Chapter Eleven #2
Jason laughed. A short sound that did not quite land as a laugh. His eyes went to Xavier for just a moment, a reflex he could not stop, and Xavier met the look and gave it nothing back.
"I don't mind," Jason said.
Xavier's hand moved beneath the napkin. Slow. Just slightly higher on her thigh. She felt it and kept her eyes on Jason and kept her face exactly where it needed to be.
"You don't mind?" Andre smiled, big and genuine. "Or you love it?"
Jason offered no response for a moment. Then: "I love it, actually."
"As you should," Andre said, leaning back with his wine, completely comfortable with all of it.
"I respect that completely. A woman like Claire.
" His eyes moved to her with open appreciation, taking his time with it, not apologizing for a second of it.
"Beauty like that was never meant to be kept private and covered up.
" He looked back at Jason. "It is meant to be celebrated.
Enjoyed. Shared." A pause. "You understand that. Not every man does."
Xavier's hand moved higher up her thigh beneath the napkin.
Claire felt her thighs part.
Not a decision. Just her body answering what was being said about her at this table, being talked about like something meant to be shared while Xavier's hand was right there waiting, and her legs opening slowly under the table before she had said a word about any of it.
She reached for her wine and kept quiet and felt Xavier's fingers find the inside of her thigh and the dinner continued above the table exactly as before.
The conversation had moved on to something she was no longer tracking.
She was too aware of Xavier's hand, of what her own legs had done under that table, of the elevated state of her body that had been building since he placed his hand on her lap.
She excused herself. Slid out of the booth.
Walked toward the bathroom with her clutch in her hand and her heart going.
Her phone buzzed in her clutch.
She assumed Jason. Checking on her, wondering if she was alright, the small domestic reflex of a husband whose wife had been the center of attention all night. She pulled the phone out.
Xavier.
One line. No greeting. No explanation.
Remove your panties and bring them to me.
She stared at it.
The restaurant was on the other side of that door.
Jason was on the other side of that door.
Andre was on the other side of that door.
And Xavier was sitting in that booth with his wine glass and his composure and his hand that had just been on her inner thigh and he had sent her a command that she was either going to comply with or not and she had approximately thirty seconds to decide which.
She already knew which.
She reached under her skirt.
The thong was soaked. She felt it the moment her fingers found the fabric. She pulled it down and stepped out of it and stood there in the restaurant bathroom holding her thong in her hand.
She folded it carefully and put it in her clutch and unlocked the door and walked back out into the restaurant.
Xavier was mid sentence with Andre when she slid back into the booth beside him.
She reached into her clutch under the table. Her fingers found the folded lace and she held it in her palm for just a moment, the warmth of it, the evidence of what the last hour had done to her body folded into something that fit in her hand, and then she reached sideways and pressed it into his.
He did not pause. Did not look down. His sentence continued without a break and he received it in his palm and she felt his fingers close around it briefly before his hand disappeared from hers.
She looked at the table.
She heard the quiet movement of his hand going to his pocket.
The soft displacement of fabric. And then his hand was back, settled on her thigh beneath the napkin, and she felt it land and felt what it meant that he was sitting at this table with her Velour thong in his pocket and his hand on her leg and her husband two feet away and she once again parted her thighs.
Completely. Slowly. An opening that had nothing left of resistance in it.
Andre was telling Jason something about the early days of Velour, the first campaign, the risks he had taken that everyone told him were too far, and Jason was listening with the genuine attention he gave things he found interesting and Claire was doing her best to be at the same table as both of them.
She was not entirely succeeding.
Xavier's fingers had moved from her inner thigh to the hem of her skirt and were tracing slow circles just beneath it, close enough that she could feel the heat of his hand radiating against her pussy without touching it, close enough that every small movement of his fingers felt like a question she did not have the willpower to answer no to.
She shifted slightly in her seat and felt the shift bring her fractionally closer to his hand and hated herself for it and did it anyway.
She picked up her fork.
Set it down.
She was soaked and bare and sitting in a restaurant with her husband across the table and her boss's fingers a breath away from her pussy and she could not have told anyone what Andre had just said.
She waited for Xavier to touch her.
He did not touch her.
He kept his fingers exactly where they were, absolutely certain of what he was doing, and she sat there and burned.
"Actually," Andre said, reaching into his jacket pocket, "since we are all here I want to show you something." He produced his phone and unlocked it and turned it so both Jason and Claire could see the screen. "We just wrapped a shoot last week. First look at the campaign assets."
Claire leaned forward slightly to see the screen.
The woman was blonde. Wavy hair, her chest filling the black lace cups of the Velour bra, pale skin on full display.
The bra she was wearing was identical to the one currently visible above Claire's blazer.
The thong, the one currently in Xavier's pocket, stretched across the woman's hips.
She was seated at an office desk with her legs spread and her head tilted back and her lips parted and the Black man in the suit behind her had one hand wrapped around her throat from behind, not squeezing, just holding, ownership without force, and her expression said she had been waiting for exactly that hand for a very long time.
Claire felt Xavier's fingers move.
The first contact. The lightest drag along her outer lips and she gripped the edge of the table and kept her eyes on the phone and stayed quiet.
Andre swiped.
The woman on her knees on the office floor.
The man standing over her, his suit jacket still on, one hand on her chin, tilting her face up toward him.
Her hands behind her back. Her chest pushed forward in the black lace bra, her nipples visible through the thin fabric, her expression somewhere between begging and completely surrendered. Her mouth partially open.
Xavier's fingers moved slowly up and down her lips. Finding her wetness. Registering it. Continuing.
She parted her thighs wider under the table.
Her legs simply moved, opening further, giving him what he had been patiently waiting for, and she felt the air of the restaurant against her bare pussy and felt his fingers settle into the new access and kept her face pointed at the phone.
Andre swiped again.
The woman bent forward over the desk, her elbows on the surface, her back flat, the thong she was wearing displaying her perfect ass.
The man behind her, his dark hand on her pale ass, his suit jacket still perfectly in place, his expression calm and certain and completely in control.
In the next one her face was turned sideways against the desk, her eyes closed, her mouth open in a way that left nothing about what she was feeling open to interpretation.
His hand raised in the next shot, caught mid strike, the red bloom visible on her pale skin, her expression not pain but something considerably more complicated and considerably more honest.
Xavier's fingers circled her clit and she exhaled slowly through her nose and gripped the table.
Andre looked between the phone and Claire.
"Am I the only one seeing this?" He glanced at Jason. "That almost looks like Claire. Doesn't it."
"Yeah," Jason said. The word coming out slightly wrong. "It does."
She could see it in him from across the table.
The way he was sitting had changed. The focus he was giving the phone was not the same focus he had been giving Andre's stories all evening.
He was looking at those images and putting his wife in them and Xavier's fingers were moving slowly between her legs and she could see from the slight shift in Jason's posture and the way he reached for his water glass that he was hard.
Andre turned the phone toward Claire directly.
"What do you think?" His voice was warm and professional on the surface. "The poses. The way she is positioned throughout." His eyes held hers. "Do you like the way she is surrendering in each shot?”
Xavier's fingers continued moving in slow deliberate circles over her swollen clit as she was coating his fingers. "Yes," she said. A beat too late. Slightly too much breath behind it. "They're really good."
Andre's eyes stayed on her face for just a moment longer than the answer required. He slid his phone back into his pocket and leaned forward with the energy of a man about to share something he was genuinely excited about.
"Before I forget," he said, looking at Claire. "Your tagline proposal came through this week." He shook his head slightly with a smile. "I have not been able to get it out of my head since I read it."
Jason looked between them. "What is it?"
Andre looked at Claire. Giving her the floor.
She felt Xavier's fingers slow against her clit. As if giving her a moment. As if he wanted her fully present for this.
She looked at Jason across the table and then at Andre and said it.
"Good girls wear Velour." A breath. "When they want to be bad."