Chapter 8
T he waiter came by with all three desserts.
“Is your party coming back?” he said.
I had no idea. I barely even heard him. I just watched as Layla stood up and walked out, her heels clacking on the wooden floor, as if I had just called her the world’s sluttiest whore.
I had no idea what the hell I had said or done—not today, not a week ago, not ever.
If things were so awkward, why couldn’t she at least say as much in the moment?
Why did she have to stand up at a business dinner like this?
Surely, it wasn’t something she had read on her phone. If it was, if an emergency had popped up, she would have said something. She wouldn’t have just left me out to dry like this.
There was really only one way to interpret this—she didn’t want me around anymore. She didn’t want me to continue what we had done. She was doing what Sarah Hill had done ten years ago.
Except ten years ago, I had gotten ruined not by my actions, but by my adopted status.
Sarah Hill had not misunderstood me—she had understood me too much.
Layla probably just felt flustered by what had happened and the sudden situation she found herself in; there was nothing about what we had done that would prevent us from seeing each other again.
Well, the whole investment and business aspects part aside. But that had been present since day one.
I thought for more than a few seconds about how to respond to the waiter.
“Sir?” he asked.
“We had an emergency, I’m sorry,” I said. I really wasn’t even that conscious of the words as I said them. I felt that my subconscious had forced them up, and I was grateful for that—I had an excuse to move forward. “I… I have to go. I’m sorry. That should cover it, right?”
I pointed to the five hundred dollars. The waiter’s eyes went wide. I had the answer I needed. They weren’t wide eyes of disappointment or anger.
I quickly hurried out, apologizing over my shoulder for the abrupt exit. I looked to my right. I didn’t see Layla. I looked to my left. I didn’t see Layla.
But to the left was the nearest subway station, and I’d be damned if Layla had just taken a cab away. If she was going home, she wasn’t going to do so in a cab.
I ran as fast as I could, my tie fluttering in the air and my suit blowing back, looking like a cape.
“Layla!” I shouted.
I debated if I should have done that, considering Mr. Taylor might still be in the premises, but then I decided I had a good enough cover story.
I could say that it looked like someone had messaged Layla something terrible and I wanted to catch up to make sure she wasn’t distraught and broken up over what she read.
That, of course, was not what had actually happened, almost certainly, but it was plausible and possible.
I saw someone stop, but with the sea of New Yorkers between us, I could not see enough to see if they were Layla. Like observing an invisible object by seeing what moved around it, I could only see that people had to adjust for someone who had stopped walking, but I couldn’t see who.
“Layla!” I shouted.
I again ran forward, my speed picking up. The figure stood still.
I came into view. Thank God, it was Layla Taylor.
“Layla, what’s going on?”
She looked me up and down for a second, paused, and turned and heeled.
“Oh, hell no,” I said.
I got in front of her and began walking backwards, practically a suicidal move in New York City but one I was willing to make for the sake of understanding what the hell was going on.
“At least let me know what’s going on,” I said.
“Chance, this whole thing is just… I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Shouldn’t have done what?”
I let a sly grin form on my face, even though internally I was more than a little bit nervous. The only solace I took was knowing if she truly did push me away, it would not take long for me to get over it… but in the interim, it was going to suck if she did.
“You know what,” she said, but she did not walk as fast as she had before.
“I don’t, actually,” I said. “I know you shouldn’t have abruptly walked out on me like you did just now.”
Now she locked eyes with me and I saw that fire.
Granted, it looked more like the fire of a little bit of anger and aggravation, but I knew from experience how to kindle that fire in the direction of passion and sex.
I didn’t necessarily need the right kind of emotion at the start, I just needed some degree of any emotion present.
“And I also knew you should have called me as you said you would.”
“I said I would see,” Layla said, but I could see in her eyes a losing effort, one that she knew she was losing.
“Well, you have seen, and now you are here,” I said. “I know a girl like you is a girl of her word. She keeps her promises. She is sweet and kind. She is funny. And she wants to grab a drink with me.”
“Oh, is that so?” Layla said, laughing.
Once again, I had to thank my subconscious for spouting off the words before I could think of them. It helped to be a charming person, but it also helped to have experience and a brother who liked to womanize as much as, well, I did.
“That is quite so,” I said. “You can pretend like you don’t.
Oh, I don’t expect you to grab five dozen drinks with me.
I don’t expect you to even grab two drinks with me.
But I know what you want—you want to grab a single drink with me, just to live up to the promise you made.
You want to see what one drink might do for tonight.
You want to see if one drink might remind you of what we had, or if one drink might make you decide you should walk away.
But I think you know what one drink will do for you. ”
And there it was.
That laugh turning nearly seductive, the way her eyes narrowed and her lips curled and her chest protruded forward a hair.
“And where will I get this one drink, Chance Hunt?”
Bingo.
I had everything I needed. Now I just had to not fuck it up.
“Oh, that easy, huh?” I said, teasingly turning around before suddenly whirling back and grabbing her arm, leading her from the direction we came.
She made no move to fight it, and in fact moved in closer to me.
“I am taking you to one of the best bars in town. Oh, it won’t look like one of the best bars when you first walk in.
But you know the saying, appearances can be deceiving?
Well, no one ever said deception always had to be bad. ”
Strangely, Layla did not laugh as hard as I would have expected. But perhaps my joke had just not landed as well as I could have had it; regardless, though, she did not make any effort to move away, and I felt like the king of the world.
I just had to hope no one from either of our companies saw us, but even if they did, it was hard for me to give a shit. I was in a great place, with a great girl, and I was feeling like I had ten years ago before my soul got broken. I wasn’t about to fall into that hole again.
The lounge I took her to, M Grace, was as promised—a hole in the wall, or rather, a hole in the ground.
We descended some stairs and then another flight of stairs and came to a dark, mostly empty place.
There was a corner table that I instructed her to sit at and I sat quite next to her.
I made no bones about what I was going for, and I think Layla didn’t want to either.
The waiter came over and I ordered each of us a shot of tequila.
“Just like that, huh?” she said.
“Just like that.”
She chuckled and squeezed my arm.
“You’re dangerous, Chance,” she said. “I shouldn’t even be out here right now.”
“Why?”
She didn’t answer me, continuing forward.
“But I suppose for a man as entertaining and charming as you, I might as well go along for the ride and see what transpires.”
“Indeed,” I said, although I still had not left alone the fact that she had said that she shouldn’t be out here.
Maybe it was as simple as the fear of looking like there was a major conflict of interest. Maybe her father frequented this bar. Maybe it was even simpler than that—maybe she just had other obligations or promises that she was skipping.
But then, an idea took hold that I could not shake.
Maybe this was a repeat of ten years ago with Sarah Hill. Maybe she knew I was the adopted one in the family, and that while in the short run, my charm and wit worked wonders on her, in the long run, she would end up leaving me all the same.
“This seems like the kind of place the Hunts would own, wouldn’t you say?” she said.
I laughed. I did it partially in response to the ridiculousness of her question, and partially out of the fear that that statement confirmed my worst fear for why she was saying what she did.
Well, if that’s what it’s going to come to, then I might as well just get right to it.
“Nonsense, this place isn’t glamorous enough,” I said. “Although, maybe as the adopted black sheep in a family of white sheep, they’d secretly invest in it and have me run it.”
“Oh?” she said.
But her reply wasn’t in response to what I had said. I could see what it was—it was a surprise to me saying adopted. Just… be honest.
“Yeah, I was adopted into the Hunt family at about five years old from a foster home.”
I braced myself for the inevitable fallout. I knew it was coming. Layla would repeat what Sarah had done ten years prior, except I would have no hope for recovery as I had with Sarah. Nothing was going to happen that could give me hope after that.
“That’s very interesting.”
I was taken aback, not by her words but by her tone. She seemed… genuinely curious? Truly interested? Warm to the idea?
I looked at her and was pretty sure my facade of confidence had vanished in favor of shock. What in the hell had happened?
In any case, though, the tequila shots showed up at that moment, and I had what I needed.
“Not as interesting as you, madam,” I said, holding up my shot glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers, Chance,” she said, her eyes narrowing on mine.
We clinked glasses, gulped out shots down, and then I immediately ordered another round.
“I thought you said we were only going to do one drink.”
“I thought I said it might also make you do more.”
“You’re lucky you’re right, you little bastard.”
I just laughed as she leaned against me. Slowly, two drinks turned into three, which turned into four, which became five. Her hands became much more aggressive and probing until, after the fifth drink, she said, “I wonder, Chance, what other deals you might have in store…”
As she spoke, her hand rubbed over my hard dick. I felt a shiver of excitement go through my body. I was already feeling the initial pleasure and was so close to fucking her right there.
And then, she surprised me by going above and beyond even that.
She positioned herself in a way that it looked like just two couples cuddling in the back corner, but very carefully, she unzipped my pants. She reached her hand inside, gripping me with those soft, delicate fingers. And then she started jerking me.
“Oh, Chance,” I said.
I did my best not to show what was happening obvious, still technically being in a public space, but goddamn did it feel good.
She kept moaning into my ear, her hot breath pushing me closer and closer.
It was no secret that with the element of surprise, my attraction for her, and everything else associated with the moment, I would not last that long.
What made it even sexier was the public nature of it all, the risk we had taken.
We had so much on the line, which made it so much hotter.
My dick started to harden in preparation for cumming, but it only made Layla’s hand go even harder and faster.
“This is what you want, isn’t it?” she said. “Yeah, cum for me, Chance, cum for me.”
I had to bury my head and bite my suit sleeve to avoid making too much noise.
I shot my load into her hand and into my boxers, in such writhing pleasure that I probably looked like I was having a seizure.
I shuddered as the cum continued to unload, only gaining control of myself as she slowly stopped and removed her hand.
“Oh, Chance,” she said.
With that, she stood up, smirking as I lay there, half-knocked out from what had just happened.
“I’m going to go wash my hands,” she said. “You dirty little thing.”
I smirked and blew her a kiss. She just winked and headed around the corner for the bathroom.
I all but collapsed right there on the spot.
I had done a lot of risque things in my life, but getting jerked off by the daughter of a CEO I was negotiating with in a private bar in my finest professional attire easily ranked near the top, if not at the very top.
It was… words failed to describe it. I could only say that for how good I felt, I would have given up a lot to have it back.
“Oh, shit,” I said, laughing. “I’m gonna have to return the favor to her when she gets back.”
But…
She didn’t come back, not for how long it should have taken to wash her hands.
Curious, eventually, after wiping off what I could with a bar napkin, I stood up, thanking the dim lighting from making it obvious that I had just shot a load in my pants. I headed over to the bathrooms and prepared to knock.
But I stopped when I just saw one thing—a napkin with Layla’s lipstick on the bathroom door.
This girl, I swear…
She’s going to be the death of me, but damn if she doesn’t make it a little fun.