I moan softly and stay still over him.
He groans and sits up, grabbing my hair and rocking his hips beneath me. I wrap my arms around his neck and start rocking faster.
His hands span my waist firmly and he starts to get control of the rhythm even though I’m on top. He’s setting the pace with every thrust, guiding me up and down.
We’re watching each other.
He rocks his hips and I feel him—so hard, so big, so close—and I get wetter and wetter, absorbing everything.
The soft sucking motions of his mouth on my nipples arrow down to my sex, which keeps squeezing around him.
God, he’s a sucking machine.
I run my fingers up his chest and let my mouth wander, tasting his jaw and his ear as he starts biting gently into my neck, his voice gruff as he tells me I’m so hot, so wet, so good. He’s warm, sweaty, and salty.
He lifts me with one arm and then thrusts me down, pulling my head back, watching my neck arc, and he tells me, “Let’s see what other freckles I find.”
He bites my neck and nibbles, and I groan.
We lose control, stop talking, biting, licking, moving, groaning and fucking. Then my muscles are locking up and I’m racing for it, needing it. Needing him. I’m twisting and thrashing as I come, gasping from the intensity.
He tenses with a soft laugh-groan. He groans a pleasure sound that makes me come even harder and pushes me down on his cock as he jerks inside me. He growls something that sounds like you feel so good and rolls me over and finishes with a few greedy thrusts that somehow retrigger my orgasm.
My orgasm is like I’ve nothing experienced before. A detonation that shatters me to a billion nano-pieces.
When we’re done, he cleans up as if we hadn’t just had a mind-blowing sex session.
I lie comatose in bed. I’m on a high that has nothing to do with the alcohol. I’m catching my breath, sweaty and aware that my muscles feel completely weightless, while I watch him search his clothes. He lifts his cigarette pack and I grin, forget about my buttery muscles and go open a window. We lie on the bed, smiling at each other as we light up.
I start wondering his name as we alternate drags. Maybe Drake.
“Drake. That’s your name.”
“If I’m Drake, you’re Mindy.”
“No way.”
“No way I’m Drake, Fanny.”
“Hmm . . . Donathon?”
We start thinking up ridiculous names for each other until I say, “Good night, Harietto.”
“Good night, Pippa.” He strokes a hand down my back and whispers in my ear, “I enjoyed doing a thorough search for those clusters of freckles.”
I wake up in darkness. Red neon lights a few feet away blink as the number strikes 3:28 a.m.
I’m curled against him. The memory of what we did rains down on me, soft as rose petals. I press my eyes shut, shifting closer and peering into his face. We had the hottest sex of my life, and I still want more. I want him inside me.
I’d never had an orgasm with a guy before, only on my own.
My world still feels a little off its axis.
His eyes are closed, his chest rising evenly. I’m in his arms, well, one of them at least. And it feels so nice! I could keep him as a muscular teddy bear. And a wicked sucking machine. And a free smoke, and well, I really do feel a little bit taken with him. Not that he’s in my plans. But here I am. I have never before felt more like a woman, and he’s holding me like he very much wants this particular woman to not get away. His arm is almost like a vise—but even that feels . . . so, so nice!
I touch his lips and settle deeper into his arm around me, craving the closeness. Craving all this nice.
I wake again to a ringing phone that doesn’t sound familiar.
I stir and see a very gorgeous, disheveled man getting out of the bed, gifting me a glimpse of his ass. Sunlight streams through the window and he looks so perfect, I can’t even think.
He slips into his slacks and pulls out his phone. “What time is it?” I ask groggily, sitting up in bed.
He checks his watch and zips up. “Eight. I’ve got to go.” He raises his ringing phone, then takes the chair at the corner of my room and strokes the top of his head as he answers with a crisp, “Yeah.”
My temples are throbbing from last night’s wine. But my brain is whirling because of all of last night. My hair is tangled and I run my fingers through it as I sit on the bed, watching him. He smiles mischievously at me as he listens to someone on the other end of the line.
I get the tingle. Suddenly just thinking about that sucking thing he does. Just looking at him and that chest. He has a swimmer’s body, lean and muscular but not overly so, and I find that very hot. As you can tell by the rampant hormone-fest of last night. I drop the sheet to my waist to see if I can entice him to come back to bed when he finishes his call. The idea of spending all Saturday morning with my sucking machine makes me sweat a little bit.
I drop the sheet farther down and watch his eyes start to blaze as they trail over me.
“Your sister? No, I’ve got other things on my mind. I just closed a deal that took months. I’ll check in with her this week. Get an update from Lincoln.”
His eyes suddenly watch me as he listens, and I see him spot a picture on my nightstand of my family and the realization seems to hit him the same instant that it hits ME.
He said “sister” and “Lincoln,” and the panic is suddenly so overwhelming I can’t breathe.
He looks at me, and I suddenly can’t move.
“T, something’s up.” He hangs up.
We’re both quiet.
He looks at me, all naked in my bed. All naked and thoroughly fucked by him. In my bed.
“Olivia,” he says, softly.
I swallow. “Callan.”
He drags his hand over his face.
His mouth is all red and kissed by me. Oh. My. God.
“I’m very, very late,” he says.
“Yes. Go. Please.”
So I slept with my boss. My boss’s boss. Also my brother’s friend. The guy who’d always been off-limits. The womanizer, everybody claims.
I feel like puking. I almost wish I could puke already, so I can get rid of the nausea.
The lines of concentration deepen around his eyes and mouth, and a shadow of disappointment crosses his face as he glances at the door. “I’d better go.”
“Yes. Go.”
I pull the sheet up and I want to hide from him, everything that yesterday I was too eager to show him. There’s a silence as he opens the door, a hesitation, then I hear him shut the door.
I don’t think I move from where I sit in shock on the bed for the next hour.
I refuse to think of him sucking my breasts. Filling me up. Calling me beautiful. Talking to me, listening to me. Oh god.
I take a bath and stew and feel like I swallowed a bowling ball all morning.
You could say I feel a little bit uncomfortable now that I had sex with the boss.
The boss’s boss.
Big whopping whoops!
Shit, really. Mega shit. I want to hide—better yet, die!
Well. That’s not happening again.
Sometimes you think you have it all figured out. Get hooked on a detail. Make an assumption and that is the law in your eyes. An assumption that won’t let you see anything else even when it’s staring you in the face in a red tie. And once you finally see the big picture you feel so stupid to not have known. To have written down some theory as law. You feel so stupid. I feel so stupid I have replayed every scene in my mind, focusing on all the ways I should’ve been alerted that he was Callan Carmichael.
The women at the club.
The nervousness in the elevator when he boards.
Him wearing whatever he wants, he’s the boss not the mailman! He’s like a hero and a god at Carma and we are the worshipers.
I was too blind because I liked the idea of him being a mailman or some outside consultant or
something.
I preferred thinking he was just a sexy mailman because that is something I could have.
The CEO, best friend to my brother, and my boss’s boss, nope, wildly not happening and it’s a little sad because I just had the best sex, the best night, of my life with him. From the moment I met him, I’ve wondered about him endlessly—hell, I’ve almost taken up smoking just to have an excuse to talk to him! And now. God.
Okay, so the man delivers—but not the mail.
It’s been two hours since he left and I’ve changed my sheets and made my bed and am still smelling his cologne in my nostrils. Now I’m staring at my laptop but all I can think of is how the hell I’m going to bear going back to work on Monday. My brain cannot wrap itself around the fact that all this time I’ve already met the notorious Callan Carmichael. I’ve been spilling my guts out to him.
We fucked.
Well and good.
I groan, hating how much I want him to go back to being just Hot Smoker Guy.
He made me come so hard my body is still tingling, and then in the middle of the night, we had sleepy sex, and he made me come again, just as hard or even more because I was all dazed and relaxed and over-sensitized already.
Pushing him out of my mind, I grit my teeth and start reading all the investment sites, reminding myself of the reason I’m in Chicago.
I spend all morning studying companies and trying to come up with a proposal of my own to show Mr. Lincoln.
It feels like I was driving 100 miles per hour on the career front, very determined, but now, now it’s like I’m ready to go at 1,000 miles per hour, full speed ahead. The takeover king took me over last night and I am ready to show him that sex is not all I’m good at. If he even liked it like I did.
Well shit, now I wonder if he did!
Forget about it. Focus on the plan. Learn from the master. Work the next few years. Save companies: win/win.
So I work for hours nonstop, all while Bloomberg plays on TV.
I take a break to halfheartedly munch on a sandwich and stare out the window at the sunny skies. But all I’m seeing is the saliva gland-stimulating sight of Callan lying in my bed, taunting me to come get it.
Suddenly I need to get out of this apartment before I lose my mind.
I change into jeans and a long-sleeved top and am wondering where to go when I get a text from Tahoe.
What are you up to?
I’m planning to go sightseeing in a bit
With?
Me.
Where you off to?
Maybe Art Institute?
I’ll meet you there.
Really?
Really. I want to talk.
I don’t know what he wants to talk about but my stomach won’t stop twisting when I arrive at the Art Institute of Chicago to find my brother leaning by the entrance. He asks me what I want to see and we head in the direction of The New Contemporary exhibit.
I’ve enjoyed contemporary art ever since the time he invited me to New York, where he bid on a huge collection for his new apartment. He bought mostly Impressionist works and the best Van Gogh on the block, but we lingered in Manhattan for a few days, and I ended up falling in love with the contemporary art auction most of all.
I love new artists, so bold, trekking where no one has trekked before. I wonder when we look back on our generation, what we will see. Not just technology.
We head into the spacious gallery. It’s peppered with masterpieces spaced strategically apart, giving the viewers the perfect space to contemplate one artwork at a time. “How’s work?” he asks me.
I avoid making eye contact. “Good.”
“You’re with Henry Lincoln, right?”
I stare at a painting. I refuse to think of him, our talks and our cigarettes and our night of mind-blowing sex.
“Carmichael told me he’d check in on you this week.”
I scowl. “I don’t want him to, remember? I don’t want special treatment.” Especially when I already got some. Oh god.
I stare at a Warhol work—a self-portrait.
We start discussing some of the pieces as we go along, but I only seem to be agreeing and I’m frustrated that I don’t even seem to have any personal input to offer.
“Livvy,” he finally says, drawing me over to a nearby bench.
“Yeah?”
I can’t breathe. Guilt does that. Everything seems to be about “it,” that thing you did that you never, ever should have.
“I’m proposing to Regina.”
It takes me a moment to register his words, and then they hit me like a truck at full speed. “What? Tahoe!”
“Keep it down.” He’s grinning ear to ear—the fool—as he draws me back to my feet and into the next gallery. And when I cannot talk, when I cannot say a thing, he says, “You’re going to cry, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“You sound like it.”
“Well I’m not. It’s such a big deal! Shit. Well. Maybe I am going to cry, but I’m not going to do it here. God—is that the ring?”
He opens a velvet pouch and lets the ring slip into my palm. I just blink. He lifts it and shows it to me up close. A huge, brilliant round diamond set in a sleek platinum Tiffany band, mesmerizing, classic and timeless, the quality better than I’ve ever seen in my life.
“You picked it yourself?”
“That’s right.”
And it is so hard not to cry right now.
I fluff my brother’s hair, then hug his big body against mine. “I love you, Tahoe,” I say a little emotionally. I kiss his jaw and his beard pricks my lips.
“Love you too.” He rumples my hair and stores the ring back in the pouch and shoves it into his jeans pocket.
I get the phone call from Gina later that night. She tells me the news and that their friends are throwing them an engagement party and Tahoe and she would like to pick me up on their way there.
I don’t usually dawdle on my looks that much, usually I’m easy about it, but being in a corporate suit all week really makes it enjoyable to have an excuse to pull out a cute white lace skirt and a gold shimmery satin spaghetti-strap top. I’m also nervous because I’m afraid I’ll see him there, and I need to look good to cover the fact that I feel utterly stupid.
I wear my hair loose, add a dab of lipstick, and slip my feet into my four-inch gold heels, then I head downstairs.
I climb into the back of my brother’s Ghost, and from the backseat, I reach out and hug Gina and tell her, “I always wanted a sis!”
She squeezes me back meaningfully and I grab my brother’s face and smack a noisy kiss on it. “You brute. I’m so happy for you!”
“That makes two of us.” He smirks, and Gina laughs and elbows him. He playfully elbows her back, starts the car, and then we’re pulling into traffic.
I reach out and make Gina show me the ring. I’ve always wanted a classy engagement ring—round, with no little sister or brother diamonds anywhere, just the main deal in all its blingy glory. “Ohmygoodness! It’s huge on you.”
“It’s flawless too. Like my girl,” Tahoe boasts.
Gina snickers. “Let’s just say it’s the only thing flawless about me.”
He takes her hand and kisses it near the ring and I feel a pang of something. My brother is getting married even though I was sure he’d never commit to anyone again up to his dying breath.
I suppose I do have a romantic side. I see couples who love each other walking down the sidewalk, or holding hands across a table, and something in me yearns. When my brother playfully tugs on Gina’s hair, I get warm inside. Even when my dad still does stuff for my mom, like cook her breakfast when she sleeps late, I melt. But I’m smart enough to know relationships like that are an exception, not the rule.
We head into the upscale Gold Coast neighborhood, and although I’ve heard it equates to the Upper East Side of Manhattan in terms of luxury, my mouth drops when my brother pulls up to a huge wrought-iron gate and waves at the guard. r />
We’re allowed inside and drive up to a sprawling white mansion that’s about as contemporary as contemporary gets. My modern-loving heart starts whizzing happily as I take in the expansive windows and the double steel doors. We walk up a set of limestone steps and then enter the modern Architectural Digest paradise.
Circular chandeliers made from some invisible material that allows a glimpse of the lights inside hang from thick, dark wood rafters, and strategically placed warm yellow lights illuminate a living room the size of Carma’s lobby. But while Carma’s lobby is always at 10 percent capacity, this place is packed. The huge windows at the far end of the living room have a view of an endless terrace and several leather-upholstered lounge areas outside. I see the place is scattered with white roses in vases set at intervals across the low, modern glass tables, and I hear Tahoe tell Gina, “Those are all for you.”
I feel another pang as their friends yell and clap when they spot them. They start congratulating both of them. I’m introduced to Malcolm Saint, Rachel’s husband—my brother’s other best friend.
“So you’re Livvy,” he says with a sparkle in his green eyes.
“The very one.” I grin back.
I listen to the story of how Tahoe proposed at Navy Pier, by the water, just the two of them there, by putting the engagement ring in a bottle of beer. Music plays in the background and I snag a glass of wine from one of the passing waiters.
Tahoe and Gina look comfortable and happy. I start to wander around the house, loving the bronze sculptures and guessing the artist—Anish Kapoor?—when I hear his voice behind me.
“You fucking loser, come here.”
I tense and turn around but I really don’t think I was ready to see him, no matter how much I told myself I was as I dressed for tonight.
He sounds both happy and irreverent as he hugs Tahoe and slaps his back with three loud thumps.