The Bride (The Boss) Page 26

  He reached for the little basket the bathroom attendant had left behind and rummaged through it one-handed for a condom. The whole thing spilled onto the floor with a clatter, mouthwash and cologne rolling over the black tiles.

  “Get your legs open,” he growled, forcing my knees wide apart. I heard his zipper, felt him fumbling with the condom between us, then he pushed aside my panties, slicked the tip of his cock over my slit, and plunged deep.

  “Oh!” I had to hold onto his shoulders to keep from falling back on the sink. I wrapped one leg around his waist, the other he caught beneath the knee and lifted to perch my heel on the counter. It contorted my body, exposed me, made me utterly vulnerable to him. My cunt gripped him, waves of muscle contractions rolling up and down his length as my body tried to decide whether I should lock him in or push him out. His hand cupped the back of my skull, fingers threading through my hair, and he tugged my head back, forcing me to meet his gaze.

  “The party is wonderful, but there is really no place on Earth that I would rather be than right—” he slid his hand between us, his middle and ring fingers bracketing his cock, digging in to my labia stretched around him. His knuckles brushed over my clit. I gasped, and he swallowed it up with a kiss, whispering, “—here,” against my mouth.

  He moved his hand to rub my clit with the tips of his fingers, and I came hard, lifting my hips with what little, constrained motion I could manage.

  He clamped his free hand over my mouth to cover my wail of relief. I don’t suppose it could have been heard over the music outside, but better safe than sorry. He grinned down at me, grinding deeper, and when the last blissful tremor had passed, he gently withdrew.

  “Aren’t… you?” I panted, dropping my leg and balancing myself with my hands on the counter.

  He rolled the condom off and wadded it up in some paper towel before he dropped it into the trash hole in the counter. “I fear I am far too drunk for that. It’s a miracle I got hard.”

  “Well, I certainly had a religious experience.” I hopped down and turned to check my makeup. My lipstick was smudged, and I corrected the situation by wiping it off entirely. I wasn’t going to fool anybody; I looked thoroughly fucked.

  Neil stepped up behind me, kneading my breast through my dress as he met my gaze in the mirror. “Thank you, darling. This really is a fantastic birthday.”

  I went out ahead of Neil—he wanted to stay behind to pick up the toiletries he’d spilled—trying to keep the I-just-had-sex swagger out of my walk. I’d just stepped into the hall when a very confused-looking man stopped in his tracks and looked from the men’s’ room to the ladies’ as though he were trying to solve a differential equation in his head.

  “Excuse me.” I dipped my head as I passed him and tucked some hair behind my ear.

  When he went inside, he’d get it.

  * * * *

  The automatic blinds on the windows were set on a timer, to roll gently up every weekday morning at eight o’clock.

  Fuck those stupid blinds.

  I rolled out of bed, still in my silver sequined dress. There was something sticky in my hair. It was probably puke. It might not have been my own.

  Crawling on my hands and knees like a vampire trying to avoid the rays of sunlight, I scrambled for the universal remote on the couch in front of the fireplace. I clicked the button for the shades and groaned in relief as the room was plunged into black-out darkness once more.

  I sat up, my mouth feeling like someone had shoved a wad of cotton into it—probably because they’d mistaken me for a corpse and had started embalming me—and staggered toward the bathroom. I turned on the light, then slapped the switch immediately off again. In the dark, I leaned over the sink, turned the tap on—I never realized how loud running water was before—and filled my mouth. Swallowing seemed dicey, but I powered through it.

  It was only when I got back to the bed that I noticed Neil wasn’t in it. I grabbed my sunglasses from my purse and slid them on before I ventured into the rest of the house. Halfway through the dining room, I heard Neil singing.

  Singing?

  He was a quarter century older than I was. He should have at least been mildly dead after last night.

  I pushed open the door, and there he was, standing over the stove, cooking breakfast and whistling. He was even dressed, in jeans and a hunter green sweater that brought out the gorgeous color of his eyes. If I hadn’t had one foot in a vodka-soaked grave, I would have appreciated it more.

  Instead, I leaned against the doorjamb and gave him a resentful glare over the top of my glasses.

  “Sleeping Beauty awakes,” he said with a chuckle, scraping something out of a pan and onto a plate. The buttery smell, as well as the noise, made me want to hurl up everything in my stomach—though I had a suspicion there was nothing in there to hurl.

  “You know, if you were one of the dwarves, you’d probably be Drunky,” he went on cheerfully. “Do you want mushrooms in yours?”

  I held up one finger. “First, there weren’t any dwarves in Sleeping Beauty. Second, if you mention food again, I’m preemptively divorcing you. Third, what the hell? How are you even upright?”

  “B12 shot. Dr. Williams was here this morning. I tried to wake you, to no avail. Do you want me to ring her? Have her come back?” He clicked off the burner, wisely taking my food warning to heart.

  I shook my head, and I swear I felt my brain smack off the sides of my skull. “No. I refuse. I will bounce back from this sans vitamin cures, and prove that I’m still young.”

  His lips tilted. “I don’t think you’re ever going to get away with complaining about your age. At least not to me.”

  I shambled like a zombie to the breakfast nook and sat in my usual place. “Coffee. I beg of you.”

  I plugged my ears while he got a cup and saucer down and slid them across the tabletop to me. He stood over the sink to eat his breakfast. “Last night was… Well, it was utterly amazing. Thank you so much, darling.”

  I gave him a weak thumbs-up. “It was cool getting to meet some of your friends.”

  “Did you ever track down the only ginger man you’d ever leave me for?” he asked around a mouthful of omelet.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” I quipped, raising my mug to my lips.

  “Humor, that’s a good sign. The hangover won’t kill you, then?”

  “Not yet. But I do have to be in shape for tonight.” I pushed my sunglasses down and batted my blood-shot, makeup smeared eyes at him. “Your birthday present, Sir.”

  “Ah, I look forward to it.” He paused. “Though I dare say I will look more forward to it once you’ve showered and brushed your teeth.”

  “In sickness and in health,” I reminded him. “Did you really have a good time?”

  “I really did.” He grinned at me. “I must admit, I shamelessly enjoyed showing off my young girlfriend. Perhaps that’s a symptom of turning fifty?”

  “Well, I liked meeting your friends, so we’re even.” I rolled my head on my shoulders, and the cracking of my spine was both too loud and a huge relief.

  “How did you like Ian and Gena?” he asked, with that tone of casual disinterest he could never pull off.

  “How do you like Gena?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Lovely woman. Very charming.” He sipped his own coffee and avoided direct eye contact.

  “You wanna fuck her,” I sing-songed.

  “That I do.” He slid his plate onto the island countertop. “But they come as a bit of a package deal.”

  “Swingers?” My eyebrows shot up. “My my, but aren’t we becoming suburbanites.”

  “I’d hardly call a thirty-five-thousand square foot house in the Hamptons suburban, but yes. I mention it because they indicated that they would be open to…examining the possibility.”

  I scoffed. “I only talked to them for like, three minutes, tops.”

  “And in that three minutes, you couldn’t take your eyes off of Ian’s hands.”
<
br />   Damn. He knew me too well.

  “Okay. He was rocking that forbidden, best-friend’s-dad kind of vibe—”

  “Oh, please, no,” Neil said with a uncomfortable laugh. He hated, hated that I believed my attraction to older men was rooted in some perverse, father-related area of my psyche. And I loved, loved to torment him with that.

  “What I’m saying is, I’d have dinner with them, get to know them, feel out the situation.” But I wasn’t entirely cool with the idea of Neil having sex with another woman. It was completely hypocritical of me; I’d been fine having sex with Emir in front of Neil, and I’d been fine with Neil having sex with Emir when I wasn’t there. Something about another woman was more threatening, and I was surprised at how much.

  Maybe I didn’t understand Neil’s bisexuality as much as I’d thought I had. Or maybe it was internalized misogyny talking. There was definitely an element of it’s-okay-for-me-but-not-for-you jealousy that I wasn’t proud of.

  The only way to deal with it was by being totally upfront. “Look, if anything ever did happen… I would want to be there. I wouldn’t be cool with going off to separate rooms or whatever. And that’s not just insecurity talking. I’m also kind of nervous of the idea of being with another partner, alone.”

  Neil nodded. “I don’t blame you there. I don’t think I would have been comfortable if you’d spent the evening with Emir in London. I was a bit surprised that you were.”

  “Can I confess something? Something pretty embarrassing?” I waited for the subtle shift of the creases around his eyes that indicated I should, by all means, continue. “I may not have been viewing Emir as a threat. Because he’s a guy. I’m sure that’s probably insulting—”

  “Not…insulting.” He set his cup down and leaned on the counter. “Sophie, may I explain something to you?”

  “Please do.”

  “First, you have no romantic rival.” He walked slowly around the island, to the seat opposite mine. “Second, my attraction toward men isn’t limited to sexual attraction. That isn’t how it works for me. I’ve been in love with men. I’ve had relationships with them. It isn’t a kink for me, it’s just how I’m wired. But you have nothing to fear, regardless. I’m in love with you, and I don’t foresee that changing.”

  “I’m sorry.” I resisted the temptation to blame my ignorance on my hangover. “Being a straight girl, I’m prone to total ignorance here.”

  “Not total ignorance. You just learned something,” he reminded me. “And I’m pleased that you talked to me about this, rather than making wild assumptions.”

  “I take it the wild assumptions…” I let my question die away.

  “Not all of my partners have been comfortable with my bisexuality.” He shrugged. “I’ve been with women who declared me straight by virtue of our relationship, and I’ve been with men who insisted I was truly gay. It’s quite… Frustrating, I suppose, would be the word for it.”

  “I’m sorry that I did the same thing.” I reached over and took his hand.

  He looked down, grimaced in distaste, and said, as calmly as he could, “Sophie. You have dried vomit on your wrist.”

  Well, so much for our tender moment.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Once I’d convinced Neil that I was dying of my hangover—it required shockingly little acting on my part—I had time to sneak off and make the proper preparations. I wanted to be showered, powdered, shaved and made-up by the time we were ready to leave. And I wanted to be in the right mindset, so I got out my collar. It was really more like a neck-sized platinum and diamond anniversary ring than an actual BDSM collar, and about as useful for collar play as it was for holding a serving of potato salad. Functional or not, just seeing it put me into submissive mode. I propped it up beside the bathtub while I washed my hair and shaved my legs, and yeah, maybe did a little pre-date warm up. I couldn’t help it. The anticipation was killing me. I knew Neil was going to love tonight.

  I felt a little guilty about how much I was going to love it, too, since it was supposed to be his present.

  I had selected my dress carefully. While I hadn’t found anything that matched the dress I’d taken from the Porteras closet on that night over a year ago, I had found one that was just as short as the original dress: the dress he’d bought for me in Paris, the layers upon layers of delicate black chiffon, held down by the weight of exquisite beading along the skirt’s petal hem. Two barely-there straps held up the deeply cut bodice. I’d hesitated ever wearing it again, because the first time I had, it had nearly been ruined when Neil had fucked me against a wall. It seemed like there could be a high probability of the same situation developing tonight.

  I went light on my eye-makeup. A marker of a really good play session, at least to me, was that I cried at least once. Though I appreciated the aesthetics of runny mascara as much as the next submissive, it wasn’t fun to get a bunch in your eyes. I used a pale cream shadow sparingly over my lids and under the brow bone as a highlight, with a sleek wing of black eyeliner. I used one coat of waterproof mascara on my curled eyelashes, blinked a few times to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere, and dabbed on some neutral gloss.

  “You know, you still haven’t told me where we’re going,” Neil said as he emerged from the shower. Usually when I got dressed up, he complimented me effusively. Tonight, his anxiety over yet another surprise made him blind to my hotness.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” I said, swinging my hair to one side as I fastened my earring. “I’m a terrible girlfriend and I don’t support your dietary choices. We’re going for sushi.”

  I hadn’t had sushi in ages, and Emma had confided that the restaurant I was taking him to had been one of his favorites before I’d met him. When Neil had been sick, avoiding sushi and sashimi hadn’t just been about not eating animal products. We hadn’t even consumed raw vegetables; they’d been so great a threat to his immune system.

  “I’ll be a very bad boyfriend, then, and let you tempt me.” He gave me a sidelong glance as he reached for his toothbrush. “You look lovely.”

  “Lovely?” I pouted and squished my boobs together. “I was going for ‘so sexy Neil comes before we get to the restaurant.’”

  “You’re very close, I’ll give you that.” He winked at me, and I skittered out of the bathroom to retrieve my collar from where I’d stashed it. I stuffed it in my purse and slipped on the highest, sexiest black heels I owned.

  We headed down to the car at eight. Neil looked fantastic in a black suit, white shirt, and skinny black tie. I checked us both out as we passed the gilded mirrors in the lobby. We looked so damn good together, I was beginning to doubt we actually would make it to the restaurant without tearing the clothes off each other.

  “Where exactly are we going? I can’t stand the suspense anymore.” He held my door for me and leaned on it to peer into the car after me.

  I ticked my answer off on my fingers. “I told you. We’re going out for sushi. Then, we’re going to do something lavish and romantic. Then, we’re going to do something absolutely filthy.”

  “So, just like any other date, then?” he asked with a smirk, and I just smiled back because I knew what was coming.

  I’d made us reservations—well, myself posing as Mr. Elwood’s assistant made the reservation, because Sophie Scaife wasn’t going to get a table—at Masa, a Japanese fusion restaurant famed for, among other things, being one of the most expensive restaurants in New York City. The place had been the stuff of urban legend at Porteras. Gabriella Winters had once had dinner there with Angelina Jolie, and I’d been desperate to ask her what the food was like and, hell, what it even looked like inside.

  Now, I was going to an after-hours dinner in a private room. I was totally psyched.

  When we pulled up outside of the Time Warner Center, all Neil said was, “Oh, I rather like this place.”

  Well, that wasn’t the reaction I’d been going for. But how did one impress a billionaire?

  My slight disap
pointment lifted when we actually entered the restaurant. We had one of twenty-six tables, set in a private alcove with a bamboo shade. The calm yellow light lifted my mood and heightened my appetite. By the time the first course came around—Masa offered a prix fixe menu only—it took everything in me not to scarf down the ginkgo nuts and baby shrimp heads served.

  “I suspect I should not get drunk tonight?” he asked as the waiter poured out thimble-sized glasses of hot sake.

  I opened my purse and flashed him my collar, just enough that he would see what was inside.

  “But I don’t think you should get drunk, anyway,” I said, quietly, because the restaurant had strange acoustics and was nearly silent, so my voice seemed extra loud. “Not after what you put your liver through last night.”

  The food was incredible. I’d eaten at probably seventy percent of all the sushi restaurants in New York, but they would never taste the same again. I wondered if we would come back regularly, then realized that such a thought was the extravagant raving of a newly rich person.

  Once a month. Tops. Otherwise, it would just be decadence.

  Because Neil has an uncanny knack for reading my thoughts, he reminded me, “Don’t become too attached to this place. We’re not going to get out as often, after we move.”

  “I know. I’m going to miss it.”

  After the waiter returned with the second course, Neil asked softly, with a hint of uncertainty, “But you still want to move?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I teased, to reassure him. I could imagine that buying a seventy-eight million dollar house might give anyone a need for reassurance. “Do I want to wake up every day with my amazingly hot husband and have morning sex in front of a gorgeous ocean view?”

  “Yes, well, I was just making sure. You haven’t talked about the move much, except to say that you’ll miss living in the city. And at Christmas, when you said you didn’t want to make any big changes—”