Chapter 9

Charles

“You never mentioned,” Henry said crossly, sipping from his glass of Merlot. “Is this Heidi’s model friend hot or what?”

I gave him my sweetest of smiles. “Don’t worry. I heard she has at least half of her teeth.”

“Very funny,” Henry retorted, although that thankfully shut him up for a bit.

Really, I shouldn’t have been so quick to shoot him down, though, because the alternative to Henry blabbering on about how this date should or shouldn’t go was my own nervous thoughts twining around themselves. Were things were going to be the same with Henry and her friend here too? Or would they even be the same tonight, back at the hidden house? I was going to take her to the room this time, and I really wanted it to go well. But what if I was wrong about her?

The clink of a far-off door opening sounded. I turned to see Heidi and her friend.

Henry let out a low whistle, which I knew was a good sign.

“And to think you ever doubted me,” I said mildly.

For Henry’s part, he couldn’t keep a shit-eating grin off his face. Heidi’s friend was admittedly good looking. With her long legs clad in a leather miniskirt, she was a sight to behold. Although beside Heidi, I could only give her a requisite five-second once-over before my eyes glued themselves to Heidi.

Sex. That was what Heidi was dressed as. No holds barred, not a fuck given sex. The black leather dress she was wearing looked like it had been designed for her, while the zipper on the front was beckoning me to tug it down already.

Not to mention Heidi was wearing a red-lipped grin, indicating she was all too aware of just what I was thinking.

“Glad to see you made it okay,” I said, gesturing to the seat beside me.

Tonight, I wanted Heidi as close to me as I could get her.

“And you must be Liza,” Henry said in his game-on voice.

“I know exactly who you are,” she said, her blue-eyed gaze boring into his.

Heidi and I exchanged a smile. Clearly, we weren’t the only two who were going to be having a good night.

“So,” Heidi said as we glanced down at our menus, “how did you two meet?”

Henry’s dark brows inverted in confusion, but I knew Heidi’s sense of humor by this point.

“Oh, this one?” I said, jerking my head in Henry’s direction. “He just followed me home from a mission I was volunteering at. He was a good sort of hobo so my family adopted him.”

Catching on, Henry directed his glare at me.

“Very funny,” he said. “Really, it was the other way around. But if you wanted me to spare you the embarrassment, brother, you should’ve just told me.”

Both girls laughed at that one.

“You should really try what Charles and I had last time,” Heidi told her friend. “The rice and chicken was delicious.”

Henry’s smirking glance went from Heidi to me and back to Heidi again.

“Oh, I bet it was.”

My arm closed protectively around Heidi.

“And the same restaurant for this date?” Henry said, sweeping his hand toward Heidi.

“It was in a totally different section,” Heidi said heatedly “And I don’t mind in the least.”

“Fire,” Henry said with a touch of admiration in his voice. “I like that.”

Beside him, Liza looked mortified. Luckily, our sage waitress, the same one as last time, chose that moment to arrive. It was settled that we would have a giant dish of whatever they had on special, chef’s choice.

“Surprises,” Liza said with a naughty smile. “I like those.”

Henry’s gaze finally settled where it should’ve been, on Liza’s bright-pink lips.

“Oh, then you will like what we have in store for tonight,” he said.

She didn’t break his pointed gaze. “Maybe I have something in store for you too.”

Henry outright smiled. “Where did you find this one?” he asked Heidi.

She lifted and then lowered her brows quickly.

“Oh, you know, model school.”

“Model school?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” Liza continued seriously. “It’s just like Hogwarts, but with models and stilettos instead of flying owls.”

There is a half beat of a pause before Henry and I got it and burst out laughing. The whole table rumbled with it, and Henry slapped its wooden surface several times, sending the creaky thing shaking.

“Careful,” I counseled him. “I don’t want to add a broken five-hundred-year-old table to the bill I already have to pay for booking the whole restaurant.”

“I think five hundred years is kind of a low estimate,” Henry said cheekily.

Liza giggled at that, and he turned his attention toward her.

For the rest of the meal, Heidi and I mostly spoke to each other with the odd comment to Liza and Henry. It seemed the more time passed, the more sold Henry was on Liza, luckily enough. For my part, I could barely take waiting given how close to Heidi I was.

What had seemed like a good idea at the time I could now only conclude was a misguided choice on my part. Heidi was so close, so breath-tremblingly close that our legs were resting against each other and her chest heaved as my fingertips played with hers. Clearly, she was finding this closeness as difficult as I was.

Dinner was a massive salad that looked questionable but tasted exquisite. We all wolfed it down without any regard to manners or pleasantries. Mother would have been appalled, but old Pa, with his temper that got grouchier with the minutes that ticked past dinnertime, would have understood.

There was no way I could hold off on Heidi indefinitely. And while giving in to our passions inside the restaurant would’ve been hot, I could only imagine the career-ending spectacle it would make if it were ever to be found out. So, instead, we shoveled as much food as we could fit into our mouths, washing it all down with water and wine until our plates were empty. Then we nestled into each other, a contented smile on her face.

I was the first to rise, my knowing gaze going to Heidi.

“Dessert?”

The most delicious of smiles flickered over her pouty red lips.

“Dessert,” she agreed. Henry and Liza didn’t catch on immediately.

“We have to go somewhere else for dessert?” Henry whined, his gaze swiveling around to see if there were any random pastries or cupcakes that just happened to be floating nearby.

“No,” I said patiently, my hand clasping Heidi’s. “We’re going to have dessert at our place, and you can have dessert at your place.”

Liza caught on first. Standing up, she said, “Oh, dessert! I love dessert.” She angled her gaze down to Henry. “Don’t you?”

When her gaze dipped down farther, then met his again, he understood all too well. Licking his now smiling lips, he nodded.

“What a coincidence. Dessert is my favorite meal, actually.”

And so, we dispersed, Henry and Liza to wherever they were going—probably Henry’s penthouse apartment on Sussex Drive—and Heidi and I to where I’d been craving to get her since the moment I saw her: the hidden house.

Twenty minutes later, we pulled onto a wisteria-covered lane that eventually meandered up to the house, and Heidi turned to me.

“It must be hard to leave here sometimes,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s so peaceful.”

“It really is,” I confessed, “but duty never fails to call. The most I’ve ever stayed here is two days in a row. Then my mom somehow managed to reach me and threatened to start up a countrywide search for me.”

Heidi frowned. “That’s terrible. So you’re not allowed to go on vacation?”

I gave a noncommittal shake.

“I wouldn’t put it like that. It’s more that my vacation has to be approved by a committee of ten people who I’ve met only a handful of times in my life and who don’t exactly have my peace at the top of their interests list.”

Heidi was about to say something heated, but I cut her off.

“Sorry. I’m boring you.”

“Not at all,” she said.

My headshake was firm. “Almost there anyway.”

I was glad she left it at that. As easy as it was to talk to her, I wasn’t overly comfortable with how natural it seemed when the conversation drifted to my family. My arrangement with Heidi was for sexual purposes only. Mixing my lust with actual affection wouldn’t lead me anywhere good. Of that much I was certain.

I heaved a sigh of relief as we stepped inside the house and the old cherrywood walls greeted me. When I was eight years old, I was pretty sure Grandpa Philip had gone on a good five-minute tirade about how some of the last cherrywood in the country had been used for this very house. And I could see why. There was something so elegant about it, something sturdy and yet fluid all at once.

I glanced over and found Heidi’s eyes shining with what appeared to be similar sentiments, but I wasn’t about to ask that. There was something else, something much more important I had to ask her and show her.

“I want to show you something,” I said, clasping her hand.

Her face blanched. Could she already have suspected what I was getting to?

Steeling myself, I marched up the stairs. If this was how things were going to end, then this was how they were going to end. But even the thought sent my stomach thrashing. I paused at the top of the stairs.

“You okay?” Heidi asked in a small voice.

I nodded and said gruffly, “I’m fine.”

We continued up the next flight of stairs, and then the next, and then the next. Then, finally, the final flight of stairs led us to the attic, although it wasn’t your typical attic. Oriental curtains lined the walls and pillows were strewn all about. In the middle was the bed, the clear master of the surroundings.

There was bright-red satin and four posts around the glory of the bed itself. On it were arranged what I had to show her, the things that could bring this relationship onto new ground or destroy it entirely.

Heidi had stopped dead in the doorway. Gently, I guided her in farther.

“This may come as a surprise to you,” I said, “but some of my tastes in the bedroom are not quite as tame as you would at first suspect.”

A glance over found her nodding strongly. It felt like I was plodding out onto thin air, like I’d gone too far from the cliff and might as well keep on marching until my feet finally realized the ground was twenty paces behind me.

“Of course, you are free to refuse whatever you don’t feel comfortable with,” I said quickly, squeezing her hand supportively. “Although I would ask that you don’t say anything about what you see or do in this room.”

“Of course,” she breathed. She had color back in her cheeks. “So this…” she said slowly, her hand tracing the toy closest to her. It was my little black leather riding crop, one that went perfectly with her black leather zip-up dress. “This is what you had to show me?”

Her words sent a flash of sensation straight to my cock. It jerked to attention. My hand slipped irresistibly around her waist and down to her ass.

“I’d love it if you tried some out with me,” I purred into her ear.

Her whole body sagged into mine as a low moan escaped her lips.

I padded and massaged the curve of her ass, which I’d be enjoying all too soon.

Sure, Heidi hadn’t answered me outright, but she didn’t need to. One look at her whole body, slack with desire, was enough.