I became aware of Brad’s presence behind me. Touched by the display, I turned and hugged him, holding him tight and feeling his strength. He smoothed my hair and looked out on the lake. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I nodded and backed away from him. He turned and offered his arm to me. “Shall we eat?”
I beamed and nodded, accepting his arm as gracefully as I could. “Yes, we shall.” And Cinderella arrived at the ball.
Prime was incredible. Decorated in navy and cream silk, it was elegance to the nth degree. The restaurant was located right on the lake, and our seats were in a private alcove with a full-length window showing the view in all its glory. Brad began by ordering a thousand-dollar bottle of Dom Pérignon, which was delivered to our table before the waiter had even finished his initial speech. I took a sip timidly. It was the first restaurant, other than Centaur, I’d been to that had more than three utensils. Brad sat across from me in his suit, playing with a fork and looking devastatingly handsome. My nervousness from the night before returned.
“Don’t worry about the etiquette.” Brad must have seen my study of the four forks at my setting. “I still don’t know my way through these utensils.”
I doubted that, but grinned at him.
The first food brought to our table was a seafood tower, almost four feet tall, with four levels of white meat. Crystal-clear ice chips with colossal shrimp, oysters, clams, crab legs and lobster stacked its silver shelves. The minute it was delivered to our table by two black-clad waiters, Brad rubbed his hands together in glee and pounced on it. He filled the white china plates set in front of us, plucking succulent items from each level. I waved him off, but he ignored me, piling on more seafood. I stared, aghast, at my plate.
I did not eat seafood. Not that I didn’t eat seafood, but I didn’t really like seafood. I had a very limited palate. I grew up eating chicken, rice and vegetables. The chicken was prepared in different manners, but the rice was always brown and the vegetables always overcooked. The only seafood I had been exposed to was imitation crabmeat that smelled disgusting and often occupied a portion of our fridge. I have no idea what my mom did with the crab, but I think she ate it straight out of the package. Yuck. I had tried shrimp before, and didn’t mind it, but it wasn’t anything that rocked my world.
I stared at my heaped plate with a mixture of digust and dread. The waiter was busy affixing a white bib around Brad’s neck; a second waiter headed toward me with the same intent. I held up a newly manicured—damn, those look good!—hand to ward him off. He halted with surprise.
“Ma’am, your dress.” He held up the bib as if it was a burnt offering. This exchange drew Brad’s attention, and he stopped, midcrack, his head coming up and peering at me over his bib, causing an unladylike giggle to start to rise from me.
I swallowed it down and looked at him. “I, er...don’t like seafood.”
“Lobster? King crab?” His face twisted into an unbelieving scowl.
“Well, we didn’t eat a lot of seafood growing up and—”
“Have you ever had it before? Lobsters, crab, oyster?”
Cinderella was about to be exposed. “Well, no. I’ve had crab before, and didn’t like it.” Imitation crab, but crab’s crab.
He beamed and reached across, pushing my plate closer to me and waving the bib-carrying waiter forward. “I, er—no, really...” I said feebly as the waiter affixed the ridiculous bib around my neck.
Brad pushed a ceramic bowl with a candle that heated melted butter toward me. “Dunk the pieces into the butter, and then eat,” he urged, his hands already covered with dripping butter. “You’ll love it.” Hesitantly, I pulled a piece of the soft meat out of the precut lobster shells and dipped it in the butter. His eyes never leaving me, Brad followed the meat to my mouth to be sure that I ate it. I tentatively put the meat on my tongue and gently chewed. The feathery consistency didn’t sit well with me and all I tasted was butter and bland meat. I swallowed, the blob of buttery meat slipping down my throat with a thick glug. Ewww. I fought a grimace and smiled in my best ladylike manner. “Hmm...” I said.
“That’s the best lobster in town,” Brad beamed, beside himself with glee. “Go on! Try the crab!” He dug into his pile with reckless abandon.
The waiter came and refilled our champagne glasses. I took a generous sip of champagne and faced the plate again. Looking past the ridiculous plate, I gazed with despair at the tower—made for four and towering on the table in between Brad and me. I practically had to lean around it to see him. The bottom rung of the silver tower was empty when they had delivered it, but was now being filled with the empty lobster and crab-claw shells.
Lightbulb.
Fifteen minutes later, Brad sat back with a satisfied groan. “I have been dreaming of those claws for weeks.” He met my eyes with a Cheshire grin. “Well? Was I right or what?”
I smiled at him over my champagne and empty plate. “It was very good, Brad. Thank you.”
“I don’t know how you look so put-together. I always feel like I need a bath after eating this stuff.” He wiped his face with his napkin and pulled at his bib, breaking the plastic tie. “Should we get another or do you want to go ahead and order dinner?”
“Dinner, please,” I said quickly.
Brad’s eyes trained on me for a moment, then he shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”
The waiter appeared and began pulling the silver trays off the tower, starting with the top one. Uh-oh. I had anticipated his taking the entire tower at once, as he had brought it to us. My mind raced for something to distract Brad.
Shrimp platter gone.
“I was thinking, Brad...”
Clams and oysters level gone.
“...maybe tonight, after the show...”
Lobster level taken.
“...we could, ahh...” Don’t look down!
The large silver platter that had housed the tangled pile of snow and king crab legs was lifted, exposing the plate of empty shells...and expensive meat of crab and lobster I had carefully hidden under the guise of placing my shells on the plate. The meat, which had been strategically hidden from the side view, was now fully exposed, crab and lobster stretched out like bathing beauties on South Beach. Brad completely ignored my sentence—not that it was going anywhere—and stared at the shell plate in bewilderment. The waiter leaned over and examined it, puzzled.
The lightbulb went off in both their heads at the same time and they turned in unison to stare at me. Eyes wide, frozen in my seat, my hands twisted in my lap as I tried to think of something to say. Brad broke the silence before my head found a solution.
“You hid that?” he asked, his head tilted to the side, his eyes unreadable.
“I didn’t really like it,” I lamely responded. “You seemed so excited and my plate was so full...” I trailed off.
“Jesus, woman!” he quietly and happily thundered.
He’s happy? I was confused.
He grabbed his bread plate and quietly scooped up the offensive pieces, plopping them onto his plate. He moved the still-lit butter stand back in front of him. A second waiter appeared with a replacement bib and Brad sat up so that he could tie it on. Once the trash plate had been rummaged through, by both Brad and the server, who shot me a look of sophisticated disdain, it was carried away and Brad and I were left alone. Just us, my leftover seafood and the glow of drawn butter. Brad was beside himself with amusement.
“Why didn’t you just say you didn’t like it? I would have been more than happy to eat it all myself, Julia.”
“You were so pushy about me eating it, and so enthusiastic about it, I didn’t want to disappoint you.” I sounded like a freakin’ child, but it had come out of my mouth—no point in trying to put it back in.
“I’m not your father, Julia.” His grin faded slightly but he kept his tone light. “Yo
u don’t have to do as I tell you.”
I set my chin and stared at him. “I know, Brad. I don’t do everything you say.” But I doubted my own words. I had let him talk me into a lot.
“Does our age difference bother you?” His face was so serious, I tried to keep from grinning, but seeing him peering at me over his plastic bib with butter dripping off his fingers, my grin broke through. “What?”
“Nothing. No, our age range doesn’t bother me. It did...before I met you. I envisioned you old, wrinkly, with gray pubic hair....” I grinned wickedly at him.
“How do you know I don’t have gray hair down there? I could have a whole forest.”
I wrinkled my nose and tossed a piece of bread at him. “Gross! Besides, I sneaked a peek last night while you were drooling in your sleep.” He laughed and grabbed my hand, bringing it to his mouth for a quick kiss.
“I can’t keep my mouth off of you,” he murmured. A stream of deliciousness shot through my body. I took another sip of champagne and met his sexy eyes across the table. God, this man is tempting.
* * *
“Another bottle of Dom Pérignon, Mr. De Luca?”
Another? What happened to the first? I looked at my now-empty glass.
“Yes. Are you ready to order, Julia?”
“You go ahead. I’ll know in just a moment.” I quickly scanned the menu. The prices made my eyes widen. The seafood tower Brad had just demolished was three hundred and fifty dollars! I tried to find something relatively inexpensive, but gave up on that mission. Most of the items on the menu I didn’t even recognize. I finally settled on a filet, which was something I at least knew I liked. I heard Brad order a prime rib and three side items, then the critical waiter’s eyes were on me.
“Filet, please, medium rare.” I smiled sweetly and handed him my menu. He nodded primly and left. I leaned forward and whispered. “This place is ridiculously expensive! Do you know how much that lobster I was throwing away costs?”
His eyebrows rose at my indignation and he smiled. “Julia, it’s all comped. All this—” he gestured around “—is on the casino. Their focus is on gambling, and I pay them royally for it. This is your first time in Vegas and I want you to have a good time.” He smiled good-naturedly at me. “But I appreciate your concern for my wallet.” He raised his glass for a toast. “To bigger and better. May you enjoy this weekend.” I raised my glass and clinked it to his.
My eyes floated through the room. We were tucked in a beautiful little corner and had a nice view of the other tables. My eyes froze on a couple by the window. “Brad—that’s George Clooney!”
Brad glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. “You’ll see a lot of celebrities this week. Vegas is their playground, especially Bellagio.”
I saw George Clooney reach across the table and rub his date’s hand, a platinum-blonde in a blue dress. I tried not to bounce in my seat with excitement and forced my eyes away from the actor. Becca would never believe this. I wondered if I could sneak a photo with my iPhone, but dismissed the thought. Brad was watching me, a smirk on his handsome features.
Our food came, sizzling steaks on white china with melting butter on them. Brad had ordered creamed corn, mashed potatoes and mushrooms, and a group of waiters brought out the plated dishes. We both dug in, and other than occasional moans, there was silence for the next few minutes. I finally took a break and sat back with my champagne. Blissfully, I closed my eyes and let the food settle a bit in my stomach.
“Enjoying yourself?”
I nodded without opening my eyes. “Immensely.”
I felt his hand underneath the narrow table, caressing my knee. My eyes opened and I moved my knee out of his reach. His eyes turned playfully mournful.
“I haven’t decided whether I’m going to let you have that. I’m trying to be a good girl.”
“Good girl?” He swallowed a swig of champagne. “I haven’t seen that side yet.”
I harrumphed and leaned forward on my elbows, staring at him. “I’ll have you know I am a very good girl, even if I have had weak resolve lately around you. I plan to go back to my prudish ways, starting tonight.” Maybe.
He leaned back in his chair, his hand on his chin, rubbing appraisingly. “Is it for religious reasons, this attempt to abstain?”
I shrugged. “Not really. I have a healthy relationship with God, and I don’t particularly think he cares if I choose to express my love in a sexual manner. But that’s what I feel I am doing with sex, expressing my love—not for religious reasons, just for my own. I hear about women who feel used or guilty after sex, and I’ve never felt that, and don’t want to start.”
He leaned back, regarded me seriously. “I think most of the women who feel that way are having sex in order to accomplish something, to win a man’s affection, impress him, gain financial security....” He waved a hand generically. “The man they are sleeping with is fucking them for one reason—pleasure—not because he loves them, or wants to love them, or wants to pay their light bill, but because he wants to get off, and they are conveniently around. After sex, they all of a sudden have a boatload of expectations, and get their feelings hurt when nothing has changed on his end. Women think sex is this magic act when in fact it isn’t. And there are too many women ready to hand it over too easily.”
I glared at him. “You make us out to be so...pathetic. Is that how you view women, as disposable receptacles to stick your dick into?”
He rubbed his head exasperatedly. “Julia, I am being honest about sex. Your college boys probably don’t know enough about sex or how they’re feeling yet. I am a mature man trying to explain to you how we, as men, work. It’s a point of view that most women never know.”
“So that’s why you sleep with your clients? To get a sexual release? Don’t you think that you risk too much for something you can get from all of the sluts lying around waiting for you to fuck them?!”
My voice had risen a little too high, and Brad glanced around before answering. “Julia, the clients I do fuck are adult women, most of them mature, who realize what we’re doing and what our roles are in it.”
“What are your roles?” I asked, my tone sharp.
“Julia, don’t attack me because you don’t believe in my lifestyle choices. I have absolute confidence in my sexual relationships and don’t need to explain them to anyone. I am choosing to explain them to you because I hope to fuck you in the future—” he placed careful emphasis on the word fuck “—and I don’t want to do it with any misplaced expectations on your part.”
I bit into a mushroom and chewed slowly, putting off a response. Damn man.
His voice, taking on a gentler tone, continued. “Our roles, when I am with a client, are pretty defined and simple. We don’t screw at the office. I come to her house—she is never in mine. When I take my clients on business dinners, it’s for just that, business. If she’s interested in sex and I am sexually attracted to her, then we meet later, have sex and I go home.”
“It sounds awfully cold and heartless to me. Don’t they feel used?”
“Most men fuck in a way that might make a woman feel used. They spend the majority of the time getting oral sex, or taking what they want in the position that they want it. As I mentioned earlier, the reason for their sex is to get off, not for any other purpose. I don’t fuck that way. I am more about the woman’s pleasure. Did you feel used this morning?”
His sudden question caught me off guard. Midchew, I quietly swallowed the hunk of tender filet I had been savoring and wiped my mouth. I sipped the glass of ice water and looked up at the gold-leaf ceiling, thinking. Had I felt used? Used hadn’t even crossed my mind. I had felt elated, relaxed, sleepy, but not guilt or regret. Then again, a guy going down on you was a lot different than sex, right?
“No, I didn’t feel used. But I think what we did and sex are two differe
nt things. Sex is me giving a part of myself.”
He snorted. “Says who? Every woman-lit book out there? Your parents? The church? Society has this hang-up with the idea that women are losing a part of themselves every time they fuck, and it’s bullshit. So a man can be with twenty different women and have a normal, healthy self-esteem, but a woman sleeps around and she’s emotionally destroyed? Women attach feelings to sex because society tells them to. They think that they should feel for a guy before sleeping with him, so they manufacture a relationship or emotions and that only screws them up later on. It provides justification that later bites them in the ass when they try to look in the mirror and come to grips with ‘what they’ve done,’ when ‘what they’ve done’ is nothing to be ashamed of. The act of sex is healthy, normal, God-given. It’s the emotions and entitlement that everyone attaches to it that are harmful.”
I looked at him, listening to his words, and tried to remind myself that he was an attorney, born and bred to convince juries, lonely housewives and me that what came out of his mouth was fact. I felt as if I was in a Twister game and could no longer tell whether I was upside down, or lefty, or right side up. Part of what he was saying seemed completely logical, although it went against everything I had ever been taught or told. But who was I to blindly follow what I was taught or told? It made sense that the church or my parents would tell me to wait for sex, that I should only sleep with my husband, the person I loved. I was sure I would tell my future daughter the same thing.