Chapter 39
Dane
Ipick Lucy up from her aunt’s apartment just as the sun is beginning to hang low in the sky, casting the city in vibrant pinks, oranges, and purples. It’s not actually that late, just nearing five, but this close to Christmas the sun sets earlier and earlier every day.
“Hello,” she says, breathless and smiling, her cheeks rosy as she runs out the front door of her aunt’s apartment and toward me, tucking something into her purse.
Lucy is breath-taking, her blonde waves loose around her shoulders, tucked under what looks like a hand-knit, navy blue beanie. She’s wearing a knee-length red coat, and the fact that I can see her bare calves tells me there’s a dress under it.
I can only hope it’s one of the ones I purchased for her. Or that she purchased for herself, using my card.
“Lucy,” I say, catching her by the arm. I’ve been standing just outside the car, waiting for her, and though I’d just planned for us to get in, I can’t stop myself from kissing her. I pull her body flush with mine and slant my mouth over hers.
Lucy opens for me, immediately, and I love that about her. I love her cold cheeks and the smell she brings with her out of her aunt’s apartment, floral and sweet, musky and deep, like several unfinished thoughts. Vanilla, the flower, not the extract.
I have half a mind to cut the date short and take her straight to the hotel, but I don’t. Instead, I force myself to stick to the plan and reach around her, opening the door to the car.
“Okay,” she breathes, blinking rapidly as I gesture for her to climb inside. “I guess you’re racking up points already, huh?”
That makes me smile. Everything about her makes me smile. “So, you’ve designed a points system?”
It sounds more like something I would do.
Lucy laughs, “Maybe.”
The driver already knows where to take us, and I reach over, taking Lucy’s hand—smaller, softer—in mine, turning it over and lacing our fingers together.
Without meaning to, I think about what Nico said the other night.
If we were going to do this with someone, it was going to need to be a woman with a big enough heart for all three of us.
I’m jealous that he was the first to articulate it. But maybe that’s what I saw in her, that first day, when she walked into my office. Maybe that’s the difference between her and the women who fall all over us.
Lucy has the capacity to appreciate each of us individually, and then all at once. It’s a miraculous skill, a trick of fate that someone this perfect could exist.
“What are you thinking about?” Lucy asks, leaning over and pressing her mouth close to my ear, so I can feel the tickle of her breath against my neck. I could tell her that the partition is soundproof, that the driver couldn’t see or hear us, no matter what we did back here.
But I don’t. I like her this close, like when she whispers to me.
“I’m thinking about how happy I am that you needed a job,” I murmur, running my thumb over the back of her hand.
When she smiles, I want to capture the feeling forever.
We reach our first destination, and I help her out of the car, guiding her inside. The first part of our evening is a string of appointments with various boutiques around the city, private shopping sessions.
I accept a glass of champagne and settle myself into a chair as the shop girls flutter around Lucy, helping to find her dresses and blouses and outfits I don’t fully understand.
“The winter collection is very vintage, with a few twists pulled up from old catalogs,” one of the shop girls says, as she wheels out a cart of hanging clothes. “We’ll start with one-piece and work into some styled looks, if you want?”
Lucy looks overwhelmed, then one of the girls pushes a glass of champagne into her hand. “You don’t have to do a thing but look great,” she says, smiling when Lucy takes a sip.
It takes a few minutes, but Lucy softens into the process.
They cycle through several pieces—the first looks like a pioneer dress, and Lucy cracks up, singing a song from The Sound of Music.
Then she comes out in a striped, belted dress, followed by a gauzy, flowing white dress with floral patterns on the skirt.
“That one,” I say, gesturing with my champagne glass. Strangely, I can picture her wearing it on Nico’s boat, the air ruffling it out behind her. It’s not very practical for the winter, but when it warms up, she’ll look radiant in it.
Lucy starts to have more fun as the girls dress her in more casual outfits—a black skirt and thick button-up shirt that makes her look like a schoolgirl. Jeans and a boxy pink top that she “loves!”
Then, they get into the evening wear.
“It’s a jumpsuit,” one of the shop girls says, gesturing to the lush black fabric that cascades over Lucy’s body. Lucy turns back and forth, pushing her mass of hair over one shoulder.
“What do you think?”
“Get it,” I say, because she looks good in it. She looks good in everything.
We continue like this, going from boutique to boutique, shop workers ferrying our bags to the car, Lucy trying on every piece of clothing they bring out for her. She laughs and sips champagne, eventually ties her hair up out of her way as she rushes in and out of clothes.
When we’re finished, and I’m sufficiently turned on by the amount of money I’ve spent on her, I ask her to pick her favorite piece to wear to dinner.
Lucy emerges in a simple black flared dress with a small golden clasp just under her breasts. It was a few thousand dollars, and worth every penny.
Our next stop is a towering, pitch-black building in Manhattan. We pull up outside and the driver leaves to park the car while I take Lucy’s hand and lead her inside.
“Oh my god,” she whispers, bringing her lips close to my ear again. “Is that Scarlett Johansson?”
I glance at her, “Who is that? An actress?”
Lucy stares at me, open-mouthed. When I grin, she shoves me playfully, “That is so not funny. I’m going to have a heart attack if we’re around famous people, Dane.”
We don’t eat out at restaurants like this often—I just prefer having my privacy—but when we do, it’s always around other people who value discretion. Who don’t want to step out into the street, only to be bombarded with the flashing of cameras.
The meal is perfect. Succulent, organic meat from Japan that melts in our mouths.
Lucy closes her eyes and goes boneless in her chair more than once, which is a precursor for what’s to come.
Through the windows around us, the city sparkles, both the lights and the snow.
From here, I can just make out one corner of Rockefeller Plaza, busy with people skating and celebrating the season.
Cole, Nico and I have already purchased far too many gifts for this woman. And we’re not quite done. We know how much it’s hurting her to miss Christmas with her family, so it’s only right that we bridge the gap as best we can.
After the meal and the decadent chocolate dessert that follows, I hold the door for Lucy, and she climbs back into the idling black SUV.
It takes us to our hotel. Of course, I could take her back to my place, the high-rise, but it’s more utilitarian than I want for this.
The suite I choose is classic, with a large claw-foot bathtub in the middle of the room I plan to make good use of.
A chandelier twinkles in the center of the vaulted ceiling, refracting off the gilded crown molding.
“Ohmygod,” Lucy says, in the way she does when she’s really excited. She spins in a circle in the center of the room, her hair looking like so much spun gold right here in the epicenter of luxury.
I move close to her, enjoying the way her head drops back when she looks up at me. “You like it?”
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers, rising up on her toes to kiss me. I like it when she kisses me first. Even more, I enjoy taking over the control.
Settling my hands on her hips, I turn her and walk her backwards, toward the bathroom. It’s as large and luxurious as the rest of the suite. As much as I want to watch her in the bathtub, I can wait. Right now, I need the shower.
I strip her down, remove my suit, and follow her into the large rain shower.
Lucy sets it to the temperature she wants—positively scalding—and we stand under the stream together, hands and lips on each other.
She trails kisses over my chest, even running her tongue along the trough between my pecks.
Every day, this woman gets more bold.
Which is a good thing, considering what I have in mind for her today.
“Turn around,” I murmur against her ear, water dripping from my hair and sliding down her breasts. Of course, I could just maneuver her, but I like administering commands. Like watching her obey.
Lucy turns, and I kiss her neck, trail my hands over the front of her body, down her arms. Fingers loose around her wrists, I take her hands and plant them on the wall, bending her so the water runs down her back and over her ass.
“Dane,” she breathes, when I slide my hand between her legs, find her wet for me, growl in response. Lucy widens her stance slightly, clearly waiting for me to find her clit, but we’re doing something else this time.
“Oh,” she gasps, when I slide my hand up, instead, over her ass, then between, thumb circling. Lucy looks over shoulder, eyes wide, and I pause.
“Okay?” I grunt, praying it is. After she said what she wanted, after the words air and tight stumbled off her lips, I’ve thought of little else.
And the planner in me knew that she would need some preparation.
I still remember how tight she was that first time, her body wound up, barely relaxing enough to take my cock.
She’s relaxed considerably since then, gotten more comfortable with sex. But, just like I was right about her never having seen a sex toy, I know I’m right about her never having experienced anal.
To my relief, Lucy nods, gasps out a yes when I continue moving my thumb on her, slipping it slightly inside. I soap up my hands and wash her thoroughly, before turning off the water and carrying her back to the bed.
The air around us trembles with possibility. The taught, delicate bubble of pushing into new territory.
Maybe it makes me a selfish bastard, but I’m happy to take another first from her. To be the first man with her like this.
Though, it will likely be Cole. First, because that’s according to her fantasy, and secondly because he’s the smallest of us, the least likely to hurt her.
“Dane,” Lucy rasps, as I set her down on the bed and take her body in for a moment.
Then, I command, “Turn over, Lucy.”
She lets out a little noise—something between a moan and a whimper, and does as I’ve said, rolling over onto her hands and knees, her sweet ass in the air for me. Reaching down, I slide my hands down to the insides of her knees and widen her.
“Stay just like that,” I say, ignoring my desperate cock standing at attention, begging to be put into play. I can’t go in with it—she struggles to take me vaginally, let alone like this.
So, instead, I reach into my bag and pull out an Ember dildo with a flared base. Condoms. Organic, unscented lube.
“Are you ready?” I ask. Lucy makes a noise in response, and I slick her with the lube, roll the condom on over the toy, coat the thing with more lube. “Lucy,” I say, working my hand against her, then settling the soft, rounded head of the toy against her opening. “Tell me you’re ready for me.”
“I’m ready,” she cries, rocking her hips back. “Oh, fuck Dane, I want it. Like—like I wanted you, the first time.”
It’s primal, and primitive, and I know it means nothing. And yet, the reminder that mine was the first cock inside her does something to me. Makes my hot blood hotter.
I work the toy inside her, bit by bit. Pull it out. Check in with her to make sure she’s okay, and she’s more than okay. Apparently, Lucy is a woman with the anatomy for this to hit her g-spot in a special way. I only wish I could feel it the way I can when my cock is inside her.
It’s an introduction, this smaller toy, and rather than bringing her to orgasm on it, I pull it out and flip her over again, walk her up the bed so her blonde waves spread out over the pillow, so she looks up at me with hooded eyes.
Then, with every ounce of pent-up pressure inside me, I fuck her into the mattress, bury my cock inside her, revel at the feeling of her heels against my back.
As I do, I pepper her with commands. Say you want my dick, Lucy, beg for me, say my fucking name. Ask for me to go deeper. Harder.
Tell me you love me while I fuck you.
I think, and think, and think it, but don’t say it. Wouldn’t want it to happen like this.
I’ve loved her from the moment she walked into my office. And I’ll tell her when it feels right.
But I won’t demand that she say it to me now. When Lucy says those words to me, I’ll be certain that she’s not just following my orders.