Snapdragon (Love Conquers None Book 1)

by Kilby Blades

  “Be here now,” Darby smiled, thinking of the name of a book she’d once read.

  Trying to piece together his psychology, as she was doomed to do with nearly everyone she met, she recognized the consistencies between what he said now and the man she had met the week before. Michael had mastered the art of paying rapt attention to whatever was in front of him. It made it difficult for women to reconcile feeling so close to him in certain moments yet so unimportant to him in others. Of course his relationships with other women had failed. It wasn’t only that he didn’t have time to commit—it was the confusion he must have caused.

  If she was right about him, he was someone who experienced his life in a way in which he could achieve extraordinary connection and pleasure. But he had learned to do so without attachment. It explained why sex with him had felt so gratifying. Whereas most people held back parts of themselves, guarding them for a select few, Michael surrendered himself, giving more than expected. There was something so beautiful—so extraordinary—about it. But most people weren’t ready for that. His relationships had failed because of his honesty, not in spite of it.

  It also snapped the comment he’d made when they first met about how he was looking for companionship into clearer focus. It made sense that he wasn’t just in it for the sex—he enjoyed people. But relationships—even friendships—came with rules and people like Michael, who defied convention, could find themselves left behind. She felt comfort in the notion that she was figuring him out. Understanding his motives helped to quiet the nagging inner voice, which cautioned her that casual sex with a stranger—even a close friend of Ben’s—was risky.

  He’d picked up on her wandering thoughts. “Are you here now?” His voice was neutral, more curious than accusatory.

  “Just deconstructing your psychological profile. It comes with the territory of befriending a shrink, I’m afraid. But don’t worry—I never tell people how fucked up they are unless they ask.”

  She enjoyed the sound of his responding laugh. They were so close now that the vibrations from his chest pleasantly echoed within her.

  “I’ve been told how fucked up I am, believe me. My sister is a social worker. If she found out what you and I are doing, I’d never live it down.”

  “That brings up a good question.” It was her cue to mention something that had been on her mind. “What do we tell everyone else?”

  “Do we have to tell anyone else anything?” It was the first time something about him seemed naïve.

  “You might find that being seen with the daughter of a controversial Senator will invite unwanted attention. It won’t be as fun as the sex.” She repeated Michael’s phrase with the same apologetic tone he had used, worried that he hadn’t considered this downside to their arrangement.

  “I see them looking. We’ll be in the society pages by tomorrow. It’ll be the gossip pages by the end of the month.” He said it more casually than she could comprehend.

  “They’ll want to know whether we’re dating.”

  “If we’re seen out together enough times, denying it would make no difference.”

  She’d been so focused on sizing up Michael and reveling in the memory of their hot sex that she’d barely thought about the rest. “Companionship” meant that this gala was the first of dozens of events she might attend with him. Privately, she’d signed up for a booty call and a hangout buddy. Publicly, it would seem as if she had a boyfriend.

  She must have looked as distressed as she felt, because his dancing slowed, and he leaned in to speak discreetly into her ear.

  “I like going out, Darby. I like dancing with you right now. I like treating you like a lady and feeling like a man. I’m tired of turning down invitations to parties that could be a good time if I only had someone fun to go with. I’m sick of eating alone.”

  He paused for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded repentant.

  “People will talk. And I didn’t think through what that would mean for you, being Frank Christensen’s daughter. If all that comes with it is more than you signed up for, I understand. But it’s your life. And pardon the unsolicited advice, but I think you should live it the way you want to.”

  The sensible words she’d been ready to say in defense of damage control died on her tongue. She was having a better time with him than she had ever had at any other charity gala. And she knew she’d have an even better time at the end of the night. That was what she’d been in it for, at first—her “give me four orgasms and get the fuck out”. But hadn’t she enjoyed dress shopping and having some place to go? Didn’t she love dancing with him and being on his arm? Hadn’t her mind drifted three or four times to what it had felt like to be carried bridal-style up those steps on that cliff? Didn’t she deserve a little romance?

  “I’d be home watching a movie.” Her voice was weaker than it had been a minute before. She didn’t know why she was admitting this to him. “If I wasn’t out with you right now, I’d be at home with takeout from Boka, a bottle of wine, and I’d be watching a movie. Alone.”

  Upon hearing her confession, he held her more tightly, yet more softly somehow.

  “This is better,” she concluded quietly. In that moment, she comprehended something she realized that Michael had known implicitly: not having to be lonely was the cake. The sex was just the icing.

  The song was ending and Michael leaned back to peer into her eyes, that penetrating gaze making her feel as if he could see right through her.

  “I don’t care what those people think. Do you?” His voice was even softer now.

  The truth was, she didn’t. But she had spent a long time being conditioned to feel that she should.

  “No.” Her voice rang with a sincerity that felt like relief.

  “Do you care about this, right here, right now, just me and you?”

  Afraid of how her voice would sound if she spoke an answer, she nodded her head.

  “Good. Because that’s what I care about right now. I want to keep looking at you in that gorgeous dress, and hear that sharp wit of yours, and think about the sound you’ll make when I bite you again in this place, right here…”

  He ran a finger lightly over the column of her neck, and something in her changed. In her mind, it flashed before her in an instant, a vision of what they could give to one another. She could have him now, like this, and again later in her bed without expectations for anything more. Even if other people got the wrong impression about them, it was a small price to pay for something that would give her what she hadn’t dared to let herself crave.

  “That’s not exactly living in the now, is it?” she asked, her voice compromised. “Unless you’ll be biting me right here, in front of everybody…”

  He didn’t smile at her quip. Instead, a fire she recognized from the week before flashed dangerously in his eyes.

  “So why don’t we make the future now?”

  He slid his eyes to the exit door, then back to her. Twenty minutes later, they were parking in the underground garage at Lake Front Tower.

  LAKE FRONT TOWER WAS AMONG the city’s poshest high-rises. It was in Streeterville—the building closest to the lake. Darby might’ve guessed that Michael lived in a building like this—something that looked as sleek and modern as he did. Its unique architecture was iconic, its three rounded prongs jutting outward like satellites. She had only managed to open the passenger door a crack before he’d jogged around to finish the gesture for her, holding out his hand to help her out of the car.

  They hadn’t said much to one another since they’d left the gala—not out loud, at least—but he hadn’t stopped touching her. He had placed his hand on the scruff of her neck, massaging it gently as he led her out of the party. To an outsider, it would have looked casual. But the gentle precision with which he had caressed the spots that had undone her the week before was anything but. And the way he lifted her hand toward his lips after pulling her gently from the Maserati surprised her. Instead of kissing her fingert
ips, as she anticipated, he turned her arm to kiss the inside of her wrist and gave her a searing look.

  The elevator ride felt maddeningly slow. Instead of pressing a button he keyed in a code with swift precision and the small television screen that displayed what floor they were on informed her that they were ascending to Penthouse West. He did all of this while keeping hold of the same hand he’d held in his since he’d helped her out of the car. Just as she was wondering distractedly whether he was left-handed, he rounded on her. He defied her expectations yet again, because the kiss she had thought was sure to come, deep and needful like the ones he’d given her the week before, never did.

  Darby knew that she was beautiful, and the bold attention of men who wanted to sleep with her was nothing new. But the way Michael took her in—his eyes searching her face rather than roving her body, his fingers intertwined with hers rather than making their wicked rounds—made her feel undressed. There was a difference between knowing that a man craved your body and the feeling that some authentic part of you was utterly desired. Without words, without kisses, without pressing his body against hers, Michael had her feeling the latter.

  She’d once read somewhere that sex never really started in the bedroom—that the only sex worth having started in the mind. The silence that had stretched between them in the car, and now in the elevator was a strange kind of foreplay, too intense to fight, too complicated to understand. She didn’t really know Michael yet, but some strong magnetism drew tension into every inch of space between them.

  Darby had long since learned to appear neutral, to perform under the prying eyes of a crowd. But however formidable her performance at the gala, she knew in that moment that Michael had seen through it. Without laying so much as a finger on the zipper of her dress, he was stripping her down. She realized then that he had been undressing her all night, that what he was doing had begun the second she’d opened her front door.

  The elevator opened straight into his sprawling apartment. He kept firm hold of her hand as he led her into a large, open hall that separated an enormous kitchen on the right from a living room on the left. Adjacent hallways veering off in both directions hinted at the presence of other rooms.

  Like Michael, the decor combined masculinity and style. The living room had a series of Scandinavian-looking sofas in neutral brown colors that went perfectly with his leather-bound coffee table books. The sofas encircled a large flat screen television mounted inside a recessed shelf space. The surrounding shelves were tastefully asymmetric, and filled with what looked like mementos from around the world.

  One shelf held a series of elephant statues, from India, she surmised. Another held African masks that looked Masai. She recognized an evil eye charm from Turkey nestled among other art that she wasn’t familiar with. Though each shelf was mismatched next to the other, it all somehow perfectly coordinated.

  The pièce de résistance was a framed rendition of a colorful butterfly, with elaborately patterned wings of chartreuse and teal that reminded her of the color scheme of her own bedroom. It was exquisitely realistic, and the shimmering quality of its wings made the exact medium difficult to ascertain.

  But his view made it difficult to focus on the interior décor. Darby had seen prime Chicago real estate in her day, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen a vista so exquisite. The windows spanned the entire space without interruption, boasting a view of the city below that was nothing short of stunning. They had no frames or visible panes—they gave the illusion of just one long glass wall. She had expected a lake view, because Michael was a man who seemed to have the best of everything. Barely anything surprised or excited her anymore, but this scene did.

  “I’m an architect. I like to look at the buildings.” He seemed to read her thoughts.

  He led Darby to a section of the window and leaned casually with his back up against it. He took her other hand in his, ignoring the view that was captivating her, one he’d no doubt seen a thousand times. Instead, his gaze was on her, his ability to answer her thoughts in that moment both thrilling and scaring her a bit.

  She liked this feeling, of someone coming close into her space, of someone else minding her business. Growing up the way she had made her an expert at outward congeniality. But it only masked the fact that she was keeping more people than realized it at arm’s length. She had spent all week trying to ignore the fact that it wasn’t only the fantastic orgasms she kept remembering, but also the way that he’d held her close to him, and looked at her in-between kisses. It had gotten her to thinking. Maybe she needed all of it—someone to make her feel like a woman, someone to keep her in his fold.

  “You’re very particular.” He noted her observation with a small smile.

  “Precision is underrated. The beauty is always in the details.”

  She couldn’t tell whether she had stepped closer to him or if he had pulled her in, but somehow she was pressed against him and his arms were circling her waist.

  “I admire your precision. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so precise.” Their lips were now close enough for them to kiss. One of his hands floated up to smooth her hair, his palm following the curve of her head until it settled on her neck.

  “You haven’t seen the half of it.” His voice was now as dark as his eyes.

  “Show me.”

  In fifteen seconds flat, her dress was off. In thirty, she sat astride him in a modern-looking chair. In forty, a condom had been rolled on. With that first delicious stroke, they both made soft murmurs of relief. Their foreheads came together for a long moment. Sinking down onto him felt like going home to a sacred place where she belonged. It took her a moment to remember to move. When she did, she braced her hands on the back of her chair for leverage and tried to hoist herself above him, but he held her hips in place.

  “Look at me,” he whispered.

  She did. And blurred seconds from the weekend before sharpened back into focus. The tenderness that had passed between them in vulnerable moments. The way it had felt as if he were opening so much of himself to her, even though he’d been driving her pleasure, even though he’d been the one in control.

  “You’re beautiful,” he breathed.

  He wasn’t looking at her body, wasn’t touching her breasts, wasn’t grinding his hips to stroke her. His words held no hint of flattery. They felt like a confession, something said more for his own conscience than for hers. She exhaled a shaky breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. Was this what he needed? For some part of him to be seen? She didn’t understand.

  He didn’t stop her the second time her hips began to move. One of his hands moved to her waist as the other rose to her shoulder. He was gripping her in a way that pressed his thumb firmly in the divot between her neck and her collarbone, a sensation that felt amazing. She let her eyes fall shut and her body do the thinking.

  With a breathy grunt, he joined in, thrusting into her deliciously slowly from where he sat on the chair below, guiding them back into their rhythm. Her nipples ached from how hard they had become. This was sensory overload. Once again, he seemed acutely attuned to what her body needed and was hitting some spot that made her delirious with pleasure. The hand on her shoulder snaked up her neck, touching what she was beginning to think of as ‘his spot’. She whimpered when his hand didn’t stop to tease it. His fingers continued upward until the heel of his hand held the base of her skull and his fingers were threaded in her hair.

  She arched her back and reared her head into his touch, hoping only to encourage his fingers to keep massaging her scalp. But his lips closed around her nipple, sucking hard before punctuating his motion with a not-so-soft bite. Darby’s orgasm ripped through her so suddenly, and with so much intensity, that her desperate hands moved to Michael’s biceps. She gripped so tightly that her short nails inadvertently dug into his skin.

  His rhythm faltered, and the lids of his eyes dipped. His full lips whispered soft, unintelligible words. She was still fluttering around him w
hen she felt a dull sharpness on her scalp a second before she felt the swoosh of her hair on her back. Michael had taken out the pin that was holding her loose chignon together. With her head tipped back as it was, the tips of her hair were long enough to tickle the top of her bottom. She shook her hair out, loving the way it felt that moment on her back. It was another night of firsts—another night of chasing sensations she never had before, another night of feeling things she’d never felt.

  She could tell when he was getting close—his fingers fell from where they were still woven in her hair to grip her hips more firmly. His words were replaced by deep moans that rose in pitch with every breath. He rolled her into him over and over, completely in control now but using that control to intensify their connection. It undid her. His hands slid behind her back, his cheek now pressed to her chest as he braced them both, as if he didn’t, she would fly away.

  “Sorry,” she murmured with genuine regret ten minutes later, still feeling lazy in the afterglow. Her finger circled four deep indentations on his tricep caused just minutes before by her nails. They weren’t bleeding, but they were beginning to look angry—they’d definitely broken through a layer of skin. Her repentant eyes met his playful ones.

  “Totally worth it,” he smiled.

  Between them was a box of cupcakes. Apparently, Michael bought them by the half dozen. It was unexpected, just like his All-Stars and his Buddhist principles and his city view, but she was coming to learn that for every predictable thing about him, there was some random contradiction.

  “What?” he asked as she watched him slide a bite of a cupcake into his mouth. “Does my sweet tooth offend you?”

  “Nothing about you offends—only surprises.”

  “Such as?” He licked icing from his lips.

  “Such as the fact that I just watched you put 2,500 calories worth of cupcake into a GQ model body.” She ran a finger over his washboard abs wondering how an architect who worked all the time kept himself in such great shape.