Chapter 37
M arcus
When I get home from work, the dining table is set with candles, and a bottle of champagne is chilling in ice.
“I asked Geoffrey to do this,” Emma says, coming down the stairs toward me. “I hope you don’t mind. Since it’s our first official day of living together, I wanted tonight’s dinner to be extra special.”
“Of course I don’t mind.” In fact, my chest fills with a warm, soft glow, the tiredness from the long workday fading as she comes up to me, rises on tiptoes, and plants the sweetest, most sensual kiss onto my lips.
My cock hardens immediately, but I resist the urge to drag her off to bed. It’s nearly eight, and if my kitten waited for me, she must be as starved as I am. Besides, I want to have this “extra special” dinner with her, to see her dimpled smile as we talk about our day.
When we sit down, Geoffrey appears out of the kitchen and makes a production out of uncorking the champagne and pouring us each a glass.
“Thank you. You’re amazing,” she tells him, her gray eyes sparkling and her dimples out in full force, and I watch in amusement as my always-composed butler flushes with pleasure before mumbling his thanks and backing away.
Like my investors, he can’t help responding to Emma’s unconscious charm, to that genuine, seductive warmth that’s lured me to her from the start.
“To you, kitten,” I say, lifting my glass when he disappears back into the kitchen. “And to a successful trial run.”
“Yes, to a successful trial run,” Emma says, clinking her glass against mine. “And to new beginnings.”
“To new beginnings,” I echo, and take a sip of the perfectly crisp, fizzy drink.
A minute later, Geoffrey brings out red-wine-braised short ribs, and we eagerly dive in.
At first, we’re too busy eating to talk about anything except how good the food is, but after a few minutes, the first fullness signals reach my brain, and I ask Emma if she decided whether she wants to see her friend and her banker boyfriend.
It’ll be tough to find the time, with my schedule jam-packed until the weekend, but for Emma, I’ll clear one evening.
“Actually, I told Janie this week is no good,” Emma says. “With the move and everything, it’s just too crazy. Plus, I haven’t seen Kendall in a while, and I’m hoping we can do something over the weekend with her. But maybe we’ll see Janie next week, if that’s okay with you? Wednesday, perhaps?”
“That works. As long as it’s not right before the Alpha Zone conference, I’m good,” I say and pull out my phone to make a note in my calendar.
When I put the device away, Emma asks me about the conference and what Alpha Zone means, and I explain that “alpha” is the excess investment return compared to a benchmark—the true measure of a fund’s performance.
“Nowadays, it’s cheap and easy to invest in something like an S&P 500 index fund and get the same returns as the market,” I tell her.
“The challenge is consistently outperforming, and that’s where investing acumen comes in.
The Alpha Zone is an association of all of us who hunt for alpha, whether in the traditional sense of outperforming a given benchmark or simply getting the best possible returns.
Most of the members are hedge funders like myself, but there are also venture capitalists, currency traders, private equity guys, traditional asset managers, real estate investors, and anyone else who’s in some way in the alpha generation business—and is successful at it. ”
“So what is the conference for?” Emma asks. “Just to rub shoulders with other big-shot alpha hunters?”
I flash her a grin. “Pretty much. We also pitch an investment idea for the coming year, and at the following year’s event, we see whose idea performed the best.”
“Ah, I see. So your reputation is on the line.”
“Exactly.”
I ask about her day next, and Emma tells me about a new client who pinged her for developmental edits—those are apparently the hardest—and how the holidays are bringing more customers to the bookstore.
Then she asks about the meeting that delayed me tonight, and I explain about the IPO we’re investing in this week.
The meeting was with the company’s CFO, and it ran late because he’s based on the West Coast. Since she seems interested, I go over the merits of the investment, and she listens attentively, occasionally interrupting with astute questions.
Though my kitten has no finance background, she appears to have an intuitive grasp of the risk-reward calculation that goes into investing decisions, as well as a knack for cutting through the fluff and succinctly summarizing the issues at hand.
“You know, you would’ve made a great equity research analyst,” I tell her as Geoffrey brings out our dessert—a fruit salad drizzled with chocolate syrup.
“Those are the guys who publish many of the reports I read. With your way with words, you’d have quite a following—especially if your stock recommendations were more right than wrong. ”
She grins, spearing a plump strawberry. “Are they often wrong?”
“On average? About fifty percent of the time.”
“Really? Then why does anyone read those reports?”
“For the information.” I bite into a juicy piece of pear.
“These analysts do quite a bit of research on the companies they cover, and their reports often give a good overview of the business model, the competitive landscape, and such. That’s their real value add, not their opinion on whether the stock is a buy or sell.
Professional investors like myself make those decisions on their own. ”
“Ah, I see. So are all published stock recommendations useless?”
I smile at her. “Pretty much. Don’t tell your grandfather, though. I gave him access to our equity research database today, and he’s in seventh heaven.”
Emma laughs, shaking her head, and forks a chocolate-drizzled raspberry into her mouth. Right away, her eyes close, and a blissful expression appears on her face. “Mmm,” she moans through a mouthful. “This is so, so good…”
My heart rate jacks up, my mind flooding with images of how she looks when I’m inside her. That expression is very similar to the one she’s wearing, and my hands itch to reach across the table and pull her to me, so I can kiss the lips she’s licking at this very moment.
If it weren’t for Geoffrey in the kitchen, that’s exactly what I’d do.
She must know the effect she’s having on me because when she opens her eyes, her mouth curves in a sweetly seductive smile and she reaches across the table to lay her small, soft palm on my hand.
“This is delicious, but I think I’m full,” she murmurs, regarding me from underneath her lashes—which, I notice, are longer and darker than usual, as if she’d put on some makeup. “How about you?”
With her teasing me like this, I’m hard enough to break stone, but that’s not what she’s asking. “I couldn’t eat another bite,” I growl, standing up. “So if you’re full, how about we—”
“Go upstairs? Yes, great idea.” Beaming, she jumps to her feet and hurries to the staircase, and I follow her, suddenly as ravenous as a starved wolf.
* * *
When we get to the bedroom, she pushes me to sit on the bed and starts to undress, peeling off each layer of clothing with maddening slowness.
It’s torture of the most delicious kind, and only the fact that I haven’t seen her like this before—all mysterious and adorably seductive—keeps me from grabbing her right there on the spot.
Still, by the time she wriggles out of her panties, I’m about to blow—and judging by the coy smirk on her glossy lips, the little witch knows it.
“Come here,” I order hoarsely, reaching for her as she approaches the bed, but she avoids my outstretched hands, sinking to her knees in front of me instead.
“Emma…” My breath hisses between my teeth as she unzips my pants and frees my erection, the feel of her small, cool fingers on my cock exciting me almost past the point of no return. “Kitten, I don’t think—”
“Don’t think,” she murmurs, gazing up at me through her lashes as a soft, adoring smile curves her lips. “All you need to do is feel.” And as she bends forward, her hot, wet mouth closing around my swollen shaft before sucking it deep down her throat, I learn again what heaven on earth is like.
It’s not until much later, when we’re lying in a sweaty tangle of limbs, having made love two times in a row, that I wonder again why Emma changed her mind about living together—and feel a pang of guilt over the real estate deal I made behind her back.
If she ever finds out, she might leave me—which is why I can never tell her.
This and the investigator’s report I commissioned and everything else I’ve done to get us to this point has to remain my secret… because I can’t lose Emma.
I love her far too much.