Chapter 25
EVE
From the moment I stepped through the doorway of Brodie’s stylist to the stars, who he had flown out from New York and set up in a temporary store very far from the carnage Lacey and I had left downtown, I was treated like I was the star and not just his date.
Two blond assistants, dressed like they were about to walk a runway, greeted us with champagne and smiles.
“I’m Ava,” the taller of the two said. She was wearing a black pencil skirt and burgundy top cut so deeply I could see the globes of both breasts and her bellybutton. “We’re so excited to style you for the Oscars.”
Her twin, only a few inches shorter but dressed similarly except with an emerald-green top, let out a low laugh.
“And I’m Laila.” I tried not to laugh at their names even sounding similar.
“Madame Gwenevere will be with you shortly, but we’re here to make sure you’re comfortable, get you into the right underwear, and ensure your entourage are happily taken care of. ”
My entourage, in this case, was a wide-eyed Nina, a smirking Lacey, and a stoic Andrew.
I wasn’t allowed outside of Meadowridge without one of the guys as an escort these days.
That whole incident with Connor’s family had them back on edge, and it wasn’t a hardship to spend the day with any of them. Including, to my surprise, Andrew.
Lacey hooked her arm through mine, and I got the sense that this wasn’t her first time in one of these dressmaker studios. She didn’t even look around at all the shelves of material, designs pinned to the walls, or the half-dressed mannequins.
We were led toward a black leather couch, and when Lacey and Nina sat, they were both handed a cold glass of champagne.
Andrew pressed in close to my spine, his big body wrapping around me and calming my nerves.
“You okay?” he murmured near my ears, as my friends laughed and joked about getting used to the good life, and all I wished was that I was back at Bluebell House.
“Yeah, it’s just weird being dressed like this,” I admitted, knowing I was well out of my comfort zone.
Not only had the Lewis’s been solidly middle-class, and everything in my life bought off the rack, I had been all but a hermit for the past year since the shooting at Tennessee.
I’d found comfort and rhythm with the boys at home, and while it was nice to get out like I did with the girls the other night, I hadn’t shaken what happened after that.
“You deserve to be draped in the finest of dresses,” Andrew murmured, almost as if he was talking to himself. “To showcase your beauty. It quite literally almost knocked me on my ass the first time I saw the grown-up Eve.”
I jerked my head to the side, expecting to see him smirking, but there was nothing but pure sincerity in his expression. “Is that right?” I said, just as softly, wanting to keep this conversation between us. “How come you were such an asshole to me, then?”
His eyes blazed, the green darkening even as the brown was more dominant.
“You know why, Evelyn. You throw off my balance. You disturb my carefully controlled world.” My face fell at the confession, but his firm grip was on my chin, tilting it back up as his gaze ran over me.
“Don’t take your face away from me, sweetheart,” he whispered.
“It’s the singular most important thing I see every single day. ”
His lips ghosted over mine, and I barely halted my moan. “I don’t want to be the part of your life that disturbs you,” I told him, my head spinning from the sensation of breathing him in this way.
Andrew shook his head, a brief laugh escaping.
“You don’t understand. You disturb it in a way I crave.
I think about you every single second of every damn day, to the point that sometimes…
sometimes I am not completely overwhelmed by the structure my brain craves.
You supersede those needs, and it gives me a mental break. ”
I was leaning in for another kiss, when a deep, rich voice called out, “Ms. Lewis, please come back here so I can assess you.”
Andrew released an annoyed huff, but he let me go so I could turn to find a tiny woman striding across to us.
Unlike her two blond, supermodel assistants, Madame Gwenevere was at least a head shorter than my five foot seven, had a severe icy blond bob, and heavy dark glasses.
She would be twenty or thirty years older than me, I guessed, but it was hard to tell with the heavy makeup and scowl.
“Come,” she said, clapping her hands. “I don’t have all day. I’m very, very important.”
There was another annoyed huff from the man beside me, but I patted his hand. “It’s okay,” I murmured, touched that he was annoyed at all by her attitude. “Let’s get this over with.”
Plastering a smile on my face, I hurried over to where she’d stopped in the middle of the room beside a rack of dresses. I couldn’t see much from my angle, but most of them were black, white, red, and gold, which must be the “unofficial” theme this year for the Oscar’s red carpet.
When I stopped before her, Madame Gwenevere took a step back and sized me up. “Passable,” she said with a snap. “Pretty enough. Hideous hair color. Figure too curvy, but I can make it work.”
Heat pressed against my spine once more, and if I thought I towered over the seamstress, Andrew was a damn giant over both of us.
“Eve is fucking perfect,” he growled, eyeing the older woman like she was an ant he’d enjoy squashing.
“There’s not a single part of her that needs changing, adjusting, or fixing.
You should consider yourself lucky to put your dress on her beautiful body. ”
A flush filled me until I was burning all over.
Andrew was a lot of things, but over the top with compliments wasn’t one of those.
Yet he’d been devouring me with his gaze from the second we stepped into the black town car that brought us here.
To speak about me with so much conviction…
even Lacey was sighing as Nina wished out loud to find herself one to keep forever.
Madame Gwenevere took it all in stride. “Yes, yes, she is beautiful, but you can put your claws away, Mr. Knightsbridge. Now, let’s find the style of dress that suits her body. I don’t have a lot of time, so we will have to work with the base designs I already have.”
With that, she shooed Andrew away, and he left me with a kiss on the cheek to join Nina and Lacey on the couch, refusing his own glass of champagne.
I was just wishing for one myself, when Ava hurried over, her tits somehow not escaping her top, and handed me a chilled flute.
I downed it in seconds, needing the liquid courage to get through the assessing gaze of Madame Gwenevere.
Behind a curtain, I was stripped down and handed a thong and strapless bra, both of which were thankfully new and in my size.
I had no idea how they knew my size, but no doubt Brodie measured me while I was asleep and naked.
None of my guys knew the meaning of personal boundaries, and I honestly didn’t care.
It wouldn’t surprise me at this point to know they’d inserted a damn tracker under my skin, though I got the feeling that was one line they hadn’t quite crossed yet.
The first dress was gold and shiny, with material wrapping around me in a dozen different directions that made no sense until it was complete.
As I stepped out, Nina and Lacey’s chatter died off, and Andrew, who’d been sitting like he was in the military and being judged on his posture, somehow straightened further.
“Girl,” Nina said, tossing back her champagne before jumping to her feet. “You look stunning. That’s the dress. It has to be the dress.”
Madame Gwenevere sneered, as if it hurt her ears just to hear those words. “You do not choose from the first dress. How uncouth.”
Nina’s face wrinkled, and then she turned to Lacey, and they both burst into laughter.
I got the feeling they’d had more than one glass of bubbly at this point.
Andrew, on the other hand, hadn’t taken his burning gaze from me, and when he rose to his feet I found myself desperate to hear his thoughts.
He strode over, his hand skimming across the front of the wrapped dress, not quite touching me, but I felt the heat of his touch all the same. “So beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes on me and not the dress. “There’s no wrapping that can match.”
I blushed again, shaking my head. “Drew,” I whispered. “What are you doing? This is weird…”
It was weird to have him treat me like I was precious and perfect and he would die without me in his life. He’d never been this openly complimentary. I was scared to get used to it.
Madame turned away from me then to confer with her assistants, who were taking notes on their little electronic devices, and Andrew chose that moment to lean down and press his lips to mine.
A solid, incredibly arousing kiss, as he tasted me with a sense of desperation.
“There’s one thing I hate about this dress,” he said against my lips.
“It would take me an hour to get it off you, and I’m tempted to cut the damn thing off. ”
My core ached. I hoped they didn’t want this thong back, because it was trashed now. “I don’t even care what it costs,” I replied, “I’d let you cut it off me.”
A pained expression pulled at his lips, but then Madame was back, whisking me into the dressing room. “Next,” she snapped.
The next dress was a deep plum with a long, draped piece of fabric wrapping around my throat and trailing the floor behind me.
“No!” Madame Gwenevere barked the moment I stepped out of the change room. “No capes!”
I frowned, swooshing the fabric through the air. “No? I like this part, and—”
“No capes!” Gwenevere snapped again. “Do you know how dangerous a cape can be if anything goes wrong and you need to run for your life? Next one.” She shooed me back into the changeroom before I could protest, and I sighed. She made a good point.
A dozen dresses later and there were none that sat as nicely on me as the gold one, which a frankly smug and somewhat intoxicated Nina felt the need to point out.
“Yes, yes,” Madame Gwenevere groused, “but you still have to try them all to know. Okay, I have the adjustments needed. Are you fine to get out of that dress on your own?”
The last one was a simple zip back A-line that frankly did nothing for my curves. “Yes—”
“I’ll help,” Andrew said, voice strained, and the three ladies just nodded, while Lacey and Nina shot me knowing stares but made no comments.
Andrew didn’t appear to give a single fuck though, as he followed me into the dressing room.
With each outfit change, his stare on me had felt heavier, and that thudding pulse between my legs had grown stronger.
Just having his intense gaze on me was all the foreplay this girl needed to be two seconds from an orgasm.
Something it appeared he was well aware of.
Behind the curtain, in the corner, we had a semblance of privacy, and his hands slowly landed on my shoulders in a light caress.
He pushed down the black straps, and pressed his lips against my collarbone, tongue darting out to taste me.
It was sweaty work trying on clothes like this, and I wondered if it would bother him, but the low groan he released indicated he was anything but bothered.
“You taste so good,” he whispered. “I need more. I need to taste more.”
Despite the fact that we were in a room with five other women, Andrew dropped to his knees and lifted the black skirts of the gown, pressing his face against the front of my underwear.
When he breathed deeply, embarrassment almost got me, but he groaned again—barely audible to anyone farther away than me.
“Drew,” I mumbled, desperate and needy. “Please.”
“Baby,” he bit out, his mouth opening to kiss against my underwear. “I need more.”
I had no idea who this man was on his knees before me, uncaring about the creases in his pants, but I was here for it.
When he pushed the side of my panties over, nosing in until he was completely buried in my cunt, I pressed my hand in my mouth to stifle my moans.
We didn’t have long, but fuck knew I wouldn’t need it.
His tongue swiped the length of my pussy in one warm, firm stroke, and my knees weakened enough that I had to clutch on to his head and hold myself steady.
I almost started to pray that he wouldn’t stop there, but there was no need.
He licked and sucked like I was his last meal on this planet and it was his favorite one.
Within seconds, the spiraling in my gut exploded, and I came so hard on his face that I had to bite my palm until it bled to stop from screaming. Andrew made a depraved, desperately needy sound against me, but didn’t stop until he’d cleaned up every drop of my release.
When he finally stood, he stripped the dress from me, pocketed the ruined underwear, and helped me back into my original clothes.
All the while, he stared at me like I was a treasure he would never let go.
“Drew,” I whispered, finding myself leaning against him, the scent of my release all around us.
His face was damp, but he made no move to clean it off with a disinfectant wipe like I’d have expected a few weeks ago. “I love you.”
That had him stilling, and I panicked that I’d pushed too far. I knew this was fairly sudden, but that familiarity I’d felt with him from the first moment in class had morphed into a sense of home. Of safety. Of knowing I would be with this complex, broken, amazing man for the rest of my life.
I wanted to be the first one to say it, as I suspected he hadn’t heard it much before, and his reaction indicated I might have been right about that. When he pulled away, he stared down at me, eyes shiny. “What did you say?” he asked softly, blinking at me.
There was no hesitation in my reply. “I love you, Andrew Knightsbridge. I am in love with your stubborn, arrogant ass.”
That brought about a hint of his usual confident smile.
“I love you too, minx. Fuck, I think I was in love with you when we were children. I never got over them taking you away from me. That will never happen again.” The fierceness of his expression captivated me, and I pressed up on my toes to kiss him.
“Never again,” he repeated, and I wondered how it was possible that this was my life: dressed for the Oscars and kissing one of my five boyfriends.
If Harold hadn’t killed people in his pursuit of taking me out, I would have said that being shot in the back was the best thing to ever happen to me.
As it was, I’d just take my blessings and hope they weren’t all about to blow up in my face.