Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
The next few days have me participating in etiquette class. It’s a recommendation I came up with after thinking about it for a while. Though when I bring this up to Luke, he doesn’t see the need.
“You don’t have to change.”
Easily said for someone who has grown up understanding the correct use of napkins (they go on the lap, and you dab your mouth inside the fold so stains stay hidden), and is well-versed in handshake rules (two pumps in business situations and three pumps in social).
I know I don’t have to put myself through the ministrations of Lady Francine, preaching for hours about how table manners maketh a woman, but I also don’t want this crucial Intel deal held back because I accidentally snort at a joke, rather than melodically giggle into my shoulder for three seconds.
During these lessons, I am messaging Luke.
He’s so busy we haven’t seen each other. He’s gone before I wake up, and returns after I’ve fallen asleep. More than a few times, I’ve tried to stay up and wait for him or I try dragging myself out of bed in the middle of the night to see if he’s up.
Why?
I don’t know.
It’s an ache I refuse to put into specific words, but I can at least admit, my mornings are not the same without him.
God, they feel so barren all of a sudden.
I sit there after brewing my own tea and wonder whether it’ll go back to normal after this conference business is over, but also thinking this way is a recipe for more dangerous pondering.
Like, what does happen after? Isn’t that the fake fiancée deadline?
Do I go back to being his smoothie maker after?
For now, I’ve stopped all my normal cooking duties
It makes me wonder what I’m doing in this city, living with my boss…for how long?
Until the CUM competition is over and I win? (Fingers crossed, nightly prayers, begging into the universe void). It’s the only answer that makes sense to me. If I actually win that, I have choices. No forced jobs where I’ll take whatever is available. There’s a real career waiting for me.
Perhaps if I can just accomplish that, I won’t be so distracted. So invested. Worried about him. Waiting. Hungering. Addicted to our messages. Foolishly grinning throughout the day, rereading past correspondences, as if in the thirtieth time, I’ll discover something new.
Even today, we go back and forth, and I’m sickly happy about it.
LUKE
On a scale of 1-10, how miserable are you?
ME
I can only speak for Lady Francine. She was a 10 when I asked her what to do when your dinner guest has a visible booger on their nose. Apparently nothing because rich people don’t have this issue.
LUKE
After sufficient net worth has been achieved, we get nose butlers who take care of everything.
ME
Hm, I’m certain you shouldn’t be spilling these secrets.
LUKE
You’re spending ten hours listening to a woman go on about posture. It’s the least I can do. Which still isn’t enough.
ME
Since you refuse to charge me for room and board, I think it is me who is getting the better deal. Unless you’ll finally take some money for all these days I’ve been at yours?
LUKE
That won’t be happening.
ME
Alright, I’ll continue living on as a burden.
LUKE
See to it that you do. But also I’m the one who owes you for what you’ve been doing. Not the other way around.
ME
I’ve stopped making smoothies, yet you continue to pay me, and not at our earlier agreed-upon rate, but something that seems to have more than quadrupled. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?
LUKE
Consider it the fiancée upgrade. Expect more.
I’m walking back to his penthouse with a fresh wave of shock. This influx of money is building a larger and larger safety net for me. I’ve got enough for future rehab payments, no longer living from one payment cycle to the next.
ME
I’m afraid to ask, but what is your definition of more?
LUKE
You won’t be disappointed.
I should resist on principle, shouldn’t I?
ME
I’m not sure I will be able to accept it.
LUKE
You’ll be able to take it.
ME
How can you be so sure?
LUKE
Because I’ll make sure of it.
I’m fanning myself as I walk up to the building.
There’s been a rush of a heat wave. Something a very cold shower and iced tea can only solve.
And then maybe alone time, so I stop taking innuendos literally.
Imagining Luke coming to my room and pulling himself out.
“You’ll be able to take it. Because I’ll make sure of it. ”
What level of girth is the right fit? Certain muscles haven’t been stretched in a while. It will take some pushing. Extended prep work with fingers is a must, although his are of substantial width too, so how many?—
It’s confirmed, I’m a pervert who needs alone time.
I’m looking forward to it as I ride the elevator up to the top floor.
Perhaps a bath is in order after dinner.
My stomach grumbles. Much to my appetite’s displeasure, etiquette classes also mean tiny, feeble, little food portions you are supposed to chew on and swallow seamlessly as if one is not eating at all.
Maybe I’ll heat up something quick. Though I didn’t share this with Luke, the classes are actually long, exhausting, and miserably dull. I’m not up for cooking anything fancy. It’s a see-what-is-in-the-fridge-and-slop-it-together-night.
I hear music when I walk into the apartment.
Following it, I see Luke Abbot is cooking in a black shirt and jeans.
He is in the kitchen finishing up a pasta dish.
His forearms flex as he chops up the accompanying side salad.
There is wine airing out on the side. He looks up at me, gawping at him. “Right on time. Dinner is ready.”
“Oh—you didn’t have to do this,” I say.
“I’m learning,” he says, tossing the salad in a bowl, and mixing it thoroughly.
“Aren’t you exhausted? I know you don’t sleep enough hours.”
“We both are. So let’s eat and turn off our brains.”
I look over the spread. He’s taken the pasta recipe he’s already learned and tweaked it slightly to make it different. Penne tossed with roasted tomatoes, roasted eggplant, Parmesan, and oregano.
“How did you know?” I ask.
“Cookbook. Don’t look at the bin. There lies my failed first attempt.”
I start setting the table. “So, we’re turning off our brains?”
“About anything work-related. Other topics can stay open.”
He brings the dish of pasta over and uses tongs to fill our plates. The salad is placed between us. Wine is poured.
I sit down. “No work? Whatever will we talk about?”
His mouth curves. “Surely something. What do normal people discuss over the dinner table? Not politics or news. Let’s go with something personal. You start.”
“Always passing it off to me. Shameless.”
“Resourceful, darling.”
He pours me some wine while I think. Personal… What is it that I want to know about him?
A topic comes to mind. Something I know nothing about. I’m not sure about it, but he looks at me expectedly.
“Your mom—what was she like?” I follow up when his brow furrows. “You don’t have to answer. If you don’t want to.”
He shakes his head. “I will… She was…soft. I remember her telling me to always go along with whatever was happening around us. She never wanted to attract my dad’s rage. For me. For my sister. And I wish for her too?—”
He takes a sip of his wine as if needing a steadying moment.
“—Behind closed doors, when we couldn’t be there when it was the two of them…”
A final sentence that trails off, not finishing the story because his expression does that for him. The expression in his eyes is vicious. Perhaps not the best topic I’ve chosen. We eat most of our food and then he picks it up again.
“There are days I regret listening to her,” says Luke. “For going along with who he wanted me to be. Maybe if I fought it all, she’d still be alive.”
I won’t have it. “She’s your mom. Of course, you listened to her.”
He looks down at my hand. The one that’s come over the table and grabbed his.
“Sorry,” says Luke with a wry twist of his mouth. “This got dark, and we’re supposed to shut off our brains tonight.”
I squeeze his hand. “It’s okay to miss her, you know. Even if you don’t agree with everything she was. That’s—that’s how I feel about my dad. I miss him. ”
“He’s gone? I’m sorry.”
“No, he’s alive. I meant…I miss the dad I want him to be all the time.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not tonight.”
He considers me. “We make quite a pair, don’t we?”
Our fingers twine together tighter. I fear he can hear my heartbeat through that one point of contact, because it is so loud in my own ears. This is good practice , I tell myself.
“What else did Lady Francine talk about?” he asks.
“She complained, actually. That she’s not got enough time with me. How I don’t even know how to waltz.”
“You don’t waltz? That’s not going to do.”
He tugs on my hand and pulls me out of the chair.
“Is there actual waltzing at the conference? Please tell me you’re kidding!”
“Come, peasant.”
He pulls us to the foyer space right before the living room and then disappears back around the corner. I’m about to impatiently follow after him when the music changes. It deepens. Becomes poetic, haunting, and ruled by violin strings.
Luke comes back and holds out his hand.
I shake my head. “This will be embarrassing.”
“We’ll start simple. I promise.”
And that’s how I end up in his arms under moonlight, for an oval skylight is open above our heads.
Perhaps knowing how much I’ll mess up, he doesn’t go directly to the waltz.
No, we’re holding each other and swaying.
I’m wearing a white blouse and a long skirt as what I thought would be an appropriate choice for etiquette classes.
For once, I’m dressed more formally than him.
My hands on his shoulders are a mistake. I can feel the strength underneath his cotton shirt. How good he smells after cooking a whole meal for us is not a detail I wish to know. Or that his hand spans my lower back and one easy nudge has me following his lead.
“You haven’t stepped on my feet yet,” he notes.
“Only because we aren’t moving much.”
“Do you want to move faster?”
“…No.”
“I don’t either.”
This is a risky amount of truth-telling we are doing. My heart certainly thinks so. It’s racing and surging with adrenaline. Not to mention how expansive my boobs are, as if trying to take flight into his chest. They brush against him.
And not that I’m listening to every deviation of his breathing, but there is a noticeable intake.
I do it again.
He pulls me against him.
“When we did that kissing practice, do you think it was enough for people to believe us at the conference?” he asks.
Pressed like this, I can feel him against me.
I should tell him we’ve got adequate practice to maintain my own feelings, so they stay sequestered deep inside. Don’t do it, Rita.
He strokes a line down my back.
We’re both breathing so fast, sharing each other’s air.
I’m lost and revived and lost and revived—drugged on the idea of how much the front of his pants have angled out.
It’s a big bulge my fingers hunger to explore.
“There’s—” I say, and then clear my throat. “No such thing as too much practice, I’ve heard.”
“We’re of the same opinion.”
“Good.”
“How should we do this?” He answers his own question. “Slowly.”
His hand on my back presses firmer to lift me on my toes. I’m shivering in anticipation, my nipples tightening painfully against the blouse. Our feet have stopped moving. His other hand strokes my cheek.
Coming down, he kisses the very corner of my lips. And then the other. A brush against the middle. Such a slow, torturous exploration that I’m getting greedy for more. I open my mouth and try to let him in with my tongue.
“Inside,” is all I whisper, and all restraint lays wasted.
I’m pushed against a wall, pinned there with his hands.
There is no escaping as his fingers go behind and squeeze the curve of my ass.
Not that I’m running from this. Quite the opposite, I’m trying to arch a leg over his hip.
As soon as his cock meets my body, Luke plunders my mouth.
It’s ravaged. Over and over again, unrelenting through my barely escaped whimpers.
My mind is blank. It feels so good. Like sin.
Unadulterated, mind-blanking, body-throbbing ambrosia.
I pull apart from him and press my lips against his neck below the ear, and that warm touch makes him rut against me—once—before he regains control of his hips, and pulls my head back by tugging on my hair, claiming my neck in return.
Marking me with nips and drags of his mouth, suckling that spot under my chin that makes my legs wobble.
I’m about to drop. He holds me up higher. I think I go for the front of his jeans with my hand when Luke takes my wrist hostage and palms it on the wall behind us. “Do that again, and I can’t believe I’m saying this—but I’ll finish in my pants.”
“You’ve got no idea how close to the edge I am.”
“I haven’t touched you properly yet.”
This is him not touching me properly?!
We stare, pupils bleeding into each other.
“It’s been a while, I guess,” I confess. “But?—”
“We—”
“This—”
“There’s chemistry,” he rasps out.
“Good practice,” I joke weakly.
“Practice—right. We shouldn’t?—”
“Take it farther?”
“I’m days away from securing the biggest upset in my family business,” Luke grits out. “Everything I’ve worked my whole life towards is within reach. No time off. It’s the only thing I’ve dedicated myself to.”
“And I’m supposed to help you.”
“I think of you. When I shouldn’t.” He lets go of the wall, steps back. “Actually, always.”
“You’re the one taking over my brain!” I complain. “Especially since I’ve got my semi-final round coming up soon. MealKit Masala is going to announce it any day now. I should practice my recipes. I need to.”
“We should be smart,” Luke says.
“And this would be distracting.”
“I wouldn’t think of anything else. It’s bad enough already.”
“And I can’t fuck up my thing.” I put some distance between us and cross my arms. “It’s settled. We should go—” I gesture to his generous bulge and then back at my skirt. “—take care of ourselves individually. Right now. I’m leaving.”
My escape is brisk. I go straight to my room and I—to put it crudely—fuck myself with my own fingers until the orgasm crashes into me like an explosion behind my eyes.
It’s not enough.