Lucas
It’s not creepy. It’s sweet.
At least, that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself.
I’m pacing outside of the lecture hall where, if the schedule I charmed off the administrative assistant in the dean’s office is correct, Sofie Carson is currently sitting through an agonizing three-hour bio lab.
It wasn’t even that hard to get when I think about it. Show up with a dozen roses in a well-cut suit and people will bend over backwards to give you what you want.
After that, it was just a little lie. Posing as Sofie’s boyfriend from out of town and here to surprise her for an anniversary date was so easy. Even I almost believed it.
And now I’m clutching these roses in one fist and alternating between checking her schedule and my watch with the other.
Any minute now, she’s going to come walking out of this building with fifty or so other aspiring biologists. When she does, I’m going to pluck her from the crowd like a diamond out of a cart full of coal.
Normally, this isn’t me. I’m not fucking like this. Normally, women come to me, not the other way around.
When I try to count the number of needy ex-girlfriends showing up at my place late at night, bugging my doorman and begging for a fuck, it makes my head spin. Which is saying something. Numbers are kind of my speciality.
After a while, I realized that the dating scene wasn’t meant for guys like me at all. Too much money, if there is such a thing. I’m better off ordering up a call girl or hooking up with some one-night stand my secretary sets up for me.
On occasion, I’ll share a girl with Elijah and Oliver—like a corporate bonding exercise or a sexual trust fall. And there’s no denying that we all have similar tastes.
Which is the real reason I’m braving the cold out on the Columbia campus on a Monday morning.
If Ollie and Eli feel anything even half as strong as I do for Sofie Carson, being prompt is a necessity.
Sofie Carson is a catch, a treat, a fucking enigma. When you’re as rich as I am, hot women are a buyer’s market. That’s what I went into the Fostering Angels’ auction expecting to find—some tasty little morsel I could buy up for the evening and send on her way when I was done with her.
But Sofie...fuck.
I don’t know that I’ll ever be done with her.
I quit the pacing because I know it makes me look like a nervous jackass. And Sofie needs to see me as I am: cool, confident, and smooth. Shiny as freshly oiled leather and calm as the eye of a hurricane.
But just as I’m taking a seat on the park bench outside of the lecture hall, the doors swing open, and a stampede of students comes rushing out of it.
Sofie Carson is the kind of girl who stands out, even in a crowd. I spot her right away. When I do, it makes me chuckle to myself.
I was imagining her in cute, classy college girl clothes: knee-high riding boots with her jeans tucked in, a tight little sweater, and one of those knitted hats with the puffball on top.
Instead, she’s wearing Uggs and tiny little yoga shorts that she must be freezing her gorgeous ass off in. She has a Columbia T-shirt on, messy hair, and—this is what really gets me—one of those big fuzzy Russian-looking hats with the ear flaps.
She looks tired, really properly worn out.
But Christ, alive. Our date was three nights ago, and she’s still glowing. I have to hand it to Oliver, Eli, and myself. We really fucked this girl good.
That’s the truly amazing thing. For as strung out as Sofie Carson looks in her natural habitat, she’s no less beautiful for it. In fact, this might be even sexier than that little number she was wearing on Friday.
This is Sofie raw. Unedited.
I can feel better-dressed girls making a point of putting themselves in my line of sight as I wait for Sofie to spot me. I’d tell them to take a number, but honestly?
Sofie Carson has every number in my smart-ass finance man head. The way her face lights up when she finally looks up from her textbook and notices me seals the deal.
I’ve only got eyes for her.
“Lucas!” she squeals, jogging over to me.
“Sofie,” I say back. “Missed me?”
She lands a cold, wet little kiss on my cheek as she throws her arms around my neck. I wrap her up tight, passing on some of my body heat. Silly girl didn’t even throw on a coat this morning.
I’d express some concern, but I don’t want to waste any time.
Instead, I pass her the roses and shrug off my own camel-colored wool coat.
“Oh my god,” she moans, breathing the flowers in. “Luke, these are beautiful! You shouldn’t have.”
The smile on her face is like sunshine. Like she’s storing some kind of star inside her beneath her skin.
It’s fucking insane. It’s incredible. It makes me want to spend every hour of every day making sure that smile never leaves her beautiful face.
Fuck’s sake. I’m in deep with this girl.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, hugging the flowers to her chest.
I tuck the coat around her shoulders. It fucking dwarfs her, and it’s way too big to ever fit properly. Which, if I’m being honest, only makes her look even more cute.
“A friend asked me to guest lecture a class for the finance department,” I tell her, which is the truth. I don’t bother to mention that that was three hours ago, and that I only talked myself into grabbing the flowers and finding a way to see her after the fact. “I remembered that you went here, so I thought...”
“You’d snoop around and track me down?” she finishes with a giggle.
“Something like that. Wasn’t too hard,” I say, winding an arm around her waist and pulling her close.
The smell of the roses rises up, caught between our shared body heat, as I dip my nose to her neck and breathe her in. “Not once a hound dog like me gets your scent.”
“Mmm,” Sofie moans, the same way she moans when she’s eating dessert. Or lapping up cum, for that matter. “Then it’s a good thing I don’t mind. Look me up whenever you want.”
She pulls back with a wink and makes to leave. I catch her by the elbow and pull her back to me before she can.
“Going somewhere, sweetheart?”
“Lunch,” she admits, wrinkling up her nose with a cute little laugh. “I woke up late today…thus.”
She gestures to the ragtag items of clothing she must have thrown on as she was heading out the door. I take the opportunity to stare at her gorgeous body with a shamelessly lingering gaze.
Those legs. Those hips. Those tits.
“That’s funny. I saw the same look on the runway a few months ago in Milan,” I joke.
“Sure you did,” she says, tugging down the earflaps of her hat. “Anyway, I missed breakfast. Totally starving.”
“Good,” I say, smoothing her long, silken hair away from her face. I hold my hands against her rosy-cold cheeks, using them to warm her up. “Because I’m taking you out for lunch.”
“Yes! I’d love to!” Sofie says right away.
She fucking bounces when she’s excited, and it’s the sweetest thing in the world. And not just because it makes her tits jiggle so deliciously when she does either.
Though, that helps.
“Excellent. We’ve got a reservation.”
I offer her my arm, but Sofie pauses before she takes it.
My heart literally bottoms out.
“A reservation, huh? Last minute like this? Most places worth going are already booked solid,” she points out with a sly little smile. “But I suppose your connections would, uh... squeeze you in?”
“For me? Always,” I say. And they would. Anywhere in New York.
But this reservation is special, and it’s not in New York.
“You must have been pretty sure I’d say yes,” she says, her grin widening.
“I’m not exactly accustomed to hearing no,” I admit.
Beaming, Sofie takes my arm. A relief. But as I take her to my limo, I can see that something’s still bothering her.
She’s chewing on her lip like it’s going out of style.
“Sofie, something the matter?”
She sighs, looking down at her outfit again.
“It’s nothing. Just…I’m, uh, not exactly dressed for fine dining, Luke. Wanna grab coffee here on campus or something instead?”
“We’ll just have to get you out of those awful clothes and into something a little more comfortable then,” I say, licking my lips.
Sofie licks hers right back, mirroring me. Suddenly, the mood has changed.
“I guess we’ll have to.”
I’m not sure yet what we’ll have for lunch, but I definitely know what I want for an appetizer.