Chapter Twenty
Lemon
“Oliver Lowell Nashville,” I try. “Oliver Lionel Nashville. Lafayette? No, doesn’t suit you.”
“Hey,” he protests. “I’m one-sixteenth French, if you care to know.”
“Sure, and I’m one-tenth Kardashian. Lester?”
He rolls his eyes.
I can’t decide what his middle name could possibly be, and I’ve gone through most of the options, trying like crazy to center my thoughts on anything other than the way our hand holding activates every bit of my core.
“For the love of God, Oliver, I give up. What is your middle name?”
He snickers beneath a dark, recently groomed beard, aftershave scenting the air in the tiny car. Not sure what they put in that stuff, but I inhale it and instantly liquify, the all-consuming smell of him everywhere inside me, except where I wish he’d be.
“And what if I don’t ever tell you?” He smirks as my legs cross tightly. “I might not. I like you flustered.”
“It is Lester, isn’t it?” I ignore his come-on, and damn was it a good one, my legs shifting of their own volition in the seat. But I won’t back down on what I decided. He must make the next move, decide he’s okay with the unknown.
When he only smirks in response, I bring my hand to my heart. “I swear on all that is holy, I will spread Lester rumors if you don’t correct me.”
“Sure, you will.”
“Don’t test, Lest. It will start slowly, but you’ll be surprised how quickly gossip trickles through the circuits once the girls in marketing get hold of the information.”
“It’s Love.”
My cheeks heat. “What?”
“Love. My middle name.”
Now I’m the one with nothing to say.
“Come on.” He shuts his door, going around the side to open mine. “Let’s go shopping.”
He drops his head in defeat when I beam at the word shopping, and he produces a platinum card at my disposal. His signature half-smile is something I’m growing to love.
Love.
Now it’s my turn to smile. Maybe.
“Is this my father’s Perkins Global card or yours?”
“Mine, of course. I’d never use his funds for a personal purchase.”
“C’mon, it’s for a company event. You can even write this off on your taxes.” I hold out my hand. “Give me the card. He won’t even know. He’s a billionaire.”
I start the test before I even realize what I’m doing, the one only my two closest friends have passed.
When people see the gold in your tears, they will stop at nothing to make you cry.
So, I wonder, how far will this man go?
Can my father trust his ‘most trusted’ employee?
Can I?
“You can do anything you want, Nash. It’s just not always legal. But even that’s kind of bendy sometimes, too, ya know?” I bite my lip to hide the smirk I get from fucking with him, my favorite pastime, and when his eyes bug from his head, it takes every ounce of energy to hold in my laugh.
He really is one of the good ones.
“Legalities are not bendy, Lemon.” He stares at me incredulously, flustered at the mere thought of slighting someone.
It’s nerdy and righteous and vanilla as fuck, but it’s Oliver Love Nashville, a man I can trust.
“You’re failing at this whole greedy millionaire thing. Whatever the opposite of corrupt is…well, that’s you.”
“I won’t use your father’s card, Sour patch. It’s just what’s right.”
Right.
That word alone transports me to a time I gave a different man this test, a man I almost loved.
“You’ll be a billionaire too, one day, right?”
But he could ignore my father’s wealth no easier than I could the apple blossom perfume on his collar that wasn’t mine.
“You okay, Lem?” Oliver’s voice breaks through my sullen memory, and I love him for that.
“Love,” I say, testing his name on my tongue. “What a coincidence.”
Oliver stills, our eyes meeting just before our lips. “There’s no such thing as coincidence.”
Four stupidly attractive suits and about a million smoldering glances later, and I’m melting into the private changing room chaise, all of my existence centered on the flexing of his arms as he rolls each cuff.
“Miss? Did you all decide about the navy jacket?”
The woman’s face comes into view, as she’s forced it between me and the flexing. I suppress a whine along with my libido, crossing one leg over the other.
“He won’t be needing a jacket,” I decide. “And we’ll need all the items steamed, to be worn at checkout, please.”
The apprentice, wearing the tag Lydia, has yet to introduce herself by name. She can’t be more than twenty, and she can’t control her resting bitch face either. She presses her lips together. “We don’t really do that at this kind of establishment.” She gives us a once over.
It annoys me.
I realize Oliver looks like a freak in the flouncy old groomsmen’s jacket he insisted on wearing, but you can’t judge by so little. People are more than their clothes or money or circumstance, so I glare back until she saunters off…to gather the manager, I’m sure, which is lucky for me.
“Lemon!” Anastasia Matisse pulls me in to kiss each cheek. The longtime family friend marvels at my gown, her eyes sparkling in delight. “Magnifique! It is an Oscar De La Renta?” She twirls me for the full scope.
“Ahhh, but I miss making your gowns, mon petit citron! Tell me, I do not see your father much these days.” She raises an accusatory brow. “Is he having his suits made by someone else? Please tell me it isn’t so.”
“I don’t answer incriminating questions.” I smirk.
“Oh, did I teach you well.” She pulls me down to sit. “I was so happy when you texted me. It is always a pleasure to serve your family.”
Lydia slides her eyes between Annie and me as we discuss my father’s newfound love of golf pants for formal occasions, and I take a shameful amount of pride in teaching her you can’t judge a book by its bindings.
“Lydia, meet Lemon Perkins of Perkins Global Enterprises. She’s putting together an outfit for the right-hand-man of Emil Perkins himself…
a very good looking man if you ask me.” She winks.
I try not to smile at that but fail horribly.
“They will be meeting The Shaylyn Tryst tonight. They must make a good impression, so let’s get them anything at all, yes? ”
Lydia has fewer words now, so I offer my own.
“Nice to meet you, Lydia.”
She lets out a quick breath when Annie leaves us. “Thanks for not telling Anastasia I was…well, rude.”
“It’s okay.” I level with her. I’ve been her before, striving for social status in circles where wealth defines your worth.
I was Lydia. “I know we didn’t seem like a sophisticated couple, looking for expensive suits on an hour’s notice, but it never hurts to treat everyone as if they are worth millions, whether they look like my father or…
” I scrunch my nose at the brown, woolen wedding suit Oliver wore over here, “that.”
She lets out a defeated laugh.
“Money means nothing when respect can never be bought. Anastasia has gotten where she is today because she never forgot that. She helped teach me.”
Lydia’s cheeks flush a deep red. “He looked the best in the Armani.”
“I agree. He’ll take flat front, black Armani seersuckers and the plain white button up from the Dior collection earlier.”
Lydia nods and makes her way back to the sales floor, just as Oliver’s gravelly voice teases me from the dressing room opening.
“He will, will he?”
“Um…” I manage as he approaches me shirtless. “Yes.”
“Why don’t I need a jacket?” He stops in front of me on the chaise, re-belting his pants, and it’s all I can do not to tell him to stop.
Take them off.
Yank the belt back through those loops super-fast like those thirst traps and snap it against my…
“Lem? Jacket?”
He puts the metal rod of his belt through the hole and tightens the leather around his body, and I know he’s just said my name, but all I can do is wet my lips and wish to God he’d put a rod through my hole.
“Sorry.” I cast my eyes back to his face. “My mind was in the gutter.”
“Put it back there.” He drops to his knees between my legs, and his lips crash into mine, hot and wet, and smelling like the aftershave I crave. He covers my entire mouth with his own, tonguing the soft skin until he’s all I can sense.
My heart beats a rhythm it sends to my pussy, heightened when strong hands grab my thighs and part them more.
“You’re dripping.” He licks a solid line down my neck and eases me back as his fingers brush my pussy. The bare, naked one.
Also, the only one I have.
“No panties?” he growls.
I whimper at the erotic language, words I never imagined being used by him.
On me.
Having Oliver Nashville do things I never thought he’d do.
I can’t get enough of his hand between my legs, drawing circles over the source of the wet, pooling desire I feel for him.
“They don’t go with this gown,” I manage to whimper.
His eyes glimmer as he looks at me.
Touches me and commands my gaze.
“Fuck, Nash!”
“Not Nash.” He rubs my clit in treacherous circles. “Say my name, Lem. Say what we are.” His hand stops when I don’t respond, and my body seizes from the lack of pressure. “Say it,” he commands.
“Love.” I gasp.
“That’s right, Love.” He hums, rubbing me again furiously, until I have to hold my own hand over my lips to silence myself.
“You sure you want to do this? Even though I can’t promise forever?
” I force out the words on a strained whimper, my body screaming profanities at my mind for questioning this man when he’s busy fingering it to ecstasy, but he cups my pussy, kneading my swollen bud, and I almost cry out before I remember where we are…
in a private suite, yes, but a dressing room nonetheless.
He shushes me with a kiss and a shit-eating grin I’d like to ride all the way to the charity. And as if he knows what I’m thinking, Oliver Love shoves my dress above my waist and wraps my legs around his neck.
The ho inside of me sings when his beard brushes my folds. I feel it all the way in my nipples. I rock into his face, pussy aching as I brace my arms against the wall and let him feast.
I’m grinding.
Moaning.