16. Ivy
16
IVY
W as this what Cinderella felt like? If she was real, anyway, being whisked away in a carriage on her way to the ball. Only I was in a limousine instead of a carriage, and instead of a ball, we were supposed to have dinner at a three-Michelin-star Italian restaurant. I was in no way financially solvent enough to afford a meal there, and even I knew it took nothing short of an act of God to score a last-minute reservation there when waitlists were months.
If anybody could handle it, Lucian could.
I pulled a mirror from my clutch and checked the makeup I had so carefully applied, catching a slight smudge of eyeliner on the tip of my finger before holding the mirror farther away so I could fuss with my hair. Everything seemed to be in place. I wanted to look perfect, or as close to it as I could manage.
I wanted to look like the sort of woman who belonged.
Nerves gripped me, but I ignored them, looking down at the only nice black dress I owned. It was modest but sexy, with a V-neck that revealed the swells of my breasts and cut low in the back. The hem barely flirted with my knee, and I kept adjusting it as anxiety wreaked havoc on my nerves. It was just a date.
Sure, I’d been on dates in the past, but not with a man who was my boss, even if he had never actually come out and used the term. Not with the son of a billionaire. And certainly not with someone I’d ever been this attracted to. The stakes had never been higher. I still couldn’t shake my fears over what might happen if anybody found out.
So why was I doing this? Sitting in the back of a limo, smirking to myself, I remembered the looks on the faces of people walking past my apartment building as I crossed the sidewalk and slid inside. Okay, so that was a lot of fun, but otherwise… why take this risk?
It was more than the sex. As amazing as it was, it wasn’t enough to risk my reputation and future. Was it? What about Mom’s future, which lately had overshadowed mine?
By the time we reached Greenwich Village, the answer was clear. It was in the way my heart leaped when I caught sight of Lucian waiting outside the restaurant. The smile I couldn’t suppress as I looked him over. He was sophistication personified in a dark suit, one that had clearly been tailored for him, but even the best tailoring couldn’t substitute for his confidence. That was what stood out the most about him. The sort of thing that couldn’t be faked. He was a man on top of the world, and he knew it, and that knowledge revealed itself in his slow grin and the way he insisted on opening the door for me rather than letting the driver do it.
He extended a hand without looking in at me. This was it. After taking and releasing a deep breath, I placed my hand in his and relished the little thrill that ran through me as I stepped out.
“Wow. I mean…” Lucian’s mouth hung open while his dark eyes traveled every inch of my body, “… I told you to look nice, but you look incredible, Poison.”
It was completely expected and sort of adorable, the way he said that. “Hey, I only followed orders.” I gently laughed while trying to ignore the thrill of his slack-jawed appreciation. All the time I spent applying my smoky makeup, blowing out my hair, and pinning it up in loose curls had been well spent. Thank you, random YouTube tutorials.
“You look very handsome…” I murmured, tucking my hand in his elbow and letting him lead me inside, tingling all over, caught up in the magic of the moment. Walking in on the arm of the most handsome man I’d ever met, who happened to think I was incredible.
This was why I took the risk. This feeling. Him. Me. The thrill, the magic.
“It smells amazing in here,” I whispered as soon as we stepped inside, where the tantalizing aroma of garlic teased my empty stomach. I had been too nervous to eat and didn’t want to ruin my appetite, anyway. I would never get the chance to dine here on my own, and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity.
“You smell better.” Leaning in, he acted like he was going to murmur in my ear but instead brushed his nose against my neck. My knees almost turned to jelly, and I had to hold onto him to keep from hitting the floor. “You’ll have to let me know the perfume you use. I intend on buying you a case.”
If only. I couldn’t take him at his word. Even if he meant it, he could afford to live in a fantasy world where we had a future. One of us had to be realistic, and if there was one thing life had taught me to deal with, it was reality. I had no other choice.
We were led to a table near the back of the dining room, and the soft candlelight wasn’t the only thing that made my heart flutter. “For me?” I asked, admiring a bouquet of white roses in the center of the table. I hadn’t seen them on the other tables as we walked through the room.
“For you.” He held out my chair, and I took a seat, shuddering slightly when his hand brushed my bare back and sent heat sizzling straight to my core. Everything about tonight was more intense, more special. I was like a kid on her first date, unsure of myself and giddy. I could only hope I didn’t do or say anything hopelessly gauche.
Stop that. I had my shit together. I wasn’t some country bumpkin, even if I had been raised pouring water into what was left in the shampoo bottle rather than buying more right away. I needed to get out of my own way and stop self-sabotaging.
“Would you like some wine?” he asked. When I nodded, Lucian ordered a bottle and then smiled at me from across the table. “Thank you for coming tonight. You look exquisite.”
“You’re going to give me a big ego,” I joked, but he was adamant.
“If anyone ever deserved a big ego, it’s you,” he insisted.
When I kept waiting for the punchline, it never came. What had gotten into him? I couldn’t put my finger on it. Sure, he was laying the charm on thick, but it didn’t feel inauthentic. I might have been ready to swoon over how wonderful everything already was, but I could still think straight.
I knew what it sounded like when a man was throwing out pre-rehearsed lines so he could get laid later in the evening. It didn’t feel that way now. I could hear the sincerity in his voice.
“I should’ve asked if you like Italian food,” he murmured as we accepted our menus.
“Who doesn’t like Italian food?” I asked with a soft giggle. “If there was only one country whose food I could eat for the rest of my life, this would be it.”
“Same here.” We shared a smile, and I was the first to look away before turning our attention to our choices. Everything looked so good. I finally had to force myself into a decision, so I chose braised short ribs over gnocchi, and Lucian went with seafood risotto.
“And we would like to start with a plate of antipasto,” he added, lifting an eyebrow my way. That sounded good to me, though I would have said yes to just about anything. He was so freaking handsome, so charming. Would I ever have a night like this again?
“Do you come here a lot?” I asked over a rich cabernet sauvignon.
“I get around,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, grinning. “This is one of my favorite spots, but I don’t typically go out to dinner by myself. Normally, I’m with family.”
Did he know he tended to smile when he mentioned his family? “This is going to sound funny, but that’s what I envy the most about you,” I admitted. “Your family. You were an only child, but you still have your cousins, your aunts, and uncles.”
“I’m lucky, I know.” For once, there was no humor behind his words. No joking. Only sincerity rang out in his voice, and it threatened to make me throw myself across the table and kiss his face off. This was some potent wine.
We dug into the antipasto when it arrived and while we ate, we talked about everything and nothing all at once. He liked jazz but also appreciated a range of genres. “Between you and me, I’ve been known to listen to show tunes from time to time,” he admitted, wincing. “My mom dragged me to more shows than I can count when I was growing up. I developed an appreciation for it.”
“You’re so lucky,” I mused, tearing at a piece of prosciutto. “But I know what you mean. My mom loves old movies. Growing up, I couldn’t understand how kids my age didn’t know about the movies from the thirties and forties. I guess I was kind of the weird kid when it came to that.”
“Some would say weird, others cultured.” He lifted his glass to me. “Here’s to our parents, forcing us to be cultured.” I could drink to that and laughed as I did. Nobody would believe it if I told them how much fun spending time with him could be. How normal he seemed, so far away from the imperious young prince I first met before that welcome session.
Then again, that wasn’t the first time we met, was it? I wouldn’t have slept with him after the wedding if he’d given me that attitude right off the bat. Somewhere inside, I had known there was more to him.
“Tell me the truth, Poison.” He set down his wine glass between courses and looked at me head-on. “Do you ever want to tell people to leave you alone when they drop by your desk a hundred times a day with their piddling problems?”
I couldn’t hide my disappointment. “Those problems aren’t piddling to the people who have them,” I reminded him. “Like Molly Kramer. She wants to go back to school, but she’s a single mom who’s already spread too thin. I sort of nudged her into taking online courses. I want her to succeed. I want them all to succeed.”
And now I’d said too much. His expression softened as he leaned back in his chair. “Wow. I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing for me to say.”
I wouldn’t disagree. There were still things he had to learn. “I don’t have a family besides Mom, so I guess, in a way, they’re my family. I want to take care of them. I want them to be safe in their jobs.”
“They will be,” he promised with a firm nod, and my heart soared. I believed him.
The restaurant was all but empty by the time we finished our cappuccinos after dessert. It didn’t seem right. I would’ve sworn we’d only been there twenty minutes, tops. “Is it really this late?” I asked, looking around, feeling a little guilty when I noticed a cluster of servers hanging around the hostess stand, trying not to glare at us. “I’m sure these people want to go home.”
Lucian lifted a hand to signal for the check and, to my surprise, gave our server his credit card without looking at the total. “You might be the most thoughtful person I’ve ever met, and I’m not just saying that,” he offered with a wry grin. “I would’ve left a tip and told myself they’re only doing their job.”
“At least you tip. Some people don’t,” I pointed out. “I waited tables in college, so I guess I’m sensitive to things like that.”
There was nothing to do but shiver when his hand touched my back once I stood. We shared a brief, secret smile full of the sort of intimacy that made my heart skip a beat. “You have this way of opening me up to things I never considered before, Poison,” he murmured while his deep, dark eyes traveled over my face. “How do you do that?”
I didn’t have the chance to reply, not that I knew what to say, as he accepted his card from the server and scrawled a tip on the receipt, handing it back over. “Thank you very much. And sorry if we held you up by sitting around for so long.”
When he caught me smirking at him, he shrugged. “At least we didn’t walk in five minutes before closing and demand to be served.”
We were both laughing as we left. It had to be the wine I drank with dinner that made my head spin, making me lean against him just for the sake of feeling his body.
And when his hand found mine and closed around it, I would’ve sworn I was about to take flight. What was happening? Was this real? I almost didn’t want to believe it because that would mean trusting life to not let me down yet again. A girl could only be burned so many times before she kept her hand away from the fire.
“This has been a wonderful night. Thank you so much.” Instead of ducking into the limo right away, I paused, facing him. His eyes sparkled in the lights from passing traffic, pulling me in until I could drown if I were not careful. “It’s been so special.”
“It’s no less than what you deserve.” With that, he opened the back door to the limo and helped me inside, then followed. “Home,” he announced to the driver.
He hadn’t asked if I would come home with him, not that I was protesting. Tonight, it felt like the natural next step.
It had to be the wine working its magic because by the time he took a seat next to me, my pussy was throbbing, and the slightest touch might have made me come.
It didn’t help that Lucian draped an arm over my shoulders, drawing me closer until his leathery cologne was a blanket wrapping itself around me. “Have I told you lately how beautiful you are, Poison?”
“Now that you mention it, yes… not that I’m ever going to get tired of hearing it.” I turned my face toward his and inhaled the coffee lingering on his breath before he kissed me. Slowly, deeply. Thoroughly. Until I moaned softly into his mouth and twisted so my left leg could drape over his lap.
He didn’t disappoint, caressing my thigh while his tongue slid against mine. My blood was on fire, setting my body ablaze. Thank God for the privacy divider between us and the driver. Lucian had already pushed me beyond my comfort zone—fooling around in the office, flirting where anybody might hear, fucking like animals the weekend of the retreat. But performing for a complete stranger who happened to be driving at the time? A girl had to set boundaries.
Those melted away once my knee brushed Lucian’s erection and deepened the craving that already had me in its clutches. A wicked idea came to me. The sort of thing I would never have considered doing outside a fantasy. Somehow, Lucian made it seem normal to challenge myself this way. To slide off the seat and kneel on the floor between his legs.
“What are you up to, beautiful?” he asked, chuckling. He could pretend all he wanted to be confused, but the man didn’t hesitate to slouch a little in the seat so I could access his belt and unbutton his slacks.
“Don’t tell me this is the first time a woman has gone down on you,” I whispered, making him laugh until the sound died when I dipped inside his boxer briefs and pulled out his thick, warm dick. It was so hard, precum was beading at the tip. He held his breath, watching me rub my thumb over that bead of moisture.
“Head in the back of a limo.” He let out a low moan when I reached out with my tongue and ran it around the ridge of his head. “Fuck, that’s nice. Do that again.”
I would’ve done anything so long as it meant hearing that helplessness in his voice. That low animal growl that told me I was taking him to the limit. It made me much more eager to please him, to make him remember how good I was at this if we ended. No, when we ended because we would have to.
What difference did it make how good it felt to be with him? Every minute we spent together was a mistake. We just hadn’t paid for it yet. Hopefully, we wouldn’t.
I didn’t want to think about that anymore. Not when Lucian placed a hand against the back of my head, his fingers massaging my scalp while his hips began to move. “Fuck, yes,” he grunted out, fucking my mouth in quick, shallow strokes. “Just like that, Poison.”
I increased the pressure and used my tongue against the underside of his shaft. My hands slid over his abs and his chest before coming to rest on his muscular thighs.
“You like this?” he whispered. “You like being bad?” He was getting closer, his breathing quicker, his voice raspy. I moaned in response, and he sucked in a gasp. “Oh, fuck. You’re gonna make me come. Faster, faster…”
I gave him what he wanted, my head bobbing, slurping sounds mixing with his heavy breathing until he thrust upward one more time, grunting loudly a second before a rush of salty warmth filled my mouth. I swallowed it back, then again, taking every drop just to prove I could. For some reason, it seemed important. I wanted him to remember this.
He was laughing softly, maybe a little bewildered, when I rose from my knees and sank into the seat, feeling triumphant and maybe a little smug. “That was unexpected,” he admitted with a breathless laugh as he tucked himself into his pants again. “Appreciated, but unexpected. Just know I plan on returning the favor as soon as you get up to my place.”
Leaning closer, I whispered in his ear, “Oh, I was counting on it.”