CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
We returned carrying a handful of bags filled with goodies. I was exhausted, and when the elevator arrived at the apartment, I fell into the Chesterfield armchair, and Tabitha sank onto a velvet sofa.
Aidan was still in his office because I could hear voices murmuring.
The voices grew louder, then the door opened. Out stepped Aidan, and when he saw me his face brightened. “You look like you’ve had a good workout.”
“That I have, so has the credit card.” My eyes brushed over his colleague. A tall, dark man appearing sharp in a well-tailored three-piece suit, which seemed to be the Fifth Avenue look. I personally preferred Aidan’s loose linen shirt and chinos. Still, I sensed Tabitha’s frame growing out of her earlier tired slouch.
“This is my fiancée, Clarissa, and her friend, Tabitha,” said Aidan, turning to me. “This is Brad, my attorney.”
Brad nodded in my direction. “Pleased to meet you. I’ve heard much about you.” His attention then moved to Tabitha, and as he uttered the “pleased to meet you,” his eyes remained on her.
“I thought we might catch up with Brad for dinner tonight. How’s Italian sound?”
Tabitha looked at me. “Clarissa had spaghetti for lunch.”
“I don’t mind. I can eat Italian again,” I said.
Aidan looked at me. “We can go somewhere else if you like.”
“No. Honestly, I love pasta. You know that.”
“I sure do. And at Carbone’s, it’s something else. Homemade pasta that melts in the mouth.”
Brad nodded in agreement.
I smiled. “Then it’s settled. We’ll go there.”
When we were alone in our room, I said, “Aidan, I hope you can forgive Tabitha and her flirty ways.”
“To each their own, Clarissa. I respect she’s your best buddy. For that only, and not because I enjoy her company. Although I do like seeing you both together, being all silly and girlish. I find that entertaining.”
“You do?”
He undid my hair braid and ran his fingers through it to untangle it. “I do. Just as I love seeing your lush mane go all crinkly, and these sexy legs in that e crazy little dress.” He ran his hands up my thighs, and I melted.
My lips curled into a smile. It was hard to have a serious conversation around Aidan looking delectable in a shirt that was unbuttoned enough to show me the fine sprinkling of hair over his curvaceous muscly chest. My addicted fingers could do little but sneak in. His full, sculptured, kissable lips curved up at one side, and his eyes lowered seductively.
But I couldn’t get Tabitha and her man-eating ways out of my mind. “I’m just worried that after a few drinks, Tabitha may give Brad the wrong impression.”
He took my hand and placed it back where it had been on his warm, firm chest. I could feel his heart vibrating against my palm. “Grant’s no angel.”
Once again, I removed my hand. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s put it this way. If a chick tosses her panties at him at one of his gigs, he’ll be sure to keep them and look for the owner.”
“Are you telling me that he’s likely to cheat on Tabitha?”
“Probably.” Aidan’s response was so cool and unaffected, my jaw dropped.
“But how can you be so accepting of that?”
“Clarissa, there’s little I can do to change him. And Tabitha strikes me as the same, so they’re really well suited, aren’t they?”
“But Tabitha can be sensitive too, you know.”
“As my father can be. They’re adults, baby. What they choose to do in their private time is their business.”
An uncomfortable knot had formed in my solar plexus. “What would you say if I acted like Tabitha?”
His lips tightened and his eyes had gone dark and intense. “I’d break the jerk’s neck.”
“And how do you think I’d feel if a woman tried to come on strong to you?”
“I’d expect you to do the same.” His lips twitched. “Not break her neck, but perhaps pull her hair, something a bit more feminine. Or poison her. At least, I hope you would.”
Unable to roll with his drollery, I said, “I would do more than pull her hair, Aidan. It would send me crazy with jealousy. Look at what happened with Jessica.”
He finished undoing my hair and ran his fingers through it. As he massaged my scalp, I dissolved into the leather sofa.
“Clarissa, I am nothing like my father. Even in my crazy, fucked-up days. I never, I repeat, never cheated on Jessica. I’m a one-woman man. And to be honest, no woman has ever made me feel and come the way you do. I’m constantly hot around you, Clarissa.” He undid the zipper to my dress, and his hands travelled to my breasts. His caresses sent shivers of excitement through me.
“You’re the prize, Clarissa. Even the most seasoned player would happily become monogamous if it meant having you.”
I smiled. “That’s reassuring, Aidan, because I don’t want anybody but you.” I hooked my fingers inside his waistband and drew him close to me. My hand ran up and down his bulge.
His eyelids lowered as he sat by my side on the sofa. Opening my thighs, he hooked his finger inside my panties and ripped them off. That little destructive act always sent a lightning bolt between my legs.
“I feel like a pre-dinner snack,” he said, running his tongue up my thigh.
Phew. Would it ever stop burning so deliciously? Somehow, I didn’t think it possible. Just the mere smell of Aidan as I buried my face in his warm neck. That distinct scent oozing out of his skin—a cocktail of subtle cologne and flesh-heating masculinity. It was a drug. My eyelids lowered as an intense swelling sensation engulfed me. When his tongue tickled my engorged bud, I winced, and my body liquified.
I unzipped his pant and reached in for his hard, veiny thickness.
An aroused sigh left his parted lips. “You’re mine, baby, as is this little, wet, tasty pussy.”