42. Lourdes
Lourdes
The limo turns onto Michigan Avenue, and even through the darkened glass, I recognize the familiar skyscraper rising in the distance long before we reach it. The Fairmont Chicago has always been one of those places I associated with another world.
Rich people. Powerful people.
Impossibly distant from the life I knew growing up.
Even now, seeing it loom closer through the windshield sends a strange tightening through my chest. It’s about to be my world. And there’s little I can do to stop it.
I don’t think I want to.
The car glides beneath the canopy, and immediately, men in dark coats move in practiced choreography. One opens the rear passenger door first, allowing the cold Chicago air to slip inside the limo. Ares steps out and then reaches back to help me. I take in the towering glass facade above us.
The driver lifts out two bags from the trunk. I notice Ares’s leather duffle from Santorini. The other is a brand-new, sleek two-tone canvas weekend bag I assume is holding the clothes he said he packed for me.
The driver passes both bags to a waiting concierge with a luggage cart. She looks accustomed to serving powerful men.
Our hands linked, Ares leads me through the wide automatic doors. The moment we step into the lobby, warmth and a fresh citrus smell rise around us. The sound of water from an indoor fountain echoes off the high ceilings.
I look for the front desk, but the sharply dressed woman from outside stops at a podium off to the side.
“Mr. Zervas, welcome back,” she says, keycard packets already in her hand. “Your suite is ready for you.”
I note the time is eleven a.m. No four-p.m. check-in for gangsters.
The concierge escorts us personally into a private elevator, and the head bell hop trails behind us with our bags.
We rise smoothly, the floor numbers climbing steadily until the doors open onto a quiet corridor at the very top of the building.
There are only two numbered doors, and the concierge leads us to one at the end of the hall.
Opening it for us, she says, “I’m a text away for anything you need, Mr. Zervas.”
Then she does something strange, she looks directly at me. “Both of you.”
In that moment, I don’t feel like a gangster’s woman. I feel like a person. “Thank you.”
I cross the threshold and stop. The suite is all warm light, sweeping city views, and the kind of understated luxury that makes the motel room I slept in last night seem like a pit.
“This way.” Ares takes both our bags in one hand and mine in the other.
He brings me down a hallway and into a bedroom. The king-size bed has crisp white linens turned down with immaculate precision.
He releases my hand and moves deeper into the bedroom. The simple act of emptying his pockets makes me smile. He sets down his phone and wallet onto the dresser near the door before shrugging out of his coat.
When he turns back toward me, his gaze softens slightly. “Come here.”
I don’t hesitate to go to him.
He slides the coat off my shoulders gently. He looks like he intends to hang it up for me, but then he does a double take at my outfit. “You wore that to work yesterday.”
“I left right from the office.”
“You wanted to get away from me that badly,” he says, sounding hurt.
He’s showing emotion for once.
“No, I wanted to be with my sister. That’s what I wanted all along.” I stand there feeling exposed. “I didn’t count on you coming into my life.”
“Now you know how I feel.” He presses a kiss to my lips.
He hangs my coat over the back of a nearby chair before guiding me gently toward the bathroom. The lights glow on automatically when he pushes open the door.
This bathroom is bigger than that whole motel room. Pale marble gleams beneath soft recessed lighting while a wide soaking tub sits in the center of the room like a showpiece.
Without a word, Ares turns on the faucet handles, adjusting the water temperature until steam curls into the air. The water fills the tub in a steady rush.
Smiling, he glances back at me. Our eyes locked, he rolls up his sleeves to his forearms. The crisp white cotton is pulled back enough to reveal his dark tattoos etched into his right forearm. The shapes dance over the muscles while he checks the water again.
The utter beauty of this man makes my center throb.
Ares stands to his full height and approaches me slowly. His expression breaks from gentle into possessive.
“I need you naked,” he murmurs.
His fingers move to the hem of my sweater dress. He slowly lifts it over my head and drops it to the marble floor.
In my underwear, he sets me on a stool from under the long vanity and removes my boots, massaging my calves. I feel the heat of his gaze long before I meet his eyes.
Piece by piece, he removes the rest, my bra, my cotton panty. When the last barrier between my nakedness and his eyes disappears, cool air brushes over my bare skin.
For a moment, neither of us speaks. Then his voice cracks.
“I was so worried about you.” He kisses my bare stomach, and bubbles tickle me from the inside.
It’s a fuzzy feeling I’ve never experienced before.
Testing the water again, he turns off the faucet. “Let’s get you in the bath, then I’ll wash you. Let me take care of you.”
I hold on to his shoulder as I lift my leg to step into the tub, but Ares cups the achy flesh between my thighs.
“This is mine. You are mine.” His fingers slide into my folds. “Tell me you finally understand and accept that.”
“I understand,” I answer, my body instantly heating to his touch. “I want that, too, Ares.”
And now that he knows about Sandrine and I don’t have this secret between us, I can give myself to him. My pulse jumps, thinking about what my ultimate submission will create in this man.
He sees or senses the uptick, and his hand closes around the column of my throat. “I want you in so many ways. It’s driving me mad.”
“I’ve wanted you all this time, too,” I whisper. “I was just terrified to admit it. To you. To myself.”
His eyes flash at my confession.
“I needed to hear this.” He swipes at my exposed clit with his tongue. “And you will come to me with your needs. Any hour, wherever I am. The minute you show up, nothing else matters to me but you.”
Those words land like a shower of rockets.
It appears my leaving had an unintended consequence of making Ares realize his sixteen-hour days were not sustainable for a happy relationship.
I don’t bother asking for details. I just let him lick my clit and finger my pussy until I’m dripping and shuddering against his mouth.
Smiling at my orgasm, he lifts me and gently lowers me into the tub. Sea green sparkles under the foam, and it smells minty. When the hot water hits my center, fresh from an orgasm, it’s a pleasant shock to my system.
The heat wraps around my aching muscles, and a quiet sigh escapes me before I can stop it.
“Mmm,” Ares breathes against the back of my neck. “Sounds almost as satisfying as the climax I gave you.”
“It’s a tie,” I say and lean back.
Ares kneels at the edge of the tub behind me. His hands rest on my wet shoulders, and his thumbs press slowly into the tight muscles there. He eases the tension in steady circles while more rising steam fills the air.
After a moment, he reaches for the handheld sprayer and tilts my head back slightly. “I’m going to wash your hair.”
That part is unexpected.
Wetting my hair first, he works a dollop of citrus shampoo through it with patient strokes. His fingers slide through the strands gently to massage my scalp.
The simple intimacy of this flusters me more than anything else he’s done. This is personal. This shows I matter to him.
He rinses the shampoo and repeats with the conditioner, leaving it on my hair while he reaches into the tub and strokes me to another insane climax.
Our mouths meet with urgency.
“I need to fuck you all night.” His finger presses on my back hole. “I will take you here, too. You will let me break you with filthy sex. Because I’m yours, too, Lourdes. Every part of me.”
Shuddering, I’m nodding without fully grasping how a man of his size will fit.
Ares helps me out of the tub, and after a brisk toweling, he lifts me so that my legs are wrapped around his waist. He brings me to the bed, kissing me the whole way, and when he lays me down, I catch his eyes.
He groans, looking at me on the bed, wet and ready. He doesn’t bother to remove his clothes. His shirt unbuttoned, barely down his arms, the cuffs caught on his wrists, his pants just below his waist, he enters me in one quick thrust.
Ares fucks me through another orgasm until his own has him roaring my name. It’s loud and feral and, I think I caught him adding Zervas to the end of it…