18. Reed
Reed
“That one,” the stylist says, reaching for the third rack.
“Not yet,” I tell her.
Mia’s still in the second dress. She’s been on that platform for three minutes and I’ve spent all three of them with my jacket across my lap like a man with something to hide, which I do.
The dress is ivory, cut close through the ribs, and when she shifts her weight to one hip the fabric pulls tight across her ass and my cock goes hard against my thigh.
I shift the jacket.
“This one’s too bridal,” Mia says, to her own reflection.
“It reads as engaged,” the stylist says. “That’s the brief.”
“It reads as I gave up.” She tilts her head, catching me in the mirror. My eyes are nowhere near the neckline and we both know it. “Well?”
“It works.”
“You’re looking at my ass.”
“I’m evaluating the silhouette.”
“That’s my ass, Reed.”
The stylist finds urgent business at the far end of the rack.
“Then I’ve evaluated it five times,” I say. “And the neckline is fine.”
She steps off the platform. I watch her cross to the fitting room, hips moving in that ivory fabric, press two fingers to the bridge of my nose, and run Walsh unit projections in my head until the door closes behind her.
This is not a sustainable situation.
I’ve been telling myself that for two weeks. Nothing’s changed except that it’s gotten worse. Four weeks down, two to go, and I’d tear the contract up right now if I thought she’d let me.
The stylist wheels out the third rack.
Mia comes out of the fitting room and I forget Walsh entirely.
The dress is burgundy, deep and rich, fitted through the bodice, and I see the front first. That’s enough.
Then she turns to check the side profile and I see the back, open from shoulder blade to zipper, her entire spine on display, the back of her neck above it, the small knobs of her vertebrae that I’ve had my mouth on in my office and in my bed and that I would very much like my mouth on right now.
My cock is past interested. The jacket is earning its keep.
“Better,” the stylist says.
Mia gathers her hair up with both hands, twisting it off her neck. She turns her chin over one shoulder to check the line of the back and the tendons of her neck pull taut. I grip the arm of the chair.
“Reed.”
“Yes.”
“Say something useful or stop staring.”
“The burgundy works,” I say. “The neckline is strong. The back is what they’ll photograph.”
She holds my gaze in the mirror for a second, deciding if I’m being professional. I’m not, and she knows I’m not. The corner of her mouth lifts.
“Fine,” she says. “The burgundy.”
She goes back to the fitting room. The stylist glances at me, reads my face, and decides she has inventory to check in the back. Smart woman.
Mia comes out in her own clothes five minutes later. Jeans, her jacket, boots she crouches to zip. The hem of her jeans pulls up past her ankle and I stare at the strip of skin above her sock like a man who has lost all perspective on what deserves his attention.
“You were going to say something,” she says, without looking up. “Second dress. I saw you in the mirror.”
“I was going to ask whose call the neckline was.”
She straightens, swings her jacket on, gives me the face she makes when she’s caught me in a half-truth but decided it’s not worth the argument. “Sure you were.”
The limo is out front, Celeste’s doing, because apparently a dress fitting for a live-streamed engagement party warrants a car service.
She gets in first, slides to the far side, pulls out her phone.
I get in, pull the door shut, partition already up.
She’s scrolling, boots crossed at the ankle, pretending the last ninety minutes didn’t happen.
I let her have half a block, then I reach over, take the phone out of her hand, and set it on the seat.
She turns and I’m already moving, hands under her thighs, pulling her across the leather into my lap.
She swings her knees over my hips, her weight dropping against my chest, and the first breath she takes against my throat tells me everything I need to know about where she’s been for the last hour.
“I had half a mind to walk into the fitting room after the second dress,” I say, into her hair.
She exhales through her nose, her hips shifting against mine, her pussy pressing down against my cock through the fabric. “Why didn’t you come in?”
“Stylist was two feet away.”
“Shame,” she says, and finds my mouth.
She kisses me hard, fingers working my collar. I get my hands under her shirt, palms on her bare back, and pull her chest flush to mine. She makes a low sound into my mouth, and I feel her fingers working my belt, unhooking it, and yanking it open.
I slide one hand around to her front, unbutton her jeans.
She knows what’s coming, shifts off my lap, shoves her jeans and underwear down her thighs herself, swings back over me before I’ve asked her to.
I cup my palm over her pussy and find her soaking, slick and swollen before I’ve done a single useful thing.
She reaches down, tugs at my waistband. I lift my hips off the seat, shove my pants and boxers low enough, and my cock springs free.
She wraps her hand around it, strokes once from base to tip with her thumb circling the head.
My jaw locks. She watches my face with her lower lip caught between her teeth, enjoying every second of it, then strokes again, her fingers slick from where my hand was on her.
“Mia,” I warn.
“Mm.” Third stroke, deliberate, thumb dragging slow over the head.
I grip her hips, lift her, and bring her down over my cock.
She stops stroking, eyes going dark. I lower her onto me inch by inch, watching her face as I fill her up.
Her lips part and her brows pull together.
When I seat her fully her whole body goes still, thighs locked against my hips, breath stopped entirely.
“Okay?” I ask.
“Don’t be nice to me right now,” she says, voice already fractured. “Move.”
I thrust up into her from below. Hard.
She jolts, catches my shoulders, drives her hips down to meet the next one.
I set a pace that leaves no room for quiet and she takes every thrust, rolling her hips in tight circles on each downstroke, chasing the angle that makes her forehead drop to my jaw.
The car rocks faintly with us. Traffic hems us in on every side and I have never once in my life been grateful for midtown gridlock before today.
“The changing room,” she says, into my neck. “Tell me what you would’ve done.”
“Stripped the dress off you,” I say. Her pussy clenches around my cock, tight, immediate. “Bent you over the chair. Your hands flat on the mirror, watching your own face.”
She makes a broken sound, grinds down onto me harder.
“You would’ve had to be quiet,” I say. “Stylist too close.”
“I would’ve managed,” she says.
“No,” I say. “You wouldn’t have.”
She laughs, and then I thrust up sharp and the laugh breaks apart into a gasp. I slide my thumb between us, press against her clit, and she jolts like I’ve knocked every thought out of her head. Her hips stutter, then slam back down, grinding against my thumb, taking both at once.
The orgasm takes her fast. Her thighs shake hard on either side of me, her face buried in my shoulder, sounds muffled against my jacket.
She clenches around my cock in long tight waves, fingers digging into my back through my shirt, and I drive up through all of it, holding her against my chest, feeling every single pulse.
I lift her off me before she’s finished shaking.
She pulls her head up and stares at me. Eyes glazed, mouth bitten red, and expression pure outrage.
“Turn around,” I tell her, and she does.
She braces her forearms on the far seat back, ass toward me, jeans still bunched around her thighs.
I get behind her, one knee between hers, push back into her pussy from behind.
The angle changes everything. She drops her chin to her chest and the sound she makes is one she doesn’t bother catching.
“There it is,” I say.
“Move,” she says, into the leather.
I grip her hips and move. No buildup, no easing in, because neither of us has the patience left for it.
Her pussy is soaked, still clenching from before, every stroke dragging through her wet heat in a way I feel from the base of my spine outward.
She shoves back against me on every thrust, her forearms sliding on the seat.
I reach forward, gather her hair in my fist, and pull back.
Her throat arches, a gasp punched out of her, her pussy clenching harder around my cock.
“Reed,” she moans.
I pull her hair tighter, drive into her harder, the slap of skin filling the car.
She turns her face into the seat and groans into the leather.
Her elbows buckle, she catches herself, drops to her forearms, and stays there.
I ride her through it, her hips slamming back onto mine, her pussy gripping me on every deep stroke.
I pull out a second time.
The noise she makes is genuinely dangerous.
“If you do that one more time,” she warns.
I pull her upright before she finishes the sentence.
She ends up sitting in my lap again, back to my chest, both of us facing forward.
She twists to look at me over her shoulder, hair wrecked, breathing hard, murderous and wanting in equal measure.
I get my arm across her chest, lift her hips, push my cock back up into her pussy from below.
Her head drops back onto my shoulder, her eyes shut and lips parted. She reaches back with both hands, grips my thighs, holds on.
This one is slow. Full strokes, all the way out, all the way back in, and she shudders against my chest on every one.
Her nails press into my thighs through my pants.
I drop my mouth to her neck, her jaw, the soft skin below her ear.
Her breath goes ragged, hips starting to roll down to meet each thrust.
“I watched you all afternoon,” I say, against her temple.
She turns her face into my jaw, lips brushing my cheek. “I know you did.”
“Every dress.” I drive up slowly and deeply, feeling her shudder. “Every time you turned around.”
“Was it worth sitting on your hands for an hour?” she asks, her voice breaking on the last word.
“Ask me in a minute,” I say.
I slide my free hand down her stomach, find her clit, and press.
She stops breathing entirely. I circle slow, keep my hips moving, feel her start to shake from somewhere deep, her whole body shuddering in my arms in long waves.
She turns her face hard into my jaw, grips my thighs, and when she comes it’s quiet, her back arching away from my chest, hips grinding down, one broken sound pressed into my skin that I feel more than hear.
I follow her with my face in her hair, arm locked across her ribs, two more deep strokes before the release moves through me slow and thorough, longer than I expect, leaving me with my forehead on her shoulder and my pulse loud in my ears.
“Worth it?” she asks, eventually.
“Yes,” I say.
We put ourselves back together in the two blocks remaining. She fixes what she can of her hair without a mirror, which isn’t much. I straighten my tie. She sees me doing it, amusement flickering across her face, but keeps it to herself, which is its own kind of torture.
Harper is at the kitchen island when we come through the door. Milk, rabbit, Celeste’s tablet propped in front of her. She swivels on her stool.
“Celeste sent rings,” she announces. “I’ve been waiting.”
Celeste, two stools down, turns a page on her own screen. “I said she could look, not that she should provide commentary on all twelve.”
“The third one is broken,” Harper says. “There’s a hole in it.”
Celeste doesn’t respond, but the corner of her mouth moves a fraction.
Mia drops her bag, pulls up a stool beside Harper, who tilts the tablet over with both hands. I come around to look. Twelve options, all appropriate, all sized correctly, Celeste’s work thorough as always.
“This one,” Harper says. Round solitaire, thin plain band.
“Too safe,” Mia says.
Mia scrolls to one near the bottom. Oval stone, warm gold band, slightly irregular, nothing corporate about it. Harper pulls the tablet closer, tilts it left, tilts it right, then sets it back down.
“That one,” she says. No argument invited. The exhale underneath it, the relief of a six-year-old who has been waiting for the right answer to finally show up, hits me square in the chest.
I text the selection to Celeste’s contact before Harper’s finished climbing off her stool, already announcing she needs a snack that isn’t milk. Mia is up and moving to the pantry before Harper finishes the sentence, opening the third cabinet where the crackers live.
Mia’s phone buzzes on the island edge. She’s still pulling crackers out for Harper.
“You’ve got a message,” I tell her.
She comes over, picks it up, and reads it. She goes still, her hand tightening around the phone.
“What is it?” I ask.
She holds the screen out to me without a word.
It’s a text from unknown number.
He’ll ruin you like he ruined me. Ask him about the divorce settlement.
I raise my eyes to her face. She’s watching me, chin up, and waiting.