by Alice Ward
He swirled his thumb and thrust his fingers a final time, and I unraveled. Had I not been holding on to him so hard, I would have collapsed right there on the dirty sidewalk. My knees buckled, my legs trembled, and I was forced to bury my face into his jacket to muffle the sounds of the moans rolling relentlessly from the deepest part of my diaphragm. Helpless. I was completely helpless, and it was the most euphoric feeling I’d ever experienced.
“Yes, darling girl, give me yourself.” Still waxing poetic, Tate sounded as calm and together as if we’d merely been standing there whispering sweet nothings to one another. There wasn’t even a pause in his breath. I did feel, however, as I writhed as subtly against him as I could, the marble bulge in his groin pressing against my belly, and it heightened my climax to know he wanted me as intensely as I was accepting him.
I panted, desperate for oxygen, as I came back to Earth. He slowly removed his fingers from me, reluctance in his movements. Our bodies remained pressed together for a moment longer, like he was ensuring I was able to stand before he released me, and he gifted me a soft kiss on my forehead as I recuperated.
“Thank you for tonight.”
It was almost humorous to hear him thank me when he’d been the one doing all the giving for the evening. I crooked a slightly sarcastic smile up at him. “It was my pleasure.”
He smirked, and then he crushed his mouth to mine.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tate
My entire apartment smelled like vanilla. Even the bedrooms, which were shut off with closed doors, had the distinct aroma of vanilla, and I was getting frustrated.
“I can’t tell if this needs more salt or not.” I lifted the spoon to my mouth for a fourth time to taste the tomato sauce, but the only flavor I could identify was vanilla, and there certainly wasn’t any vanilla in the marinara.
Sadie grinned at me from the island, where she was perched on the countertop with legs crossed and a spatula in hand. She wasn’t cooking, but she’d taken up swatting me every time I passed her as I spun hectically around the kitchen preparing dinner. I continuously reminded her that, for every swat she gave me, there would be repayment in kind, but that only seemed to fuel her mischievous fire and add an extra sting to her swing.
“I’m sure it’s awful. You should probably just throw it out.”
“Watch yourself, gorgeous.” I pointed the spoon at her. A blob of sauce glopped to the floor. “I’m counting.”
She stuck out her tongue girlishly, and I felt a surge of blood rush south of my waistline. We’d been seeing each other for a few weeks now, and the playfulness that had developed in our daily interactions had become one of my biggest turn-ons.
Seeing the wicked glint in Sadie’s eyes as she plotted a prank or the giddy twist in her smile as she delivered a sharp one-liner was as arousing to me as watching her naked figure squirming beneath mine as I brought her to climax one time after another. A life on the stage was a life of falsities — fictional characters, scripted lines, manufactured relationships — but a life with Sadie was revealing itself to be authentic and real from start to finish.
“It’s your fault I’m having problems with the sauce, anyway.” I turned away from her to snatch the salt shaker and pour a healthy amount into the pot of burbling marinara. “You’ve made my house smell like a cupcake factory with all your scented candles.”
“A cupcake factory?” She laughed. “I think that’s called a bakery.”
I held up a finger high enough for her to see despite my back being turned to her. “There’s another. You’re going to be in for a long night.”
“Yeah, yeah, you just pay attention to your sauce, there.”
The biggest thing I’d realized since Sadie and I had been spending so much time together was how easy it was to be with her. Pressure to impress her was nonexistent, not because I didn’t care if I impressed her but because she simply couldn’t be impressed.
Her enjoyment in picking up a pizza was the same as dining on a succulent meal planned and prepared for us by a personal chef I’d hired for the evening. She was as comfortable in dresses as she was in jeans, and she smiled most when we were sprawled across my couch trying to trick the other into giving up the remote. Presumption, status, and image were thrown entirely out the window from the moment I picked her up to the kiss goodbye, be that beneath the stars or the next morning.
For most of our time together, I’d relished how well she fit in my life.
Lately, it was starting to keep me up at night.
A hand darted out in front of me, and I grabbed the slender wrist before the fingers had a chance to nab a chunk of the sizzling meat in the pan behind the saucepot. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m hungry.” She had the cutest whine, not in the least annoying. Almost suggestive, in a way.
“I know, that’s why I’m making you dinner.”
She stuck her lower lip out a fraction. “Just a taste.”
“You’ll get a taste.” I swooped down to kiss her, flicking my tongue over hers just enough to tease her. She responded by rising up onto tiptoes and cupping my face in her hands, and I growled against her mouth.
When we broke apart, she smacked me on the seat of my jeans with the spatula. “Jerk.”
“Keep rackin’ em up, smart mouth.”
She spun on her bare heels and stalked back to the island, purposely adding an extra swing in her hips to taunt me. I growled again, and she cast me a sultry glance over her shoulder before hopping up onto the counter and smiling with the demure innocence of an angel. What a sexy, infuriating fraud. Shaking my head and grinning to myself, I returned to my cooking and tried the sauce yet again.
“Better.”
“Hey, what do you think about trying Pearl tomorrow?” I heard the sound of silicone on skin, presumably because she was lightly tapping the spatula against her thigh. “It’s supposed to be amazing, and they’ve been open for a week now, so it should be easier to get in. Not that you have a problem getting in anywhere, but you know.”
I pursed my lips and replied without looking at her. “That’s the new seafood restaurant over on 48th?”
“Yeah. Jenna got in with Gregor Schmidt, the food critic, and she said it was the best clams casino she’d ever had.”
This was a conversation similar to a handful we’d had thus far, and every time, my stomach dropped. I hated going out in public. On the few occasions we had, or when I did by myself, it was always to locations where I knew we were ensured privacy. We’d been back to Coin twice for that very reason. Sadie was starting to suggest places of her own, however, and all of them seemed to come with large crowds and a certainty that I’d be recognized, photographed, and hounded. Just thinking about it sent my gut into somersaults of anxiety. I didn’t want the publicity.
“You haven’t even eaten my food yet, and you’re already coming up with alternatives?” I tried to keep our exchange light with a joke despite the gymnastics routine going on inside me.
“Didn’t I tell you? I’m psychic. I already know this meal is going to suck.”
I could hear the teasing in her voice, and I knew she hadn’t detected my discomfort, but I still didn’t want to turn away from the stove to look her in the face. So far, she either didn’t realize I was avoiding public appearances, or she didn’t care, but the same thoughts that raced through my mind as I tried to sleep every night for the past couple of days started careening through my consciousness now. I tried to dismiss them with the distraction of fishing out a healthy helping of sauce and taking it to her to try.
Her lips circled the end of the wooden spoon. Even in my anxious state, I was able to admire the simple perfection of her rounded mouth and the erotic quality in the way she lapped a spare droplet hanging from the bottom of the utensil.
“Mmm.” She nodded enthusiastically, wiping away a tiny smear of red from her chin. “Perfect.”
“Liar.”
She tapped her knee with the spatula.
“No, really, it’s perfect.”
“You’re a liar because you’re not a psychic and my sauce is perfect.”
Her mouth formed a flawless O again, this time without a spoon in the way, as she realized she’d ratted herself out. Unable to resist, I stole a quick kiss and savored the tomato flavor on her tongue.
“Caught ya, Juliet.” She reciprocated my smugness with a thwack on my ass the second I turned around to start the spaghetti noodles. I grinned. “That’s fine. Those tallies will just keep adding up.”
“See, I think you’re just all talk.” I heard her hop down from the counter again, and she joined me next to the stove. “Trying to sound intimidating when all you are is a guy with a spoon.”
“This spoon is capable of more than you realize. It’s the perfect size to leave pretty pink welts on that perky ass of yours.”
“Oh, that’s what this is all about? How many spankings I get for being naughty?” She snickered. “How original.”
I turned the burner beneath the waiting pot of water onto high, then rounded on her. Snatching her chin, I tilted her face up to mine so she had no choice but to look me in the eyes and injected as much threatening sugar into my voice as I could. “Sweetheart, the spankings are just a bonus, a side dish, an extra.”
“So, what are all these tallies adding up to, then?” She wasn’t afraid to challenge me, and I loved it. Relished it, actually. More and more often, I found myself intentionally setting her up to pull out her defiance and challenge something I said merely for the thrill I felt when her eyes lit up, and her cheeks tightened.
I bent down to her until our noses brushed and our lips were less than an inch apart. “Every tally is another orgasm I’m ripping from you tonight.” I pecked her stunned mouth. “We’re up to thirty-two, now, I believe.”
“Thirty-two?” That was another thing I relished, the way her voice became breathy and her expression melted into a delicious blend of terrified and eager when I met her challenge unflinchingly. “You’re kidding.”
“Not even a little bit.” I pecked her again and released her chin.
She didn’t move from her place beside me. “That’s not possible. I can’t have thirty-two orgasms in one night.”
“Wanna bet?”
“I’ll die!”
“No, you won’t. You might pass out, but you won’t die.” I wouldn’t let her see my face to determine whether I was serious or not.
She sniffed. “Because passing out is such a turn-on.”
“Paying you back for all that devilish wit you lay on me is a turn-on.” I glanced at her as my groin seared. “A big one.”
She grumbled something under her breath. I raised a chiding brow, and she quieted. Feeling satisfied and sinfully smug, I tossed a dash of salt into the water designated for pasta and started humming to myself. The smirk on my face was starting to hurt my cheeks, but I didn’t bother trying to be rid of it. Some things were worth the pain.
“You’re not really going to make me come thirty-two times, are you?” Doubt had returned to her tone, and my dick pulsed.
“Probably not.”
“What’s the deciding factor?”
I brushed her cheek with my thumb in a sweet, affectionate manner. “If you make it thirty-three.”
She slapped my hand away from her face and glared at me, a frustrated smile blooming where stubbornness had just been. “You’re such a jackass.”
I was tempted to tell her she’d successfully upped her number to thirty-three, but I didn’t want to alarm her into dreading the rest of the evening with me, so I opted only to chuckle softly and reached around to pinch her rear.
Thirty minutes and a heap of banter later, she was sitting at my dining table as I set dish after overflowing dish of spaghetti, salad, and garlic knots in front of her. The smell of vanilla had finally been hampered by the pungent aroma of baking garlic knots, but I still blew out the lit candle on the nearby sideboard before taking a seat myself. “Dig in!”
“Very nice.” She cast me a kind smile, then grabbed the salad tongs.
“It’s spaghetti and salad.” I gave her a knowing look. “You don’t have to pretend this is fancy.”
She jabbed the tongs at me. “It’s spaghetti with homemade sauce, salad not from a bag, and garlic knots you didn’t get from a tube. In my world, that’s fancy.”
“Then you’re going to fall off your chair when you try my chicken parm.” I dropped my voice to an elevated whisper. “I bread the cutlets all by myself.”
Sadie rolled her eyes and grabbed herself a helping of salad. “Spaghetti… chicken parm… You’ve mastered Italian cooking.” She tilted her head and considered me with a garlic knot held in midair. “That’s an interesting twist, considering you’re Irish. You are Irish, right? McGrath sounds Irish.”
I lowered my gaze to my plate and focused disproportionately hard on doling out the ideal ratio of lettuce to tomato. “It’s Irish, yeah.”
“Can you make a killer corned beef and cabbage?”
“Never had it.”
She plunked her knot onto her plate finally. “You’re not serious.”
“I am, I assure you.”
“Come on, you’ve at least tried it.” She was staring at me like I’d sprouted an extra limb. “I mean, you can’t go to any restaurant on St. Patty’s day that doesn’t have a corned beef special. And I’m sure your mom or maybe a grandma had a good recipe for it in their arsenal.”
Clearing my throat loudly, I took a knot from the platter and stuffed the entire thing into my mouth. “Nope.”
“Well, we’re going to have to go get some, then, when March comes around.” She accompanied the announcement with a decisive nod. I didn’t answer, but she didn’t seem to notice because her mind had been made up. After a beat and a few bites of spaghetti, she grinned at me. “All right, so your culinary endeavors aren’t in keeping with your Irish heritage, but I bet you were a redheaded baby, right?”
I raised a brow and pointed at my head. “This isn’t red.”
“It isn’t now, but what about when you were little?” She suddenly looked around as if expecting to see what she was searching for in big, flashing lights. “Do you have any baby pictures of yourself? Oh my god, I would kill to see your bathtub picture. You know the one I’m talking about? Every parent has taken a picture of their baby in the bathtub, I’m pretty sure.”
My throat tightened, and my appetite flew right out of my body. All at once, the only thing I wanted to do was carry her to the bedroom and start on those thirty-two orgasms. Not because I was horny — it was probably the first moment all night I hadn’t been at least a little horny — but because she wouldn’t be able to ask me these questions.
The life with Sadie I’d come to crave was starting to close in on me. I was running out of time. Either I’d have to break it off or come clean, and it was going to have to be sooner rather than later.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sadie
The last time a guy had made me dinner, I’d ended up on the bathroom floor all night with a severe case of food poisoning. I’d also ended up telling him we should see other people after learning the reason I’d gotten sick was because he had made the dinner with ingredients stolen from a supermarket dumpster. I mean, I get it, he was a college student with no money and a bright future of hefty student loans looming in his near future, but didn’t I at least deserve food someone else hadn’t deemed disgusting enough to be trash?
I didn’t have to worry about being fed garbage-dinner by Tate, of course, and that alone was enough for me to consider the meal an excellent one. It truly was excellent, though, in flavor and presentation and everything. And, while any guy could’ve cooked me a sanitary, tasty supper, the icing on the cake was knowing Tate had the money and means to hire anyone in the world to cook for him, yet he still chose to put the time and effort into making me a meal all on his own.
There was swoon-worthy, and then there was just plain man-of-my-dreams.<
br />
The only hiccup in the whole fantasy was the conversation. Yet again, I seemed to have stumbled into taboo territory, and Tate was shutting down. I’d meticulously avoided bringing up his family since the uncomfortable monosyllabic discussion at Coin, though I’d tested the water by talking about mine from time to time, which he hadn’t seemed to mind. For some reason, I’d figured asking about his childhood without directly referencing his parents would be a safe bet.
Apparently, I was wrong.
I watched him push noodles around on his plate without picking any up onto his fork. “I don’t have any pictures.”
My curiosity was burning. He had to have some photos, a class picture or a posed portrait with an elderly relative. It was obvious he didn’t want to show me, though, or perhaps he genuinely didn’t have anything. Both ideas were saddening, though for very different reasons.
Determined not to let this meal suffer the same temporary fate as the other, I decided to move on. “So, you never said if you want to try Pearl tomorrow or not.”
I expected him to look up with renewed energy, maybe even to toss a lighthearted comment in my direction, but he didn’t. He barely even looked up, and he continued playing with his food.
“I don’t think so.”
Disappointment rolled through me, for his rejection of the suggestion as well as the lack of improved attitude. I kept my tone casual as I asked, “Why not?”
“It’s too high-profile right now. We’d end up swamped instead of enjoying ourselves.”
“Actually, the hype has pretty much calmed down already.” I laughed a little forcefully. “That’s the beauty of this city, huh? Once something is in, it’s out.”
“Still too high-profile.” He dropped his fork with a clatter and reached for the glass of red wine next to his plate.
A thorny vine of doubt began winding its way through my consciousness, and I was revisited by the same feeling of insecurity I’d experienced at work the day he’d called to ask me out. Thanks to Jenna and the newness of our budding relationship, I’d managed to talk myself down from the tide of self-degradation rolling in toward me, and view Tate’s assumed desire to keep me hidden from a relatively untainted perspective.