Chapter Twenty #2
Until the pressure releases in an explosive wave, and he lifts his eyes to mine as he lowers my dress back down. “Think I’ll get you a little uniform skirt I can flip up and taste whenever I want.”
My heart is still pounding as he laps up the rest of my desire and licks his lips with a grin. “You taste like your personality.”
“Are you saying it’s sour?” I grimace. “My taste?”
“No. It’s sweet.”
I roll my eyes as I tug my dress back into place. Nobody sees me as sweet. I’m Lemon. Sour Priss, Sour Pants, Sour Patch…I’ve heard it so long I own it.
“I’m not,” I assure him.
But the smug asshole just licks his lips and leans back in. “Better let me taste again to be sure.”
His lips brush against mine effortlessly, perfectly. Like they belong there forever.
“Tastes sweet to me.”
“One freshly steamed outfit, ready to wear,” Lydia calls as she swings open the door to the suite. She startles when we share a hushed laugh and make space between our bodies on the chaise. “Oh! I’m sorry. Should I come back in a moment?”
“That won’t be necessary.” Oliver stands. “We were just discussing a difference in tastes, weren’t we, sweetheart?”
My lips twist at his innuendo. “Sweetheart?”
His face darkens. “That’s only the start of what I’ll be calling you tonight.”
Lydia’s eyebrows hit the ceiling, and she quickly excuses herself from the dressing area, leaving us dangerously alone again.
He takes his outfit into the dressing room, sliding the latch with a click, and just when I think he’s done teasing, his earlier shirt comes flying over the stall, landing in my lap.
My fingers rub the cotton fabric, my smile reaching my eyes when I inhale and it’s all fucking him. “Am I the maid now?”
“Do I get to taste the maid, too?” He opens the door to reveal the million-dollar version of himself. The back of his button-up is untucked, and it makes me smile as I eat him up with my eyes.
“You can taste whatever you want if you look this good.”
Placing my hands on his chest, I feel the strong beat of his heart, steady, like him. And still, when I run my hands down his body and around his waist, the loose hanging fabric is there. Even on the most confident of men, there’s still a flaw.
“And they say I’m a mess,” I joke.
My fingers take hold of the fabric, and he inhales when I slip beneath his belt to tuck the rogue shirttail back in.
Once I’ve settled his bottom half, I straighten the collar at the top, ignoring all thoughts of doing this for him on a daily basis, because he’d be mine in that thought, and he’s not mine forever…just for now. My eyes shoot to his with my thoughts, praying he can’t read them.
Energy moves between our bodies.
“You’re not a mess, Lem. Anyone who only sees the crazy side of you hasn’t watched you long enough to see the rest.”
His words skate through my soul and rest on my heart.
“And you’ve watched enough?” I reach up on my toes, nose to nose with the same shattered crystal eyes I search for in every dream I’ve had all week.
He nods, curving his lips with a hungry growl.
“I will never have enough of you.” He roams my body, lingering on the fabric stretching over my pebbling nipples, slowing over the slit down the side of my gown as goosebumps break over my skin in the wake of his stare.
With one look alone, this man owns me. I know it. He knows it. And we both fucking want it.
“You know,” I breathe, “it’s rude to look if you’re not gonna touch.”
He presses his lips together in a grin. “That so?”
“Mhm…” I bite my bottom lip, eyelids fluttering. “It is very so.”
“Did Miley say that, too?”
I swat him in the shoulder just as Anastasia swings back into the dressing area, Lydia scurrying behind her with a clipboard and tape measure.
“Just look at that. You look like a million bucks.” Annie beams. “Go ahead and run, Mr.…” She looks him over once more before shooting me a look.
“Nashville,” I tell her.
“Yes, Mr. Nashville. Lydia, run Mr. Nashville’s card so they can get to their event on time. And Lemmy Cakes, please tell your father I can fit him for golf pants, too, and don’t let me find out he has Claudette Charbonneau working on his wardrobe, or I’ll die.”
“Don’t die,” I say, earning a gasp before she exits the alcove with Lydia on her coattails.
“You made me sound important, calling me Mr. Nashville.”
“You are.”
“Really? Your father built an empire. I’m not important like that. I’m just someone working to get by. A sad, grieving father, who, as you so graciously pointed out, is sucking at even doing that.”
“No, my father was a sad, grieving parent, too. He built that empire to bring back a queen who never cared about a castle. You’re a good man who still has the world ahead of you.
You have the chance to be different with your wealth, and you can take it from me, firsthand, growing up a princess has its advantages, but growing up with a present father?
Well, let’s just say I might not have that Bone Me tattoo if things had gone differently. ”
“You do have one, don’t you? Let me see.” He grabs for the fabric of my dress, but I slap his hand away, giggling when he tickles my sides.
“You have to earn that. You had so many times to see it, but you were too busy being all grumpy and sexually repressed.”
My phone buzzes, the alarm ringing to alert me it’s time for us to head to Papa’s.
“I’ll see it soon enough.”
It’s a promise I feel all the way to my core.
“So sure of yourself in your new suit,” I tease. “You might be getting the hang of this cocky millionaire thing, after all.”
“That’s because I was assured I get to sample the nanny and the maid if I pull this off.” His smile stretches wide. It’s usually reserved for his children.
But this one is for me.
We walk to the car, hand-in-hand, and I ruffle the sleeves of his old brown jacket, draped neatly over his arm. Everything tidy and true with this man, yet somehow, I fit with him, messy and free and loud.
“We’re a yin yang,” I say, swinging open his car door. “Balanced opposites.”
He grins, pausing to meet my eyes so we can stand here awkwardly smiling at each other, I guess.
I crack first, the laugh slipping free from my lips in a bubbling flutter. Then he’s laughing. We use the car to prop ourselves up as we full-on roar into the most absurd fit of laughter over nothing but a look.
Nothing but everything I’ve never had with someone else.
I clear my throat as we right ourselves, wiping tears from our laughing eyes and nod to the car.
“I’m supposed to open the door for you, not the other way around.”
I get in my own side and click the door shut. “I’m treating you to a night of luxury, Oliver. Let me be your guide to the world of the unfathomably rich, and mediocrely palatable, Elites of the East.”
“Treating me with my own card? That’s new.”
“Get used to it. You’re a wealthy man now, so everyone only wants you for your cash. It’s a whole thing.” I wave off his new money stupidity and continue. “Anyway, The Elites—”
He rolls his eyes. “That’s not what they’re called.”
“Maybe not.” I squint. “But I call them that because it’s always the same people at these things, the richest families and business owners in the east coast, all coming together for another fundraiser that pours money back into the pockets of their target demographic, just so they can spend it again on those same products.
” I stare out the window wistfully, wishing I could change about half the snobs I’ve met at these things into frogs with my mind, but that’s sadly not a real thing.
“You, uh…really have opinions about this, don’t you?”
I tense with his admission, joke or not, and I don’t mean to be a bitch when I take offense, but it’s that mentality right there that keeps me in the social media cube at Papa’s office.
“Yeah, well, trust fund debutantes have brains, too you know. I have degrees in technology, marketing, finance, and business management. I graduated high school online at seventeen. I won a national debate once, but those awards aren’t as tall or shiny as the skating and pageantry ones, so… ”
“Why don’t you tell Emil how you feel?”
“Emil, is it?” I tease. “Big important man now. I forgot.”
“Stop, Lem. Don’t do the goofy thing.”
I have no idea what he means.
“You have every idea what I mean.”
I gape. “Did you just read my mind?”
Yes, his mind says back. Well, his eyes do.
Fuck if I don’t want to keep the way they look at me branded in my mind for all of time. I want to close my eyes and see his as the lock screen, boring right into my very soul.
“What the fuck is wrong with us?” I mutter, blue irises still suspending me in time.
“Everything.” He brushes his thumb across my lips. “But I don’t think I ever want to be right.”
Our lips speak their own language, our tongues forging pacts, and the car fogs completely before we finally stop to breathe.
“We should get going.” I gasp, prying my lips from his teeth. It almost feels too good to care when I imagine how that same toothy kiss could feel in my lower hemisphere. We could skip the…” Fuck, I check the time. “Charity’s in a few hours.”
“Fine,” a shit-eating grin stretches his face, “but we’re not done being wrong.”
I giggle, moving back to my seat and buckling the belt.
“I’m serious, Sour Patch.” He starts the car. “We are going to get so wrong later it’ll turn right.”
“Too many puns.” I scrunch my nose. “Just leave the funny stuff to me. You’re hotter quiet.”
“Brat.” He grins.
And fuck does my pussy feel it. I clench my thighs together and melt beneath his smile. And when his hand wraps around mine and he tugs it to his lap, I drift to sleep, and I’ve never felt more at home.