Beth
Dylan demanded, no commanded, my trust. Although my instinct was to shut down and close myself off, he was able to pinpoint my anxiety, name it and erase it.
How did he do that? When even I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, what my reticence was, he knew. And that was liberating.
I’d never felt that before. Never fully trusted the man I was with, which always left me edgy, needy, wanting to please, wanting to do something to make it right—it was a constant reminder I wasn’t enough. Dylan left no room for me to doubt him, or myself.
He was straining against the fabric of his trousers, and I planned to have a little fun with him. He passed me a glass filled with chocolate mousse and grabbed my ass. I picked out the tuile and popped it in my mouth, then dipped my index finger into the dessert and offered it to him. He grabbed my wrist and greedily took my finger in his mouth and sucked.
He knew me, but he still wanted me. It was an intoxicating combination, one I was unable to resist.
I could trust him. And he wouldn’t break my heart, because I wouldn’t let him. This was all about my vagina; it had nothing to do with my heart.
This was going to be fun.
Twisting my wrist free, I plunged my finger into the glass and coated my lips with the fluffy chocolate. I poked my tongue out and began to lick my lips clean.
The heat in his eyes was impossible to ignore. The promise they held making my feet unsteady. He pulled me toward his hard body and licked me clean.
I liked this game.
I pushed him away before he deepened our kiss and I lost all control. “Stay there,” I said. He went to grab my ass, but I twisted away and stepped back so my ass was against the dining table—I wanted him to have a clear view of what I was going to do next. “Be patient.” I scooped a little of the mousse out of the glass and dabbed a spot under each ear, then drew a chocolate line along my collarbone.
Dylan moaned and pressed his palm against his erection. “You’re killing me.”
I brought my hand down my body, then gently circled my nipples. The cold mousse felt delicious, but not as good as I knew his tongue and teeth would feel.
Dylan’s patience ran out. He grabbed the glass out of my hand and slid it along the table. “We’ll need more of that later.” His voice was deep and thick. I shivered, knowing what came next.
He cupped my breasts in his hands and blew across them. I moaned and went slick between my thighs.
Just his breath got me wet.
He bent forward and licked me in one strong stroke across my lips, then buried his head in my neck, sucking at the skin beneath my ear. I tipped my head back, and thrust my hands into his hair, urging him on. I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt so desired by a man.
He licked along my collarbone, first one side then the other, before breaking off to look deep into my eyes.
I scrambled between us, reaching for his fly, his hard-on making it difficult to unzip his pants. My fingers fumbled, the desire to fuck him—and have him fuck me—disconnecting my brain from my body.
“Please.” It was all I could manage.
“Please what?” he growled against my skin as he dipped his head down and took my nipple between his teeth, bringing me to the edge of pain before he tongued and suckled me.
“I want to feel your dick. Please.” I wasn’t sure if the words had come out, if I was even capable of saying them, but every syllable was true. I’d never felt physical desire like I felt for Dylan. My pulse was loud in my ears—I was desperate for him.
He brushed his thumb over my chocolate-free nipple, then grazed his teeth over the other. My knees bowed as he straightened and grinned at me.
He lifted my chin with his finger. “You want my cock, baby?”
My heart was thudding against my ribcage. I nodded. I’d happily pay for his cock at the moment.
He unfastened his pants and pushed them down with his boxers, his dick springing free.
I took a deep breath and reached across the table for the mousse.
Dylan raised his eyebrows and I lifted a shoulder in a half shrug.
I sank to my knees and he groaned before I’d even touched him. I scooped some chocolate mousse out of the glass. Licking my finger clean, I leaned toward Dylan’s dick. Starting at the base of his cock, I licked, leaving a trail of chocolate mousse.
I sat back on my knees and took some more mousse from the glass and placed it on my tongue, then swirled it over the tip of his dick.
I might have created my best recipe yet.
I glanced up at Dylan. He narrowed his eyes, his face so serious. “You are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met.”
My stomach flipped.
Stand down, butterflies. Men always say the sweetest things before they come.
That was what casual sex was about—giving what you needed to give to get what you wanted. He’d say anything to ensure that the next thing I did was take his dick in my mouth.
I took a deep breath and licked again from his base, around the crown, and then clasped my lips around his tip, slowly edging him farther and farther in.
His panting and groaning made me want to take him deeper, and little by little, I took more and more. I gagged when he reached the back of my throat.
His hands pushed into my hair.
“Fuck, Beth. Look at me.”
I glanced up, my sight watery from the strain of taking him so deep. His indigo eyes bore into me, frantic with need and lust. With one rough hand in my hair, he stroked the other lightly across my face, brushing my cheekbone with his thumb.
“Incredible,” he whispered.
With two hands, one above the other, I held the base of him and took him in my mouth. I dragged my lips back up and swirled my tongue around the crown.
“You taste great,” I said, continuing to twist my hands around the bottom of his dick, then taking him in my mouth again, shallower but faster this time as I began a rhythm. My heart beat against my chest and arousal built between my legs.
Dylan’s hips started to rock into me, and the hand in my hair tightened. “Baby, no. Fuck. So good.” The strain of pleasure showed on his face. “You have a beautiful mouth.”
I pulled away and licked across his dick as he stabbed his hips toward me, fighting to get back into my mouth. I gave him a small smile and sucked on his tip as I moved a hand from his base to run my fingernails across his balls.
“Fuck, no. Beth, I’m going to come.” He tried to pull away but I grabbed his ass, pulling him toward me. I wanted this. I wanted him.
I sank deeper onto him and he pulsed in my mouth, hitting me in hot squirts at the back of my throat. One touch from him and it would send me hurtling over the edge. How could his dick in my mouth be so arousing that I was a second away from coming myself?
I loosened my grip around his base and he pulled away. I leaned forward and placed small kisses down his shaft.
He stared at me, sweeping his thumbs over my cheekbones again. “You’re amazing. The best.”
“Don’t.” He didn’t need to say things like that.
“Don’t what?” He looked confused as he helped me stand.
“Pretend this is more than it is. I’ll only trust you if you don’t lie to me.”
“I say things like that because I mean them.” He dropped a kiss on my forehead. “I don’t pretend. I told you I don’t lie. That was the best head I’ve ever had. Come on. Let’s get you to bed.” He smoothed his hand down my back and over my ass and I shivered.
“Can we take the cake?” I asked.
He laughed. “Of course we can take the cake.”
I picked up a plate with a slice of lemon drizzle. “I’m not sharing, so bring your own.” I spun and headed toward the bedroom.
“Oh, I think I could persuade you to share if I wanted to, but that’s okay, I won’t make you.” He picked up his own plate and followed me into the bedroom.
My bed was huge and we sat cross-legged and naked opposite each other.
“You are so fucking sexy. Look at you.”
As I looked up, he snapped a photo on his phone.
“Hey.” My stomach churned.
“My sweet, I need a reminder of this exact moment. That beautiful pussy, wet from giving me a blow job, those inflamed lips and your relentlessly phenomenal tits. And on top of that, you’re eating cake. You can’t expect me not to want to capture this. You’re a vision.”
“I don’t like it. Delete it. I’m not adding to your collection.” I didn’t want to be one of a hundred naked women on his phone. I’d once flipped through my ex, Louis’s, cell while he was asleep to find photo after photo of beautiful, naked women. It was as if they were his possessions. When I confronted him about them, he’d gone crazy that I’d checked his phone. He’d told me they were old photos, but if that was the case, why had he kept them? He never gave me an answer and he’d never deleted them. Every time I looked back at our relationship, I felt like an idiot. There were so many unacceptable situations that I’d just ignored.
“You’re worried I have a gallery of naked women on my phone?” Dylan handed me his phone. “Delete it. But there’s no one there but you. You can check.”
I looked at the phone in my hand and then back at Dylan. “You’re saying I can look at your phone.”
He nodded. “I have nothing to hide.”
I had to stop expecting him to disappoint me. I didn’t want to go rooting through his photos. I didn’t want to be that girl.
I shook my head. “If you show it to anyone, I’ll kill you, and then my brother will hunt you down and kill you again.”
He laughed and took another picture. “I don’t want to share you.”
My stomach flipped for the second time that evening.
“So tell me about your day. What happened?” he asked, as if we were on a date rather than enjoying a casual hookup.
I put my plate on the bedside table and stretched out on my side, propping my head up. “It was good, I think. We filmed two recipes. I thought it would be more like my YouTube stuff, but they filmed one with a moving camera and then the other with two static cameras. And of course, there were so many people watching.” I was excited to see how the final version turned out.
“Did you enjoy doing it?”
“Once I relaxed and forgot about the people and the lights and just started baking, I was fine. I think they’re going to look at it and then see if they want to use it. Who knows? I’ve lost nothing if they decide not to, and anyway I don’t know how it would work. I mean, I can’t travel from London every week.”
“You live in London?”
I nodded. “I grew up here and moved after my mother died.”
Dylan reached out and stroked my cheek with his knuckles.
“You like London?”
“Of course. It’s a beautiful city and it’s home. It’s where my family is—my brother and his wife and their daughter, and my sister-in-law’s brother and his wife and their daughter. We’ve become a unit.” As much as I’d grown up in Chicago, I’d never felt as at home anywhere as I did in London. Perhaps it was because that’s where I’d found my sobriety.
“But your father is still in Chicago?”
“Yeah but . . . it’s complicated.” I didn’t want to get into that with him. My father had remarried and had more children. It had happened quickly after my mother’s death. My father’s way of grieving was just to create a new future and it hadn’t really involved me and my brother, Jake. Things were better between us now but our relationship was forever changed.
He took a forkful of the cake he was eating. It looked like pineapple upside-down cake. “We have time.”
I shrugged and he smiled, understanding that it wasn’t something I wanted to discuss.
He discarded his plate and lay down opposite me, mirroring my position. “I looked for your YouTube stuff. I couldn’t find anything.”
“You did?” I grinned at him. “You need to search the Chicago Cake Maker.”
“I’ll do that. So, you had a long day. Were you just finished when you came back to the hotel?”
I had to think about it. “I went to a meeting after finishing at the studio, and then I saw you.”
He ran his fingers down the side of my body. “A meet—oh, an AA meeting?”
I nodded. “I found a group I like when I’m in Chicago.”
“You go every day?”
I turned over onto my stomach, lifting myself up on my elbows. “Not usually. In the beginning, yes. Now I go a couple of times a week, but usually in London.”
Outside of my London family, I didn’t usually discuss my alcoholism with anyone. Soon after getting sober, I’d made a decision to make sobriety rather than alcoholism my priority. Every alcoholic dealt with recovery differently, and I’d had to find my own path where I didn’t feel that it overtook everything I did. “The way I see it, I’m an alcoholic like some people are diabetic—it’s a chronic condition that I live with but it doesn’t stop me living my life.”
Dylan smiled at me. “And how long have you been a friend of Bill’s?”
I looked up at him, trying to understand how he knew the term. I’d never heard it used outside of AA.
“I had a friend in college in AA,” he explained, understanding my question before I asked it.
“Three years. Going on four.” Saying that never got old.
“Wow. That’s a long time without sex. I thought you must have still been in your first year.”
I laughed. “It is a long time. But now you’ve broken the seal. You’ve ruined me. I’d forgotten how good it could be.”
“My sweet, it was never this good, believe me.”
“You should know.” I smiled at him.
He raised an eyebrow at me in a question.
“I’m just saying.” I shrugged. “You look like a guy who had a lot to compare it to.”
“You’re telling me I’m a man-whore?”
I looked up over his shoulder, considering my answer. “Not a man-whore. Just a man who’s had a lot of women.”
Dylan
I’d just been called a slut. I didn’t normally give a shit what anyone thought of me, but for some reason I didn’t want Beth to think badly of me.
“I suppose I’ve seen a few women naked.” Since Alicia, sex had been about taking pleasure. It worked and I enjoyed it. But none had been as pleasurable as Beth. I’d forgotten how the physical could mix with the emotional to make it all the more powerful. Even from the first kiss, ours had been more than just a physical relationship. I couldn’t imagine even looking at Beth without having some kind of emotional response. “Does it bother you?”
“If it bothered me I wouldn’t have agreed to become one of them. I had a pretty good idea what I was getting myself into when I came to your room when our flight was cancelled.” She smiled but my gut twisted. I wanted her to know that she was different, that I wanted to talk to her, not just fuck her. The more I found out about her, the more I wanted to know.
“Would it make you feel better if I told you that I rarely want to see a woman again after I’ve had sex with her?”
She laughed and sat up, swinging her legs off the bed. Was she leaving? The uncomfortable twist in my gut intensified. I was trying to distinguish her from the women I ordinarily slept with. “You just called yourself a man-whore. I’m going to get more cake. Want some?”
I followed Beth into the sitting room, taking a condom with me in case she wanted to get busy with that mousse again. Something outside the window had caught her eye. “Do you think they can see us?” I couldn’t help but follow her.
I dragged my eyes away from her smooth curves and out of the window at the skyscrapers opposite us. “Maybe.”
She placed her hands on the glass. “There are lights still on. People working late.”
I stood behind her, gliding my hands down her sides then over her belly and around her waist. She leaned back against me, instantly grabbing my cock’s attention.
“They’re working hard.” I pushed my hand down and reached for her clit. She sighed and swiveled her hips against my growing hard-on. I nudged her legs wider with my knee and she bent forward a fraction, the tiny movement snapping something in me.
She wanted to get fucked against the window—with an audience.
Jesus, this girl.
“Do you like the thought that people are watching you?” I whispered into her ear.
“Yes.” Her voice cracked as I increased the pressure on her clit. “You do something to me. You make me wicked.”
The thought of having an impact on her, over and above making her come, sent blood rushing to my dick.
I dragged my cock along her crack and she pushed back against me. I clenched my jaw, trying to stay under control.
“But you’re mine to look at. Only mine.” Possession crashed over me in a wave.
I rolled on the condom and lined up the tip of my dick at her entrance.
She gasped. I’d pay to hear the sound of her anticipation over and over.
“Dylan, people might see.”
“I’m going to have you like this, and you’re going to love it. If anyone sees anything, they can’t possibly know how good it is. They can’t feel what we feel. They can guess, but only we know.”
“They can’t have me. They can only watch while you do.”
She got it. She understood how I needed to be special for her. I wanted to be different, wanted her to feel this energy between us—the familiarity, the passion, the trust.
I couldn’t hold back a second longer and pushed into her, trying to go slow, to be patient; clamping my eyes shut because I knew if I caught a glimpse of that swollen mouth or the reflection of her tits in the glass I’d fuck her raw.
She groaned as my dick rammed into her. “So deep,” she whispered and her head tilted back, and I buried my face into her neck, breathing in that almond scent she had.
“Do you think they know how deep I am?”
“Oh God, Dylan.” I clasped my arm around her waist to support her.
“Answer me.”
“They can’t know. They can’t understand how good it feels.”
I pulled back, watching the sheen on my dick as it withdrew from her. She was always so wet whenever I went near her. Was she like that with all her lovers? Would she be that way with those who came after me?
Her whimpering broke my concentration. “You want more?”
“Please.” She sounded desperate. I knew I was. I thrust into her, driving her forward so her breasts pressed up against the glass and her forearms lay flat. Jesus, as much as I was enjoying the view from this side, any lucky fucker watching her through the window must be getting images burned into his memory forever.
I thrust again. “I can’t get close enough.” I choked on the words as they crawled up my throat.
Her breathing became choppy and she spasmed around me; her forehead rested against the glass. Having the privilege of making her come made me the luckiest man on Earth.
But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I needed more. More from her, more for me. I folded my hands over her shoulders as she found the strength to hold her head up.
“Stay with me, Beth.”
Her skin trembled beneath my fingers as I pounded into her again and again. I wanted this to last forever, but I was so close to the edge.
She removed one hand from the glass and pressed it between her legs.
“No,” I barked. “You ask for my fingers. You don’t use yours.”
Her hand went back to the glass. “Please, Dylan. I need it. I need to come again.”
I’d never get tired of hearing her beg for my touch. “You ask so sweetly, how can I say no to you?”
I dipped my hand between her thighs and gave her pussy one light stroke. She squirmed. “Dylan, please, God.” Her voice, hoarse and desperate, got me harder than I ever thought I could be.
My fingers found her clit, swept down and quickly became coated in her moisture. How did she get so wet? I groaned and circled my hips, rubbing over her clit at the same time.
She leaned back, and with one arm reached over her head and brought my face to her neck. “Tell me, is it good?” she whispered.
How could she doubt it? “The best. Your sweet, tight pussy surrounding my dick.”
“Your”—she drew a deep breath—“huge dick.”
“Yeah, you know it.”
She bucked and she screamed my name at the shift in angle. The sound loosened my climax, it tearing through me from the ground up in sharp, delicious spikes. I exploded into her just as I felt her convulse against my fingers.
Jesus.
I’d never come like that before.
I didn’t want to move but, post orgasm, the thought of anyone seeing her wasn’t quite so appealing. I wanted to wrap her up and treat her like glass.
I pulled out, discarded the condom and turned her around, holding her front to my chest. I bent my lips to her head. “You really are incredible.”
“You’re not so bad yourself. With a little work we can get you above average.” She giggled as I squeezed her ass.
“Let’s move away from the window, shall we?” I walked her backward toward the bedroom.
“I can’t believe we did that. Do you think anyone saw?”
I pushed her onto the bed. “If they did, they’ll have seen the fuck of the century.” I turned and headed back into the living room. “Stay there, I’ll get sustenance.” I grabbed some bottled water and placed it on the trolley, and pushed the whole thing into the bedroom.
“That is a fantasy come true,” she said, grinning at me. “A hot, naked guy pushing a trolley full of cake? If I’m dreaming, I never want to wake up.”
I chuckled. “I’m just interested in keeping your energy up. I’m not done with you.”
“Are you going to stay? I mean . . .”
“Do you want me to? I can go.” My gut twisted. Was she asking me to leave? I didn’t want to; I wanted to stay surrounded by her.
“There’s nothing I need to be doing. I just wondered if you needed to go home to your—I don’t know.”
I crawled on the bed toward her. “There’s no one at home. I don’t do that. I don’t lie and I don’t cheat.” I sat against the headboard and pulled her into my arms.
“I know everything you don’t do, but nothing you do. Tell me something.”
I took a deep breath. “I buy sick companies and make them better.” It was the simplest explanation of what I did.
“You’re in private equity?”
Apparently I didn’t need to dumb anything down for this girl. “In a broad sense, yes. I have a business partner and we use our own money and some of the bank’s money.” I stroked my fingers along her spine.
“Is there an ex-Mrs. James?”
I chuckled. “No one has been so unfortunate.” She mumbled and I didn’t catch what she said. “What?”
“Have you come close?” That wasn’t what she’d said under her breath.
I took a beat, considering what I should tell her. “Yeah. A while ago. When I was first starting out, I got engaged to a girl.” I hated to even think about Alicia, let alone talk about her. She represented a complete lack of judgment on my behalf.
“It didn’t work out?”
“She dumped me for an older, richer man.” I’d never said those words out loud before.
Beth pushed herself up on my chest and turned to look at me. I shrugged.
“You think she left you for the money?”
I nodded. “She admitted it. Said she wanted to enjoy her life and not have to struggle.” I started to laugh. It was the first time I’d thought of Alicia and not hurt. I’d thought of us as partners, starting out on a journey together, with the same aims and aspirations—the same values. I’d been right in that we’d both been heading to success. It was just that I was planning to work for it, and Alicia wanted to marry it.
“Wow. True love, huh?”
“Is there any such thing?” Alicia had cured me of the idea.
Beth looked at me, her eyes sad. “You don’t believe in love?”
I shrugged. “I believe in world-shifting sex with beautiful bakers from London.”
She smiled and the sad look lifted—I was grateful. “Did she come crawling back when you made your money?”
I stretched my legs. I’d fantasized about Alicia trying to get me back since I made my first million. In my fantasy, I’d act as if I barely remembered her as I got head from a supermodel under my desk while Alicia begged me to take her back.
But she hadn’t come back—I’d never seen her again, never heard from her until today. “She married the guy.”
The wedding had taken place four months after we’d split. I’d gotten very drunk that day, and Raf had had to physically restrain me to stop me from crashing the ceremony. But not because I loved her by that point, but because I wanted to warn the groom.
I’d realized when she left me that she’d never been the woman I’d thought she was. I’d felt manipulated and lied to and I vowed it would never happen again.
Beth dropped a kiss on my stomach. “She’s an idiot.”
I cupped her face, stroking my thumb over the beauty spot on her cheekbone. When she said it, I could almost believe it.
“When do you go back to London?” Would we have some time together?
“Tomorrow.”
My gut twisted. “Tomorrow?” I’d hoped we’d have longer. She was like a breath of fresh air sweeping through my tired routines. She was low maintenance, funny, beautiful—the sex was, well, the best I’d ever had. But more than that, she was real.
“When are you back?” I knew tonight wouldn’t be enough. I wanted more of her.
“You wanna make this a three-night stand?”
I scanned her face as I tried to read her. Did she want to do this again? “Yeah I wanna make this a three-night stand. Do I have to convince you?” I flipped her to her back and held myself over her. I ran my teeth along her shoulder.
Her cheeks flushed. “I might consider it.”
“Consider?” I reached for her pussy and ran my knuckle over her clit.
She pushed against my hand. “Well if you’re going to play dirty, I guess I concede.”
“My sweet, I’ll play as dirty as you’ll let me.”
It was the easiest and most satisfying negotiation I’d ever had.