Chapter 39: Dell
Damn. I don’t know what to do here.
She’s crying on my chest and I’m not sure why. She seemed to enjoy it. Watching her orgasm was like a high for me. She really turned herself over to my care. Totally let go. That doesn’t happen often with women who are more concerned about what they will get for an exchange than just falling into it.
But I saw the deal when I was down there. Or felt it, rather.
She’s a virgin. Totally intact. So intact she couldn’t have shoved so much as a finger vibrator up there.
It’s a lot to grapple with.
“Hey,” I say. “I’m more than happy to do that again. You tell me when you’re ready.”
But this makes things worse. She sobs a little and hits my chest.
Oh boy. Okay.
I try to think my way around this. I’m so hot for her my cock could reach the goddamn moon. But she works downstairs. She knows the nanny.
She loves Grace.
She’s a damn virgin.
It all makes sense now. Why she held back. Why she wasn’t willing to trade a fling with me for a future with the baby.
Thing is, I believe her now. And I’m on board.
My dick, not so much. But I control it. It doesn’t control me.
“Arianna?” I say. “Come here.”
She’s already in my arms, but I lift her higher so her head is tucked against my neck.
“I thought you wanted to do this,” she says. She’s trying to sound normal, but the quavering in her voice gives her away.
“I do,” I say. “I can’t even tell you how much I do. I’d rather shoot off my damn dick than not do it.”
I can feel her expression shift, even though I can’t see her face. “Then why?”
I could tell her the easy answer. That she’s a virgin. That if she’s saved it this long, she should just hold out for Mr. Right, not Mr. Asshole.
But she deserves more of an answer than that. And I don’t even know where to begin.
“Is it because I’m not like your society women?” she asks. “I have no idea what I’m doing?”
“No,” I say quickly. “That’s just fun and games for them. You’re just…different.”
“Different bad or different good?” she asks.
“Different perfect,” I say.
She’s quiet for a minute and I think we’ve gotten past it. My cock hasn’t, still standing at perfect attention. In the hazy light of the strings overhead, I can see every delectable inch of her. And that part of my brain is directly wired to the part that wants to slam into her.
But it won’t.
“Is it because I know about Birmingham?” she asks.
Now I get still. “What do you know?” Has she hired her own investigator? Have I missed something? God damn it. I never should have left the purge to those incompetent fools.
“Of course,” she says. “I saw the shirt. And Max is from there. And the clock.”
My jaw tenses. That damn clock. I was a sentimental jerk to keep it. Shit. Shit. Shit. The name on it would tell her everything. Obviously it has.
Because otherwise, Hasmund McDonald just disappears at age twenty-three.
Yeah, Hasmund. Thanks, Mom and Pop. They gave me a name so rare anyone could find me by Googling my first name alone.
She’d find dozens of pictures of me and the dogs at the racetrack. I was the photogs’ favorite kennel mucker, big cheesy-ass smile, Raggedy Ann freckles, and Alfalfa cowlick. Right as the Internet kicked into gear.
“I guess you’re curious about how a guy goes from cleaning dog kennels to Fortune 500 companies,” I say.
This startles her. I can feel it ripple through her body. “You used to clean dog kennels?”
I clamp my jaw. I don’t know anything anymore. What she knows. Doesn’t know. What she’s after. Blackmail to get Grace?
“Dell, hey,” she says. “You’re going completely tense.”
She sits up and looks at me. “I think it’s amazing that you built your empire from nothing. That’s a hell of a lot more impressive than cashing in a trust fund.”
I force myself to relax. This is Arianna. The crusader who wants to save every rich child from a lonely childhood. She wouldn’t blackmail anybody.
“Tell me,” she says gently. “Who is Barclay McDonald?”
The idea that someone would know, that I could talk about the ghosts from my past, is inviting. It’s been forever since I’ve spoken any of their names. Some of them were good people.
“He was my grandfather,” I say.
“Oh!” she sits up more. Her breasts sway before my face and I feel momentarily lost with the need to feel them again. “As in the grandfather with your grandmother Grace?”
I drag my view from her breasts to her face. “Yes. It is.”
“Oh, tell me about her!”
I drag my gaze from her chest again. “My father’s mother. She was a typical housewife. She kept me when I was little. Loved me to the moon and back.”
“So your grandfather made clocks?”
“He did. They never had a lot of money. It wasn’t exactly a booming business. But they got by.”
“The clock in your room is amazing.”
“Yes, he made a few of his own. If I could go back, I would have advised him to go upscale and serve the interior designer market, but back then all I knew were greyhounds.”
“You said you had greyhounds before Max. You had them as a kid, then?” Her face is full of excitement. She’s enjoying hearing my story.
It all just tumbles out, like a great purge.
“My parents worked at the Birmingham Racetrack. Dad helped in concessions. Mom cleaned. I generally mucked the area where they let the dogs relieve themselves when they were out of their kennels.”
“A productive job for a boy.”
She’s being kind.
“It was a shit job.”
She laughs. “It is. I didn’t have a job. In fact, I’ve never had a job with a boss.”
“Be glad,” I say. “It’s nothing but misery.”
“So how did you work your way up from poop to hot shit?” she says.
I tug on her ear. “Not funny.”
“Is too,” she says.
The moment earlier seems to be forgotten. At least for now.
“What I really wanted to be was a lead-out,” I say.
“A what?”
“The lead-out is usually a teenaged boy who leads the dogs out on the track and into the starting box.”
“Wouldn’t the trainer do that?” she asks.
“Too low a job for them,” I say. “But perfect for a young strong boy who is great with the dogs.”
“I take it you never got to be a lead-out,” she says.
“No. Those jobs kept going to rich kids whose fathers were in racing or owned dogs. Even though I was perfect for it. Even though I would have done it for free.”
“I can see how that would motivate you.” She tilts her head. “I looked you up pretty thoroughly when you bought my building,” she says. “I was worried about redevelopment and having my business evicted. I never saw anything about dog racing.”
“You won’t,” I say. “I had it all purged.”
“You purged the Internet?”
“No, just anything connected to me.” I hesitate. “I changed my name.”
Now she sits all the way up. “Get out of town! What did it used to be?”
I don’t think I’m going to give that up. “Let’s just say that Dell Brant suited my brand better than Old McDonald.”
“Tell me your old first name,” she says. “Or I will tickle you.”
She throws her leg over me, her fingers running up and down my sides. “Tell Arianna!”
I’m not the least bit ticklish, but the sight of her naked body straddling mine is way more than I can handle. “Okay, okay!” I say. “Hasmund.”
She stills. “What?”
“Hasmund.”
“Spell that.”
“I’m not going to spell it!”
She looks thoughtful. “Is that even a name?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Huh.”
Her warm, wet body parts are against my belly, her breasts hovering over my face. I can’t take it.
“Arianna,” I say, “I have to move you, or I’m not going to be able to control myself whatsoever.”
She flattens her palms against my chest, as if she can stop me from shifting her away. “Why is that?” she asks. “Why do you need control? I’m right here. Totally naked. I’ve said yes.”
Her throat bobs. She’s going to get upset again.
“You haven’t done this before,” I say. “And I’ve got too many feelings about you to just take something that precious.”
She moves her arms to cross in front of her chest, as if she’s suddenly shy. “How did you know that?”
“I felt it. That is one intact hymen you have there.”
Her lips press together. “I had some pretty screwed-up ideas about sex and love,” she says. “I don’t know. There’s just all these husbands at my spa, fathers even, and they are all just looking for their next poke. I wanted something more.”
“So you chose me.”
She opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again.
“Arianna,” I say. “Are you sure?”
She melts a little, the stiffness in her body starting to give a little. “Yes,” she says. “A thousand million times yes.”
I grasp her waist and lift her off me. “Then it will just have to be a thousand million times worth it.”