Chapter 5
“You think I have nice tits?” I ask, taking a look down at my chest. My dress cuts across rather low and the neckline of the white undershirt does dip down pretty far. Ample cleavage line, but it’s not like I’m working with very much.
“Great tits. Perky little things. I can’t wait to put my mouth on them.”
Jacob chooses that exact moment to return to our table, cheeks pink as he stammers with our dinner plates in hand, and I think he’s about to drop one as he switches them out for the empty ones. “L–let me know if there’s anything else I can get for you with your meals.”
He notably does not look toward me, for fear of what, I don’t know. Looking down at my tits? Making Ben angry? Blurting out unhinged shit like I always do?
I stuff my phone back in my purse as he leaves, brushing my ponytail back over my shoulder and shrugging.
Ben raises an eyebrow, unfolding his napkin and placing it over his lap.
I copy him, smoothing the fabric over my legs and taking note that he’s not even touching his food while I mess around before picking up my silverware. My fingers skip over the knife and I grab my fork, trying to act normal with the older man sitting across from me.
Wait. Does he have kids? God, are they my age? Younger?
“What?” he asks.
“Just wondering if I’m going to get stabbed or something by your children for seeing you.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. Don’t have any.”
“Really?” I can’t help how my tone is filled with disbelief.
His mouth dips down into a frown as he swirls some of the wide pasta noodles around on his plate, his gaze lowering from me for a fraction of a second as his shoulders tense. “My ex-wife didn’t want to have kids.”
The look on his face tells me so much. And there’s my heart breaking just a little bit, falling out of my chest and onto the floor. Clean up on aisle three, please.
“Well—” There’s not much I can say to that without being really awkward. More awkward than I already am. “At least I’m not in any danger of being murdered by your nonexistent children. Is the ex-wife going to be angry?” I stab a piece of my own pasta and pop it in my mouth. Flavor bursts across my tongue and I hum, delighted.
“Perhaps. But she’s the one who cheated and then got mad at me, so I’d say irrationally angry if anything.”
“What a bitch,” I blurt out. “I had a guy cheat on me once then try to deny it. When I caught him in the act the next time, he blamed it on me not breaking up with him the first time.”
I’m fucking sweating now, because why would I say that?
“That’s crazy,” he says, taking a bite of his food and chewing carefully. “Why didn’t you break up with him the first time?”
“Young and dumb?”
“And now?”
I make a face. Because I’m sure that I’m still both. “I’m fucking brilliant, thank you.”
He chuckles, offering a bite of his food to me on his fork. “I mean, did you learn from it?”
I lean in and bite into the scallop and noodle, licking my lips. I savor the sauce which tastes like mine, but turned up three notches in flavor. “I learned that boys are dumber than I’ll ever be. And once a cheater, always a cheater.”
Ben nods, a sullen look streaking across his features. I wonder for the first time if he practices what he preaches. If he didn’t also stay with his wife after the first time she cheated because it was a marriage, and that’s something on a scale far grander than some summer boyfriend between my freshman and sophomore years of college.
“And you’re fine with someone… older?”
He says it like it’s a bad thing. Maybe this is the part he’s self-conscious of, even though he’s going to be paying me. Gifting me things. Entering in an unconventional relationship, but he’s worried about his age?
“I could be rocking up to a date with an eighty-year-old right now if I went about things without Cora’s help. Your age is not a problem. You’re, like, on the same level of hot as Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and he’s even older than you.”
“I’m not sure I know who that is, so I can’t be flattered or offended.”
“Flattered. You should be very flattered.”
His eyebrows raise, and his gaze sweeps over my pink cheeks as I make all the comparisons in my head about how similar they look. Suddenly, I’m fucking dying at this table.
I take a big bite of my pasta, scooping up the last two tortellini and shoving them both in my mouth at once.
“Hmm.” He leans back in his seat. The way he assesses me is like I’m laid out for him to peruse at his leisure. I tip my head back just a little, pointing my nose to the ceiling, and his eyes dip down the length of my body. “What if I asked you to take your panties off and hand them over to me?”
“Are you asking?”
He ignores my jibe, folding his napkin from his lap and pushing his plate forward enough so he can rest his palm on the table.
“Take your panties off and hand them over, Emmeline.”
Not a question anymore.
Except the brat in me is real, jumping to the surface for him faster and more forceful than for any other partner I’ve ever had. I like the games he plays.
“What panties?” I ask coyly, licking the last remnants of sauce from my fork. I drop it on the plate and push it forward so I can lean onto my elbows. His gaze dips down to my tits pushing together.
His gaze flicks back up to my face, eyes narrowing, and he reaches his hand further across the table, palm turned up.
Damn it. He saw through my distraction.
“You’re lying. You’re just a good girl trying hard to be bad. Take them off.”
Ben’s confidence is overpowering my resolve, crumbling it to shreds. My thighs reflexively press together since my panties are so fucking wet.
“You’re a psycho,” I hiss, not even afraid that it’s too early for this kind of attitude when he said he liked my spice earlier. If he wants this relationship, wants me to be his sugar baby, then he better get used to it. Because I’m not changing that for anyone or anything.
But I like it. Maybe I’m a psycho, too.
At the very least, I’ve just never done anything quite like this before. Maybe I’m more of an exhibitionist than I realized because everything about it is making my chest constrict and my pussy ache with want.
And here I am, reaching under my dress and shimmying my hips so I can pull my panties down my legs without falling out of my chair or making it glaringly obvious to everyone around us what I’m doing.
Snatching up the pink satin from around my ankle, I slap the fabric into his palm and hope that some higher power isn’t about to smite me down. Even if I’m certain this is only the beginning of any sort of public debauchery.
“As requested, sir.”
“Good girl.”
The way my entire body just clenched up.
This man is a walking sin, and all he’s doing is breathing. Existing. I hope he’s ready to drag me to hell for the nasty things I’m imagining we do together.
Ben curls his hand around the fabric, and I thoroughly expect him to pocket them. And he does. Tucks them right into the front pocket of his suit jacket, the edge angled like a pocket square.
I cross my arms over my chest, our waiter continuing his impeccable timing of appearance, because nothing can stop me right now.
“Going to think about my perky little tits while you jerk off with my panties tonight?”
Jacob sputters as he comes to halt in front of us, wide-eyed. “Sorry to interrupt. Do you two want the check or d–dessert perhaps?”
Ben looks over to me, waiting for my decision. And as much as I like this consideration, this consent, I’m the last person in the world to ever ask about dessert because I’ll say yes every time. I’ll eat dessert first if I get the chance.
“Do you have anything with lemon?”
He nods. “We have a lemon ricotta cream cake.”
“Great, I’ll take that, please.”
“Bring the check with it,” Ben adds.
Jacob nods, clearing our plates. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I immediately turn my attention back on Ben, expectant.
He gives me a dangerous look, eyes dark as he shakes his head. “Baby, I’m gonna think about a whole lot more than just your tits.”
“Good,” I say, nonplussed. Though I’m fucking sweating through my dress and really wish I still had those panties on to hold back the arousal threatening to drip down my thighs.
There’s a terse silence. We stare each other down while I try not to imagine what he looks like underneath that suit. Or with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Or with me sitting astride his lap.
I blink and Jacob is back, setting down the plate of cake with two spoons in front of me. I almost tell him to take one back, but I drag the plate toward me, allowing Ben a bite when he asks, though I shamelessly eat most of it. He watches me lick up and down my spoon, entirely for show of course. I find I don’t mind one single bit when he takes it from me and finishes the last bite, licking the spoon clean.
When Jacob comes back to collect the payment, I start to get nervous. Ben slides an Amex card into the check folder, and I watch Jacob walk it back out of sight. Only then do I pull my gaze back across the table.
“How do you want to do this?” he asks, head tilted. “Per meeting? Weekly? How much do you want to be paid, Emme?”
Ugh, all that I ate is threatening to make a reappearance. My eyes close tight for a moment—maybe a tad too long because when I open them there’s a furrow in his brow. “Weekly is fine. Six hundred works.”
“That’s all you want?”
I don’t want any of it. It’s all I really need to take care of my half of the rent so I can use what I make at my job for everything else. “Yep.”
Ben opens his wallet and pulls out the money, holding it out across the table like it’s nothing. Six hundred-dollar bills, crisp and new.
I blink.
“Take it,” he prompts. “For this week.”
It takes everything in me to reach out and accept the money. My fingers don’t have to brush his, but I let them as I collect the bills. I try hard to ignore the way it feels to touch him, but it resonates like a bone-deep hum in the base of my spine. The bills wrinkle as I fold them three times over to stuff them in my purse.
“It’s already Friday. Do you want to see me again this weekend?” I ask.
“How about Sunday?”
“That’s fine. But you know I do have a job, right?”
“Background check, remember?’
He’s too smug about that. My suspicions about him being a secret mafia mob boss grow the tiniest bit.
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes. “I usually work Monday through Thursday, either ten to six or twelve to eight. If there’s a weekend wedding my manager needs my help with, I’ll sub it out for another day.”
“I can work around your schedule.”
“Thought you said anytime, anywhere?”
Ben breathes out slowly, not even caring that Jacob has come back with his credit card and is in the midst of setting it down on the table when he says, “It’s like you’re asking for me to spank you right now.”
Jacob edges away from the table with a muttered, “Have a fun evening,” under his breath. I hope Ben tips him well for what he’s had to endure tonight.
“We haven’t even really discussed if that’s something I want or like yet.”
“Isn’t it? I can adjust to your preferences if you’re into the more vanilla route.”
“I’m all for BDSM if that stands for bad decisions and spending money—it’s what got me here in the first place.” Beyond my penchant for the aforementioned, I do know I have specific tastes. “But obviously you can tell I’m a brat—”
He snorts, not taking his eyes off of me as he tucks his card back into his wallet. “Obviously.”
I throw up my hand, my middle finger raised. His eyes narrow the littlest bit, highlighting the crinkles in the corners, and he just looks so edible. It takes a lot of effort to reel my thoughts back to what I was saying. It’s a miracle in and of itself that I can manage it at all when his tongue swipes out to wet his bottom lip. “—just like I can tell you’re not quite a dom, but are dominant in the bedroom.”
His gaze doesn’t waver from my face as he leans back in his chair, though he gives a small nod. They drop briefly to his phone as he pulls it out and taps on the screen a few times. “I’m sending you a link that’ll give me a little better idea on what you like in the bedroom. Read it and send it back to me tomorrow.”
“Read what?” I say innocently.
He looks beyond exasperated with me now, and I almost grin.
“Fine, I guess it’ll give me something to do tomorrow.”
I finish my second glass of water and push it toward the center of the table and reach for my purse again. I check the balance in my bank account quickly and try not to cringe visibly.
“Do you want a ride home?”
I glance up, hating the way my heart leaps in my chest. “I’m not so sure that would be a good idea.”
Ben lifts a brow. “Why not?”
Because I might just climb into your lap and fuck you in the car.
I look back down at my phone and click on my email and scroll for a second and find an email from the clinic for my STD test results and huff. It just came in this morning between the other twenty junk emails I get on a daily basis. How convenient.
“I just don’t think it’d be very smart. I still haven’t been convinced you’re not a murderer.”
“I’ll let you drive my car if that makes you more comfortable,” he offers with a shrug, as if he’s fine if I’m the one who may potentially murder us both.
Oh. Ohhh. That sounds like— “Fine, let’s go,” I blurt, practically leaping out of the chair.
Slinging my purse over my shoulder, I stalk through the restaurant at a break-neck pace, nearly rolling my ankle in process. It’s only a testament to his height advantage that Ben’s fingers are ghosting my lower back when we make it to the lobby.
We walk out the front door and it’s dark, the streets illuminated by the orange glow of the street lamps. A chill passes over my arms and I’m reminded, again, of the loss of my cardigan. I purse my lips, pivoting to turn to Ben and look up at him. It’s weird; standing and not sitting across from him. I want him to wrap his arms around me and soothe away the goosebumps rising on my arms.
I watch him speak to the older gentleman at the valet booth before stepping back toward me.
“No jacket?” Ben asks with a frown.
“It wasn’t that cold when I left.” I scrunch my nose up when he starts to undo the button on his suit jacket to pull it off. “I lost my favorite cardigan or else I’d probably have it with me.”
He pulls the jacket around my shoulders, and I kind of want to melt into the ground. It’s warm, and his scent is so close it’s like I leaned in and took a whiff of his neck. His hands linger on the tops of my arms, the warmth of his palms pressing through the fabric as he looks down at me.
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Okay? You don’t have to, though.”
It’s his turn to roll his eyes. “I want you to have the things you need.”
God, why does he have to be like that—endearing? Charming? Considerate? I want to punch my vagina for being such a fucking traitor right now. I’m painfully reminded that I’m not wearing panties when my thighs press together. Just to torture myself, I look down at the front of the jacket, catching a glimpse of them. They’re still there, tucked in the front pocket. I’m tempted to stuff them in my purse when he turns his back to me as the valet pulls his car up.
However, I get distracted, per usual.
“Holy shit, you drive a Jag?”