by Dakota Rebel
But Laura was a breath of fresh air. She squealed like a little kid at the shark exhibit, ate candy at almost every place we visited, and pulled me physically by the hand into shops and through different casinos. It was amazing. I don’t know that I’d ever had that much fun.
“Are you ready for dinner?” I asked, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and pulling in her in for a kiss.
“I could eat,” she admitted. “Where are we going?”
“Well, what’s the one place you asked me to take you that I haven’t yet?”
“Really?” She looked up at me, a huge smile on her beautiful face. “They have food there?”
“Of course, they do.” I had to release her to grab my phone. I shot a text to our driver to come pick us up. We were at the wrong end of the strip and had done quite a bit of walking. I wasn’t about to make her walk another eight miles to dinner. “Rick will be here in a few minutes with the car.”
“What’s your life like?” she asked suddenly, peering up at me with a small smile on her lips.
“What do you mean?” I tugged her hand and led her to sit on a bench near the valet booth to wait for the car.
“I mean, what’s it like to be a billionaire? You just swiped that black Amex everywhere we went today. You send a text, and car is coming to get us and take us to dinner somewhere I’m pretty sure you need a reservation to get into, but I’m betting you don’t. You flew across the country in a private jet to rescue me then immediately flew me back. I mean…my God, Luke. What is that like?”
“First of all,” I told her. “If you just wait another year or so, you’ll be so used to it you won’t even think about it. My life is your life, now. You’re free to swipe my Amex anywhere you damn well please. But don’t think for a second I take it for granted. My father worked his ass off to build our company, and my brothers and I continue that legacy. To this day, I work twelve to fifteen hours a day sometimes. I don’t just push paper in my ivory tower. I’m on the job sites, I’m lifting steel and climbing scaffolds, right next to my guys. I’ve worked for every penny, Laura. And I’ve done it so, now that you’ve come along, I can give you the world.”
“That was beautiful,” she said. “Total bullshit but it was nice.”
“You’re such a brat,” I hissed, swooping in to kiss her. “It wasn’t bullshit. I do work really hard.”
“Oh no!” she said quickly, her hand squeezing my arm. “Not that part. The part about me getting used to it. I don’t think I could ever adjust to that much excess. Especially knowing how hard you work for it.”
The car pulled up, so I helped her inside before climbing in as well. Traffic was a disaster, and it took half an hour to make it up to the Paris Casino and Hotel. Since I wasn’t sure how long we’d have to wait for a table, I told Rick to just head home, and we’d grab a taxi back to the penthouse. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t argue with me. Probably because Laura was there.
Rick had been with my family since I was a kid, and he took his job very seriously. He absolutely hated it when any of the Malloys offered to take public transportation, but I hated keeping him out until all hours of the night.
“Have a nice time, young lady,” Rick offered as he held the door for us.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling brightly. “It was lovely to meet you.”
“You, as well,” he said, bowing slightly before closing the door and walking around to the driver’s side again. “Mr. Malloy, will you be heading into the office tomorrow?”
“If I do, I’ll call you. I’m undecided, at the moment.”
“Yes, sir.” He got in the car and pulled away.
“Is he always that formal?” Laura asked.
“Never. Not once in the thirty years I’ve known him.” I laughed. “He’s a great guy, and I think he assumes I’m trying to impress you.”
“Do you usually try to impress women?” she asked, her tone light, but the fire in her gaze let me know she didn’t like the idea.
“Uh, no. In fact, I haven’t had a lot of time for women at all.”
“Good,” she said. “I don’t share.”
“Neither do I,” I agreed, pulling her into my arms and kissing her. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” she said.
“How is that possible?” I asked, unable to stop myself when I thought of all the junk we’d eaten today.
She just laughed and looked around. When her gaze finally caught the massive Eiffel Tower we stood in front of, she gasped and held a hand over her mouth.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“Yes, you are,” I agreed, unable to take my gaze from her.
“Stop it.” She rolled her eyes. “Come on. I want to go up.”
I wanted to, as well. It had been impulsive as hell, but when Laura had been distracted in a jewelry store we’d stopped in, I’d purchased an engagement ring. I was hoping I could surprise her by proposing at the Eiffel Tower over dinner. Granted, it was just a Vegas prop, but she’d been so excited to go. I hoped the element of surprise would be on my side, and she’d accept that I really did want her to spend the rest of our lives together.
We headed up to the restaurant, and I was thrilled my Roz had been able to get them to hold a table for me. Since I’d had no idea what time we’d arrive for dinner, it must have taken a bit of coercion to keep a seat without an actual reservation.
“How did you do that?” Laura whispered as we were led through the packed restaurant to a table situated by the window looking over the strip.
“I have no idea,” I admitted. I helped her into her seat before sitting across from her. “My assistant is a magician, I think.”
The waitress came over and took our drink orders while we perused the menu. By time she returned, we were ready to order food.
“This place is beautiful,” Laura said as she looked around. “Thank you.”
“For what?” I asked.
“I don’t know…everything. Rescuing me. Bringing me here. Showing me the town today. Spoiling me rotten. It’s been the best day I’ve had in a really long time. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” I told her. “This is just the beginning, you know? I plan to give you the whole world.”
“I kind of feel like you already have,” she admitted.
The moment couldn’t have been planned more perfectly. I reached into my pocket and pulled the ring out of its box, watching her look around the restaurant.
“I wonder how many guys propose in this place,” she said, still not looking at me. “They probably think it’s so romantic. How cliché, right?”
“Right,” I said, the ring pinched between my fingers, my mouth suddenly dry. A waiter walked by carrying a tray with two champagne flutes and I quickly dropped the ring in one of the glasses. “Totally cliché.”
She turned back to me and smiled. Her hand stretched across the table, and I closed my fingers around hers. That…could have gone better.
“Oh my god!” a woman yelled from a table behind us. “Yes! Mark! It’s gorgeous! It’s huge! Yes.”
I turned to see a blonde woman standing up, staring at the ring she’d just slid on her finger. She was crying, and the man she was with, Mark apparently, looked like a deer in the headlights.
Oops.
“See,” Laura hissed, giggling behind her free hand.
“You’re very astute,” I told her, turning back to her. “So, what do you want to do tomorrow?”
“Can we finish tonight first?” she asked.
“Of course. I just wondered if you’d given any thought to what you’d like to do. Tomorrow. Next week. For the next year.”
“I’ve given no thought to anything beyond a beef wellington and another glass of wine,” she said. “Don’t you have to work tomorrow?”
“No,” I assured her. “We’re kind of at a lull point with the new project. There are things I can do at the office, but most of it can be handled by my staff.”
“I
don’t want to be a burden. Or a distraction.”
“And I don’t want to be overbearing,” I said. “But you just got here. I’d like to spend time with you.”
Our food came, interrupting the conversation. While Laura stared down at her plate, I stole a glance over to Mark’s table. His new fiancée was talking excitedly on her cell phone while he appeared to be whisper-shouting at the waiter.
“Can I freshen your drinks?” our waitress asked, coming back to the table.
“Yes, please,” I said. “Also, I’d very much like to pay for the dinners of the happy couple over there.”
“That’s very kind of you,” she said.
“Please don’t let them know who’s done it.”
“Of course not, sir,” she assured me. “I’ll have that taken care of right away. And I’ll be right back with your drinks.”
“That was sweet,” Laura said.
I shrugged. It was literally the least I could do. It had been a beautiful ring, and if they ever broke up, she could hock it and buy a condo. But I’d obviously just forced an engagement, and Mark didn’t seem too happy about it.
After dinner, I led Laura back downstairs, and the valet got us a cab. As we rode back to the apartment, she snuggled against me, her arm threaded through mine.
“I guess it was kind of romantic,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Him proposing to her there. Sure, it was hokey, but she was really excited. And it’s a beautiful place, even if it’s probably touristy. Maybe, cliché isn’t all bad.”
Seriously? I blew out a sigh and kissed the top of her head.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It was romantic.”
Son of a bitch.
Chapter Seven
~ Laura ~
It was late when we got back to the penthouse, and I was both keyed up and exhausted from the day. We’d done so much and had so much fun yet not even skimmed the top of everything to do here. I’d grown up in a boring small city where the sidewalks practically rolled up at eight at night. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say there had been nothing to do but eat and go to a movie. So being here with Luke, I just felt as if the possibilities were endless.
Including one possibility I wanted to pursue tonight.
Either Luke wasn’t on the same page with me, or he was doing that not rushing me gentlemanly crap. Not that I didn’t appreciate it. I’d been pushed and coerced into the directions other people wanted, but I needed this as much as he did. And I was starting to believe him about looking for long term. After seeing his brother with Emerson, I suspected it was a Malloy family trait that they saw what they desired and went for it. And Luke wanted me.
I wasn’t so sure about the whole forever thing, but I sure wanted him, too.
The penthouse was eerily still as we walked through it, and though we had a magnificent view of the Strip through the expanse of glass on the far side of the great room, we couldn’t hear any of it. Luke didn’t turn on the lights as we entered, the outside illuminating the room well enough for us to navigate it. It was as if we were enclosed in our own little cocoon. Just Luke and me and enough sexual tension that I wasn’t sure how I’d make it through another lonely night alone.
“Well…” Luke said, his deep quiet, voice matching the silence as we stopped at my room. “Here we are.”
“Here we are,” I repeated. My teeth sank into my bottom lip as I gazed up at him. My heart slammed against my chest wall as I contemplated the coming kiss and what I wanted to say to him.
His hands slid into my hair, cupping my throat, while his thumbs caressed the sensitive skin near my ear. My breathing stuttered as my anticipation grew. Fear twined with it as I imagined him shooting me down.
“This was the best day of my life,” he told me. “Being able to spend time with you, live life with you. I want that forever.”
“Luke…” I whispered. “You don’t know—”
“I do know. I knew it the second I saw you.”
He started to lean in, and I wrapped my arms around him, going to my toes and pulling him closer. “You felt it?”
“Yeah.”
“Me, too, Luke. I… I don’t want to sleep alone tonight,” I whispered against his lips. “I want you.”
“You’re sure?”
“You’re sure I’m yours?”
“More than I have been about anything else in my life.”
“Then take me to bed.”
Luke moved so fast that if I’d changed my mind, there wouldn’t have been time. Not that I would have. I knew what I wanted here, and that was to be with Luke and have him be my first.
He swung me up in his arms and headed for his room in long strides. A cloud of bedding surrounded me as he dropped me, yes dropped me, on the mattress then climbed over me. His arms and legs caged me in as he stared down at me through the shadows, his eyes almost glinting as they picked up the lights coming in through the windows.
“If I take you, if I claim you, you’re mine. All mine. I’m not sharing you, and I’m not letting you go. Do you understand?”
My tongue skimmed over my bottom lip. That should scare me. Shouldn’t I be frightened of a man claiming he’d own me? Wasn’t that what I’d been running from? But Luke didn’t scare me. Instead, a flutter went off in my belly at the idea of belonging to him forever.
One side of my mouth lifted. “Like you would give me up or share me now? Like I don’t already belong to you?”
“I see we’re on the same page,” he growled. His fingers went to the buttons of my shirt. I covered his hands, stopping him.
“But…if I give over to you, you’re mine, too, and I don’t share. Do you understand that? I don’t do double standards, Malloy.”
“I would never cheat on you,” he rasped. “I can’t even imagine anything or anyone that would take my attention from you. Even while we’ve been apart, you’ve consumed me. And besides that… I don’t know what kind of men have been in your life, but I’m not like them. You’re mine, and I’m yours, and that’s it.” He kissed my neck, making a path from my collarbone up to my ear, while he deftly released the buttons on my blouse.
Other men? Did he think I’d had other lovers? I thought we were already clear on that.
I covered his hands again, and he lifted up to stare at me once more. His brows drew together.
“Luke, I’m… I haven’t been with any other men. I thought you knew that.” My teeth sank into my lip, worried. Maybe, he didn’t want a virgin. Somehow, that didn’t ring true.
He chuckled. “Trust me, I know. I’ve had a hard-on ever since you spewed it out at me.”
Oh.
“Oh. So, what about afterward, when I’m not anymore? Then it goes away?”
He scoffed. “Hardly,” he laughed. “Afterward, you’ll be mine. And you’ll be lucky if we aren’t fucking on every accommodating surface we can find, flat or not, as often as possible.”
Oh. Oh! My body went all soft and wet at his assertion—well, softer and wetter.
The things he said just fried my brain, sizzled all circuits and sent me scrambling for new connections. My lips moved, trying to form words while he finished unbuttoning me and shoved the shirt down my shoulders. At the same time, he kissed all the exposed flesh he found along the way.
“I think I like that idea,” I gasped.
“Good,” he chuckled against my skin. He flicked open the front release on my bra, shoved aside a cup then drew his tongue over the puckered peak. “Then we have a plan. I claim you, you’re mine, I’m yours, and we fuck like proverbial bunnies from now until the end of time.”
“Uh-huh,” I cried out as he sucked on that nipple, sending ribbons of white-hot sensation twisting down to my core. I bucked beneath him, calling out his name. My hands tore at his sweater. He helped me tug it off then went right back to his torment. I shoved my fingers into his thick, dark locks, holding him there while he sucked and licked. His hand molded the mound. Then the other joined, learni
ng the dimensions of my other breast. He pinched and pulled at the tip, and my pussy flooded in reaction. I knew when he touched me, I’d be embarrassingly slick for him. So ready for his cock.
My hands slid down the muscular expanse of his bare back until they reached his waistband. Undeterred, I slipped my fingertips just beneath it. Luke moaned against me, shifting. His covered cock thrust into my center, and lights flashed across my vision. Holy…
“Do that again,” I breathed. “Oh God!” I cried when he complied. It felt so good, better than I’d imagined. I’d touched myself before, and honestly, nothing of consequence had ever happened. I’d begun to believe that whole clit and orgasm thing was a myth.
There was no myth here.
Good lord, I wanted to have him rub against me for the rest of my life. And to think, I could have had this weeks ago.
“You’re thinking too much,” he growled against my neck.
“No…it feels good. I was just thinking…we could have done this sooner if I hadn’t—”
He kissed me and smothered my recrimination. His lips brushed over mine, taking, tasting, soothing occasional nips until he leaned his forehead against mine. “You weren’t ready then. You had to be ready, because I’m not playing to you—I am not letting you go.”
I swallowed hard, drowning in his eyes. How could I have run from this, and now, I was jumping in with Luke without reservation?
Because it was Luke.
I was still uncertain about the future, but underlying everything else, I trusted him. Never breaking eye contact, I reached between us and wrenched open the button on his pants. I didn’t hesitate or think about my lack of experience as I shoved down his zipper.
Luke didn’t reach in to help me. He just let me disrobe him, probably understanding I needed to take this step. It had to be all me. But as soon as I pushed down his pants and boxer-briefs and my fingers closed around his cock—his oh-my-God huge cock—he sprang into action.
The rest of my clothes were gone in a flash, and our naked bodies were moving against each other as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And maybe, it was at the most basic of levels.