagining she was in a window at Humboldt Park, that she was looking out into those vast wild spaces from the curated refinement of the grand hall. Maybe that’s what life had been like for Duchesses of Abingdon from the past.
That’s where my mind was when I felt Dylan’s hands on my shoulders from behind. They were firm, steadying, warm, and I sat up straighter for him, relieved to have him back. I was about to rise and turn around to face him, ready to go on to our next destination, when he slid onto the bench behind me, his long legs on either side of mine, my back flush against his front, and he wrapped his arm around my stomach, pulling me against him.
“What are you looking at, damsel?” he whispered in my ear, his chin resting on my shoulder.
“The museum’s about to close,” I said, but he seemed intent on ignoring that fact.
He nudged just a little closer, and my breathing hitched at his touch, his nearness and warmth.
“What do you see?” he asked again when I didn’t answer. My eyes were closed, and I tipped my head back, letting it fall into the crook of his neck as his hand spread across my abdomen, his thumb brushing against the underside of my breast. “Tell me.” His voice was getting firmer, more commanding, and I found myself opening my eyes for him.
“I want to know what she’s looking at,” I said, not believing how soft my voice was.
Dylan’s hands drifted down my body and edged between my thighs. “What do you think she’s looking at?” he whispered, and he gripped my inner thighs and pulled slowly, forcing my legs apart.
“Dylan.” I exhaled the words and resisted, trying to urge my legs back together. I looked up and around the room, worried about others seeing us. The intimacy of the moment spooked me. But I’d been trained to trust him, to believe he’d know when the risk was too great for these kinds of shenanigans.
“You’re breaking character,” I said on a broken exhale. “No Brooklyn boy would have the nerve…” I couldn’t finish the thought. I was too lost to him already.
“Don’t care. Open for me. We’re alone.” He pulled harder, and my legs separated between his. His hands were hidden beneath the light skirt of my dress, and his frame was hunched over mine enough that it would be hard to see, but we were still in a public place, and his soft fingers were still moving dangerously close to my center. My breathing picked up, becoming shallower. I couldn’t escape the sensations, the promises in those skilled fingers. “What do you see?” he asked again.
“I’m her,” I breathed and closed my eyes. Dylan was drawing circles on my inner thigh, and every other second his fingers would brush against the cotton panties I was wearing beneath my dress.
“Did I say you could wear knickers?” he asked, but I could hear him smiling.
“No,” I said, barely able to hear my own word as he slipped a finger beneath the elastic and found me slick for him.
“Tsk tsk.” Dylan slipped his finger inside me, and I gripped his thighs next to my legs, digging my fingernails into his legs. I could hear my shamelessly shallow breaths pick up. “Good girl.” He slowly developed a rhythm, slowly fucking me with one finger, then two. “You are her.”
I moaned quietly, begging, unsure if I wanted him to stop because this was absurd, or keep going so I could come on his hand right there in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“And what are you looking for, sitting at that window, damsel?” He continued his strokes, and I heard myself let a moan go into the cool air-conditioned air. “What do you see? What do you want?”
He hooked his finger inside me, and I gasped as I spoke. “You. I see you. I’m looking for you.”
“That’s right, baby. And I’m looking at you. For you, too. Always.” His strokes went deeper, harder, faster. Oh my god, I was going to come right there, on a bench in a far corner of one of Manhattan’s great institutions.
“I can’t,” I exhaled. “Not here,” I protested.
“You can. Quietly. Nice and quiet for me, baby.” His voice brimmed with confidence in my ability to do this, as though his commanding it would make me capable of coming in his hand without making a sound.<
br />
“No,” I whimpered. I couldn’t come in public. I wouldn’t, would I?
“Yes.” He picked up his pace again, and I tried to press my legs together to stop him, to control it, but he wouldn’t let me. It was agony. It was perfection. And then it was there. I clenched around him involuntarily and my mouth flew open, ready to moan, but he clamped his hand over it, allowing my legs to cross over his hand, as though I could stop him at this point. I was utterly gone.
“Shhhh, my sweet girl,” he said between kisses along my shoulder.
Slowly, I came down, back to earth. He released his hold on me, let my legs fall naturally together, let my damp panties fall back into place.
My body was shivering. I wasn’t even sure I could stand in my current state. Dylan must have anticipated my predicament, because as he stood he held out his hand and grabbed my elbow with his other, helping me up. He pulled me into a tight hug, our chests melting into each other. “I hope you know I’m furious with you,” I said, my cheek against his chest. “You can’t just go around making girls come without their permission.”
“A couple weeks away from me, and you’ve become decidedly too independent. Have you forgotten who makes the rules around here?” I could feel him smiling above my head, the smug jerk. I hit him in the chest, and he laughed, making my cheek bounce against his chest. “You can get me back later.”
“I will.”
“I know.”
Chapter 16
Dylan
I could still smell her on my fingers.
Fuck, that was hot, wasn’t it? I don’t know what came over me. Each hour that passed without someone pointing me out, without a photographer angling for a shot, without the subtle but powerful need to keep my guard up, I felt just a bit unleashed. A bit more reckless. And with each hour that passed with Lydia adorably and enthusiastically dragging me around Brooklyn and Manhattan, proudly showing me her stomping grounds, I felt a growing urge to bring her to heel, to show her that any other little prick that took her out before me was a goddamn imbecile, and never again in her life would she feel anything less than completely taken care of.
So by early evening, when I saw her sitting on that museum bench, mesmerized, open, ready for me, I couldn’t fucking help myself.
I understood why she hadn’t wanted to pay the admission fee for the museum, but I felt the place deserved something. Not just for giving me a memory I was going to be having a wank to for the rest of my life, but for making Lydia’s life better for all those years before I came into it. For being a place she could afford to go, that had given texture to her life. While she’d used the loo before leaving, I texted Thomas and had him make a generous donation. If it had been up to me, it would have been used to designate that entire impressionist wing for our private use.
I’d wanted to get her back to her apartment after that—I was hard as a rock and wanted her under me, and soon. But the girl had her heart set on an outdoor movie. So there we sat. Or I sat. In Brooklyn Bridge Park. On a blanket I’d bought at a shop in Dumbo an hour before. The sun had set, the air was cool but not cold. The bridge lit up in front of the perfect view of Manhattan, and Lady Liberty stood regally to the south. On the mammoth screen in front of us played Singin’ in the Rain. Now clad in a sweater and jeans she’d had stashed in that bag of hers, with her gorgeous head in my lap, the girl I was going to marry lay laughing at the slapstick comedy.
She was so beautiful.
The day had been perfect. She’d been perfect. I respected her wanting me to understand that her life was rich, even if she hadn’t had money before me. I loved seeing how her passion had made her world expansive and lush. Even if part of me had wanted to punch the coffee chap for knowing her, for caring about her, I was mostly grateful to him for looking out for her. Fuck grateful, I was in awe. My girl was loved, and not just by me. I’d never met anyone like her—who cultivated love the way she did? Who drew people in like that? Her world was incredible, and money had nothing to do with it.
She laughed again and looked up to see if I was laughing too, or maybe because she wondered why I wasn’t. I stroked the soft skin of her cheek, and fuck me if it didn’t feel like satin under my thumb. What the ever-loving fuck had I been thinking not putting that ring on her finger the second she’d asked me to. I was some kind of first-rate arsehole, apparently.
I looked at the screen and smiled for her behalf, but I really just wanted to stare at her like some kind of pathetic git.
When Donald O’Connor did his “Make ’Em Laugh” routine on the screen, Lydia was laughing so hard she was shaking in my lap, which inconveniently made my dick hard. I had to get fucking a grip. I pulled her up to sitting across my legs, which were stretched out before me. She settled in, still staring at the screen, and grabbed some of the gummy bears from the bag she’d bought at the grocery store before coming into the park. She’d also snuck in a bottle of cheap wine. It should have been horrible, but coming from her I enjoyed it. Every sip.
Grocery store candy, cheap wine, and free movies in the park. Where had this been my whole life? We were surrounded by people who felt free. Who’d come out to watch film stars from another era dance on-screen. It was part of the reason I’d become an architect—to bring people together in spaces the way we were at that moment. And it was Lydia who had dragged me in, showed me. I was the goddamn 17th Duke of Abingdon, and it had taken this wee lass from Brooklyn to make my life worth a cent.
I took the candies from her hand, and she stared at me, wondering what I was up to. I plucked one plump gummy bear from the bag and fed it to her. She rolled her eyes for good measure, making sure I knew she thought I was being ridiculous, but then she indulged me, happily, greedily, plucked it from my fingers with her lips, and I fed her another. After another, she leaned in and kissed me.
“I love you,” she whispered into my ear. How did she do that? How did she know exactly when to say those words? Words my own family hadn’t uttered to me once in my life. She kissed me again and looked back to the screen.
This was it. This is what I wanted for my life. This fearless girl who made the world fall in love with her, who brought me out of Humboldt Park and into a world that made joy seem like an everyday occurrence. This woman who made me want to crawl out of my skin with desire and who crawled into me in a way that fucking terrified me.
“Marry me,” I said before fully realizing what I was saying.
“What?” she asked, laughing at what was on the screen, throwing me a quick glance.
“Marry me,” I said again, louder. I felt more certain of what I was doing. More certain than I had about anything.
“I already said yes, silly,” she said, looking at me intently, starting to see what I meant.
“Tomorrow. Now. Marry me, now. I don’t want to wait anymore. I want you to be my wife.” I spun her around so she was straddling me. We were surrounded by people. Families. Couples. Friends. Everyone laughing. Everyone absorbed in the screen in front of them. But I couldn’t hear or see any of it. Only her.
She stared at me, looked hard to see if I was serious. I was serious.
“Tomorrow?” She looked at me, searching.
“Tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she said, and the corners of her mouth slowly started to perk up.
“Okay?”
She nodded and bit her lip in that way that made me want to take her to bed immediately.
I wrapped my hands around her perfect face and kissed her. I slid my tongue between those generous pink lips, and she welcomed me. I threaded my hands through her hair, and she relaxed into me, leaned in, so we fell towards each other. She offered herself completely, joined me in not giving one shite about the people around us. This wasn’t dominance or bossiness. It wasn’t coyness or shyness from her. It wasn’t playful. No banter. It was just us, and not a thread of anything else. “Tomorrow. You’ll be my wife tomorrow.”
To any one of those moviegoers, we must have looked like any other normal
couple in the throes of early love…Actually, I had no idea what we looked like, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was her.
“Can I take you home now, sweet girl?”
* * *
Lydia snuggled into my side in the town car. I’d texted the driver our location when we’d arrived at the park. He was there in a moment, and I was grateful Lydia allowed me to take her home in privacy.
“How do we get married? Can we even get married tomorrow? Is that even legal?” she asked, keeping her head against my shoulder. She looked relaxed, but I could feel her wheels turning. The wee thing was constantly in director mode, trying to iron out kinks before they existed.
“I honestly don’t know. I’ll have my lawyer look into it,” I said and reached for my phone with my free hand to shoot him a text. My other hand was wrapped around Lydia’s thin middle and holding her hand. I found myself twiddling her engagement ring between my thumb and forefinger, silently loving the symbol of my possession like some kind of caveman.
My phone rang within a minute of having sent the text, and I reluctantly answered. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but this phone call with my lawyer was going to have to happen at some point, and the sooner we spoke, the sooner he’d have the details for me about getting married. It was after two in the morning in London, but I guess that’s why I paid him what I did.
“Evening, Trevor.” I braced myself for the onslaught of questions from my friend, who also happened to be my lawyer, and sure enough they came flying at me, beginning with “Are you sure you know what the bloody hell you’re doing?” and “What are you? A lad with your first hard-on?” If the questions from my foulmouthed lawyer hadn’t been peppered with actual law-related questions including requests for Lydia’s full name, social security number, her parents’ names, city of birth, and what county we were in, he’d have seen a different side of me.
“You’re an absolute nob, you know that, don’t you? Just get me the bleeding information, so I can get married tomorrow. We’ll fly to Vegas if need be.” He laughed into the phone, uttered a profanity or two, and I hung up on him. I knew I could count on him to deliver.