The Billionaire's Embrace (The Silver Cross Club) (8 page)

I relaxed my jaw and closed my eyes, so relieved I could have cried. I wouldn’t have to fumble around and screw up. Carter would take care of me.

Carter rolled his hips slightly, nudging his cock further into my mouth. I held still and waited for him to tell me what to do next.

“Go down as far as you can,” he said. “Don’t push it. I know you aren’t an expert.” He said it mockingly, and I knew he assumed that I
had
done this before, and that he was trying to goad me. If he knew the truth—

Well, if he knew the truth, he probably never would have touched me at all.

I was happy to keep him in the dark.

I swallowed the moisture gathering in my mouth, and sank down on his cock. I went down until my lips bumped into my curled fist, and then paused there, the head of his cock filling my mouth and brushing the back of his throat. My eyes watered, and I swallowed again, compulsively, fighting my gag reflex.

I wanted to be good for him.

I liked kneeling there, obedient, waiting, ready for him to use me.

“That’s right,” he said. “Now pull off, and slide your hand up.”

Which direction was up? I took a guess, and when I lifted my mouth off his erection, I drew my hand in the same direction, so that my fingers curled loosely around the fat head of his cock.

“Good,” he said, and a warm glow settled in my belly. “Now do the same thing in reverse. Hand down, and then your mouth.”

I followed his directions, and the gentle pressure of his hand at the back of my head, and quickly established a rhythm. I went down, mouth loose and wet, and sucked hard as I pulled off, and kept my grip firm. Once I got the hang of it, it was easy, and I started feeling overconfident; and then I went down too far and choked, and had to pull all the way off, coughing, eyes streaming tears.

Carter laughed at me. “Slow down. It’s not a competition.”

I hoped it wasn’t; I would lose. I didn’t like the idea that I was competing with anyone, with any other woman he’d known in the past. “Your party,” I said, as if my clumsiness was due only to haste.

“There’s time,” he said. He touched my chin. “You’re crying.” His commanding persona dropped away, and his expression softened. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“I want to,” I said. “I just, uh. Got carried away.”

“So I see,” he said. He used his thumb to wipe a tear from my cheek. “Not tonight. Some other time.”

I nodded, fighting back disappointment. I didn’t want to stop—I wanted to keep going, to show him I could do it. But he was probably right, and I didn’t want to argue too much. What would I say?
It’s my first time, I want to keep going
?

“Come here,” he said, and bent over to help me off the floor, lifting me back onto the sofa with him. He ran one hand through my hair and kissed me, hot and sweet and slow, and I melted into him. I wasn’t an expert at giving blowjobs—at least not yet—but he didn’t seem to mind.

He shifted on the couch, and I looked down to see him tucking his erection back into his trousers and zipping them up.

Shame flooded through me. I said, “I can—”

“No,” he said. “Some other time.”

“But you can’t just—” I made a vague gesture that meant
walk around with a hard-on all night
. I was too embarrassed to say it.

He chuckled. “Oh, I can. You, on the other hand.” He cupped one of my breasts, brushing his thumb across my tightly furled nipple. “I don’t think you can wait.”

When he said it, I suddenly knew it was true. I had been ignoring my body’s demands, too focused on Carter, but with his words, I became aware of every tingling inch of skin hungry for his touch. I was wet between my legs, soaking through my underpants, and throbbing in time with my heartbeat.

If he let me leave without touching me, I would probably die.

But it didn’t seem like he was going to do that. He moved his hand away from my breast and dropped it to my hip. He pulled me against him, the sides of our bodies pressed together, and turned so that he was leaning into the corner of the sofa, and I was leaning with my back against his chest. Then he reached down and started hiking up my skirt.

I lifted my hips to give him easier access, and with a few quick tugs he had my skirt pulled up around my waist. He traced his fingers along the lacy waistband of my panties, making me jump.

“What should I do with you, hmm?” he asked me.

I thought the answer was obvious. “I—anything you want,” I said, already breathless.

“Oh, good girl,” he said warmly. “That was the right answer.”

I shivered with pleasure, warm and safe against him, both of his arms around me, holding me close. He slid his right hand between my legs, tracing delicate patterns over the lace of my underpants, stimulating my sensitive flesh and making me burn with arousal.

“You’ve soaked your panties,” he said. “You liked sucking me off, didn’t you? Maybe I shouldn’t have made you stop.” He pressed his fingers against my slit and rubbed firmly, and I squirmed against him, wanting more.

“Please,” I said. I wasn’t ashamed to beg.

“As much as I’d like to turn you into a shaking, pleading mess, we don’t really have the time for that,” he said. “So you’ll just have to imagine that I spent half an hour making you forget your own name.” And without any more warning, he slid his hand into my panties, the waistband stretching around his wrist, and started rubbing my clit in tight circles.

I arched my hips off the sofa, my mouth open in a soundless moan. Everything between my thighs was wet and throbbing, and Carter knew exactly how to touch me, exactly where to put his fingers to make me lose my mind.

“That’s right,” Carter said. “No time for subtlety. You’re going to cream yourself in the next five minutes, and I’m going to smell you on me for the rest of the evening.”

How could I do anything, when he talked to me like that, but tip my head back onto his shoulder and close my eyes and let him work me into a frenzy?

He slid his hand further between my legs and pressed two fingers into me. I clenched around them, welcoming the intrusion. He used the heel of his hand to grind at my clit, and I heard myself make a high-pitched sound somewhere between a gasp and a cry of ecstasy.

His other hand slid up my side to tease at my breasts through the silky fabric of my blouse. I was wearing an unlined bra, and he plucked and pinched until my nipples were throbbing in time with my clit.

I never knew, until I met Carter, that I could be this kind of person, this shameless, sexual creature. He drew it out of me, made me forget myself in the search for pleasure, made me want nothing more than to do exactly as he said and come to pieces under his hands.

“You’re so close,” he said. “Don’t hold back. What else do you need? My mouth? A finger in your ass?”

I only needed his words, breathed hot into my ear. I pushed my hips against his palm and squeezed around his fingers and came like a rocket, shuddering in his arms.

He kissed my neck, gently, letting me recover.

“Wow,” I said, after a couple of minutes had passed.

I felt his mouth curve into a smile against my neck. He slid his fingers out of me and drew his hand out of my panties. His fingers glistened, and I turned my head away, embarrassed, as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dried his hand.

“And now, you need to get back to work, and I need to attend to my guests,” he said. “Don’t let Germaine scold you. I’ll tell her you were doing me a favor.”

“Okay,” I said. I stood up and shook my skirt back into place and combed my fingers through my hair, smoothing it back into place. My legs still felt wobbly beneath me. I didn’t know how I was supposed to spend all evening serving drinks after that.

“You’re glorious,” he said. “Come to my mother’s with me on Wednesday for dinner.”

“Okay,” I said again, without thinking, and then froze. Had he just—

“You can’t back out now,” he said, reading my expression. “You already agreed.”

“You did this on purpose, didn’t you?” I asked him. “You got me all—relaxed and pliant, and then—”

“You’ve discovered my master plan,” he said, laughing. “You’re right. I was hoping to catch you off guard.”

“Carter,” I said. I shook my head. I didn’t know what to say. Was he
crazy
? We had been dating for less than a month, and I was just some trampy cocktail waitress he picked up in a sex club, some nobody with a high school diploma and a screwed-up childhood. I couldn’t meet his mother. She was—
rich
, and sophisticated, and she loved Carter. I was sure she did. She wanted everything for him, all of the best things in life, and there was no way she would count me among them.

“Say yes,” he said. “She wants me to chair one of her social committees. I can’t withstand her assault without backup.”

“Carter,” I repeated. “I can’t. It’s—your
mother
, and I—”

He took one of my hands in both of his. “Regan. I like you very much. I’m sure you can imagine that I’m somewhat picky about who I let into my life. This isn’t a casual thing for me. You invited me to meet your family, and I’d like you to meet mine.”

I blinked, overwhelmed by pretty much everything he had just said. He was right that Sadie and Ben were my family, the only family I had. And saying it wasn’t casual, that he had
chosen
me, that I was somehow worthy of being allowed into his inner circle—

It was too much. I felt my throat closing up. “Carter,” I choked out, the third time I’d said his name, and maybe this time he would understand what I was trying to say, all of the meaning I was trying to pack into that one word.

“Yes,” he said. He raised my hand and kissed it. “Say you’ll come with me.”

When he looked at me like that, I couldn’t refuse him anything. “Yes,” I said, heart sinking at the thought of it.

Oh God. His
mother.
How was I going to survive?

I
spent the rest of my shift worrying about it, and most of that night, and all day Tuesday: while I rode the subway to work, while I waited tables, while I rode the subway home in the evening. Did I have anything to wear? I could probably just wear my work clothes, but even though they were completely innocuous business attire, I was sure they would scream “I work at an expensive strip club.” Maybe Sadie could loan me something. Maybe
Carter
could loan me something. I was sure he had things stashed in his closet that had been left by prior girlfriends or one-night stands.

I had a hard time falling asleep that night, and when my alarm went off on Wednesday, I felt pretty out of it. I made coffee and settled at my laptop. I hadn’t checked any of my usual lifestyle blogs in a few days. I was still trying to turn myself into a fashionable tour de force, but it was just so
hard
to make myself care about what celebrities were wearing. No progress without struggle. I sighed and opened a new tab.

I scrolled idly down the page, skimming through the headlines. The season’s hottest new lipstick color; supermodels wearing sweatpants; blind items; Carter Sutton—

Stop. Rewind.

“CARTER SUTTON STEPS OUT WITH MYSTERY WOMAN! WHO KNEW HE LIKED ART???”

A shot of pure adrenaline hit my veins. My face turned hot. My temples felt like they were pulled taut, like my scalp was too small to contain my skull.

I clicked the link.

I shouldn’t have. I regretted it even as I did it, but the motion was automatic. It wasn’t a conscious decision. My hand moved and clicked the button, and the page opened.

The picture was grainy, like it had been taken from across the room and zoomed in as far as it could go. Someone with their phone, probably. But the quality wasn’t so bad that the people in the photo were unrecognizable. One of them was definitely Carter. I recognized his sweater, and the way his hand rested possessively at the small of my back. And I recognized myself, head tilted up to look at him.

We were standing in front of a marble statue, smiling at each other, ignoring the artwork.

It was the Greek wing in the museum. I remembered that room—all of the half-naked sculptures, and Carter cracking mild jokes about the ways of the ancient Greeks. We had been laughing about a corrupt art dealer Carter used to know, who would chop the hands off modern sculptures and claim they were thousands of years old.

And someone took a picture of us. I hadn’t even noticed anyone else was in the room.

I should have stopped there, closed the browser, shut down my laptop, and tried to put it out of my mind. But I didn’t. How could I? I’d opened Pandora’s box, and it was too late to turn back.

I ran a search for “Carter Sutton museum,” and blindly clicked on the first link that came up. It was something innocuous about his mother’s work with the board.

Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

I went back and clicked the second link.

“CARTER SUTTON: YELLOW FEVER?”

It
wasn’t
as bad as I thought. It was worse.

I didn’t know what to do. I called Sadie.

She picked up. “Girl, this had better be important. I’m at work.”

“There are pictures of me,” I choked out. “On the internet.”

A pause. “What?”

“With Carter. We went to the museum, and someone—took pictures of us. And everyone’s trying to figure out who I am, and—”

Sadie exhaled. “Oh, honey. Well, it was going to happen. He’s a pretty big deal, and if you’re seen in public with him, sooner or later someone’s bound to get curious.”

“They’re saying he has
yellow fever.
” My voice cracked, and I closed my eyes.

“Shit,” Sadie said. “People are racist assholes. Look, you already knew that. Don’t let it get to you.”

She was right, but it
was
getting to me. I couldn’t help it. “I don’t know what to do,” I said.

“You’ve got two choices,” Sadie said, and this was why I had called her, why I
always
called her when I was having a crisis: she went into matter-of-fact problem-solving mode, and talked me down from the ledge. “You can stay with him, and accept that public notoriety is part of the deal. As long as you’re dating him, people are going to be interested in you, and you’re going to have to give up your privacy. Or you can break up with him.”