A Million Dirty Secrets (12 page)

I had to slow down, so I made long strokes against her,
purposely letting the head of my dick push against her opening again. She pushed back and I forced just the tip inside. Instantly she froze. She held her breath and tensed up every muscle in her body.

“Relax, baby,” I whispered in her ear. My breathing was out of control and I was nuzzling her neck trying to compose myself while the head of my cock was still just barely inside her. Fuck, she smelled so good and she felt even better.

“I want you so fucking bad,” I panted, still not moving for fear that I would take her. “Goddamnit, why do you feel so fucking good?”

My cock throbbed with the need to pound into her tight pussy. A little voice inside my head screamed for me to thrust, grind, pull, thrust, grind, pull. Maybe if I just allowed myself a tiny bit more …

“Don’t move, kitten,” I murmured against the nape of her neck.

I inched forward minutely, feeling her walls constrict around me as I allowed the entire head of my cock to be encompassed by her. A minuscule amount of movement was all I allowed myself.

“Don’t … move.” My voice was practically begging her as I squeezed my eyes shut and fought back the urge to give my cock exactly what he wanted.

A tiny whimper escaped her throat and I felt her hand slip between her thighs to stroke me.

“Fuck!” I pulled out of her abruptly and shot out of bed.

“What? What’s wrong?” She sat up, confused.

“Goddamnit! You can’t do shit like that, Delaine! It’s taking
every ounce of control I have not to fuck the living daylights out of you right now, and you go and encourage me! What were you thinking?”

She bowed her head and let her hair fall like a curtain to shield her face from me. She rocked back and forth with her forehead on her knees as she mumbled. “I don’t know. I guess I thought you’d like it. You just felt so good,” she groaned.

Well, what do ya know? She fucking wanted it, too.

A giant smile spread across my face, and I stalked back toward the bed, my dick still at full mast and ready to give her what we both wanted. And then my cocksucker of a goddamn motherfucking son-of-a-bitch cell phone started ringing. I had half a mind to chuck the fucker out of the damn window, but I knew I couldn’t.

I groaned and walked over to the nightstand where it sat, my dick bobbing up and down with my movement. “Crawford!” I barked into the phone.

“Good morning, Mr. Crawford. I hope I didn’t wake you,” replied the nasal voice of David’s secretary.

“What do you want, Mandy?”

“Mr. Stone wanted me to let you know that he’s called an emergency meeting of the board members in light of the recent crisis,” she said.

“What crisis?”

“Have you not seen the news? The stock market is plummeting all over the place due to the oil spill. Scarlet Lotus’s holdings have taken a real hit.”

“Son of a …” I started, wiping at my face. “Fine. I’ll be in right away. Tell Mason to wait for me downstairs with the latest reports.”

I hung up the phone without another word and turned to Delaine. “I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to take you shopping today.”

“What am I supposed to do about clothes? Wear more of your things?” she asked with much attitude as she finally looked up at me.

“As much as I love to see you wearing my clothes, I don’t really have anything small enough for you.” And then I got an idea. “I’ll have Polly take you instead. She has great taste.”

I pulled my wallet out of the nightstand drawer and took out the gold card. “Here. Don’t be worried about how much you spend; I’m sure Polly won’t be. I’ll call her and let her know what you’ll need, but you can get anything else that you’d like.”

“And in the meantime?” she asked, looking down at herself. “I can’t exactly go out looking like this.”

“I’ll have Polly bring something of hers for you to borrow.”

I dialed Polly on my way to the bathroom and filled her in on what Delaine needed in her wardrobe, saving the lingerie shopping for me to do with her, of course. There would be parties that we would need to attend, and I wanted to be sure she was dressed appropriately. Of course Polly was all too happy to take Delaine on a shopping spree on my dime. I warned her not to be too pushy with Delaine and to let her pick some things out on her own. I also gave her explicit instructions not to pry. Anything Delaine wanted her to know, she’d share of her own accord.

When I had finished getting dressed, I gave Delaine last-minute instructions. “Don’t tell her anything about our arrangement, no matter how hard she digs for the information.
Tell her what you want of your personal life, but as far as anyone knows, we met in LA. I should be home around six. Make sure you’re waiting for me at the door.”

With that, I picked her up, accosted her mouth with a rough kiss, and let her fall back to the bed. “I was really looking forward to having you model lingerie for me today. Another time.” I winked and playfully smacked her ass before grabbing my briefcase and jacket.

I hated having to leave her like that to deal with Polly alone on their very first meeting, but I had no choice. Hopefully she’d be strong enough to deal with Polly, or evasive enough to keep her at bay for the time being. Plus I was really hoping the whole shopping spree thing would soften the blow by keeping Polly too distracted to pry.

I could only hope.…

“Hello? Is anybody home?” I heard a singsong voice call from the entryway. “Delaine? It’s me, Polly, personal shopper extraordinaire, here to whisk you away to what I consider to be paradise.”

I hurried down the staircase, wearing the same shirt I had put on the night before for dinner. And, as embarrassed as I was to meet a stranger for the first time in nothing but my john’s shirt, I really had no other choice.

“Make sure the silver gets polished this week, and tell the cook to change tonight’s menu to pot roast.” Polly scribbled something on a paper attached to a clipboard and then handed it back to the same maid who had given me directions to the kitchen yesterday morning. “Thanks, Beatrice. You’re all doing a wonderful job, as usual.”

She looked up then and saw me. “Oh, hey!” Obviously she was one of those cheery morning-person types. Her hair was platinum blond and bouncy, and she was so smiley and unbelievably gorgeous that she reminded me of a high school cheer
captain in an eighties movie. It was almost infectious, and part of me wanted to punch her for making me feel like that.

“Um, hi,” I said awkwardly. “Lanie Talbot.”

“Polly Hunt,” she said with a wide smile. “I’m so ecstatic to finally meet you!”

I stuck my hand out in a friendly gesture, but she rolled her eyes playfully. “Oh, please!” She snorted softly through her pert nose as she waved off my somewhat formal greeting. “We’re going to be shopping all day together. In my world, that’s like having sex.” She giggled and then grabbed me for a quick hug. “This is for you, by the way,” she said, handing me a pink bag.

“Clothes?” I asked, just to be sure.

“Yes, ma’am. Say, what happened to all of your clothes anyway?”

“About that …,” I hedged, not having a clue how to answer. “My moving here to be with Noah was kind of a rushed decision, and I didn’t really have time to pack very much. What little I did bring didn’t seem to be up to par with the styles and trends you guys wear around here, so I got rid of them.”

There. That sounded like fashion-speak, right?

Polly arched a perfectly manicured brow, and I could see the wheels turning in her head. She squinted her eyes at me in doubt. “And you were naked when you did this?”

“Um, no,” I half laughed. “Of course not, silly. The clothes I had on are just dirty. Yeah, they’re dirty.”

“Uh-huh.” She eyed me suspiciously. “Well, why don’t you go ahead and get changed and we’ll get going?”

~$~

Riding in Polly’s little red Beamer scared the shit out of me. Multitasking was a gift, but I wasn’t so sure it was a gift that should’ve been used while driving. She was doing well over the legal speed limit while bopping along to the radio and talking even faster than she drove without taking so much as a breath that I could tell. Every now and then she honked the horn and cursed at a fellow motorist for going too slow or changing lanes at a time that wasn’t convenient for her.

“It’s Chicago. Learn to keep up or get off the road, assholes!” She looked at me and shook her head while rolling her eyes. “People who are obviously scared are dangerous and have no business behind the wheel of a car.”

I agreed, but hyperactive, road-rage types who were strung out on caffeine shouldn’t be allowed behind the wheel either, for that matter.

She whipped into a spot just vacated by another vehicle. And when I say “just vacated,” I mean the other car was barely even out of the spot before she parallel-parked without slowing down, running up on the curb and forcing some of the pedestrians walking on the sidewalk to scramble out of the way.

I managed to wrench my fingertips out of the dashboard, where I was sure there would be lingering imprints, and got out of the car. I would have been perfectly willing to kiss the ground had it not been so grotesque. Public streets and sidewalks were like petri dishes cultivating death cocktails.

Polly popped her sunglasses on, threw her purse strap over her shoulder, and said, “Let’s go,
chica
.” Her three-inch heels and short dress, which looked like it was made for a little girl instead of a grown woman, would’ve been a big no-no for me,
but she pulled it off without a hitch. Seriously, the woman was too cute with a side of come-here-lovah-boy.

We went into the first shop, and the ladies behind the counter recognized her immediately, even calling her by name.

“Friends of yours?” I asked.

“Professionally, not socially,” she said under her breath. “You might say I’m a frequent flyer here. Plus I tip very well.”

“Ladies,” she said, turning back to them and holding up Noah’s gold card, “if you would be so kind as to hook my new friend up with your finest.”

I was rushed into a dressing room to strip, and before I even had all of my clothes off, garments were being slung over the door. I groaned inwardly, because shopping just was not my thing, but I had to admit that I felt sort of like Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
, being fussed over like that.

Polly stood outside the door praising things she approved of and scoffing at things she didn’t. I thought I was safe in my own little room, closed off from the rest of the world, but Polly wasn’t having that. She pushed open the door and strolled right on in like I didn’t have anything she hadn’t ever seen before. I supposed I didn’t, but still, I might have wanted to retain a wee bit of privacy.

I was beginning to learn quickly that in Noah’s world, apparently my body was a free-for-all. So I gave up caring and let what my mama gave me hang out like I was a centerfold to be envied, though I was far from it.

“So,” Polly sighed as she sat down on the bench in my dressing room and watched me. “Tell me all about how you and Noah met.”

“Um, I guess like anyone else does,” I said, trying to figure out the contraption of a dress that she’d handed to me to try on next.

“No one meets in exactly the same way. Everyone has a story. Give me the details, girlfriend,” she said, helping me with the dress.

And then I got giddy because her curiosity was going to let me play with Noah a bit. He had told me to say as much as I wanted. “Well, he’d probably kill me for telling you this, so I’ll have to swear you to secrecy.”

“Bitch’s honor.” She put her middle and index fingers directly under her eyes like Samantha on
Bewitched
. She won me over completely with that little maneuver—a psycho after my own heart.

“I met him outside a drag queen show,” I said in a hushed whisper. “He was so pretty that I thought he was one of the performers.”

“Noah Crawford was at a drag queen show?” Polly shrieked, and then started giggling when I cupped my hand over her mouth and shushed her.

“He
said
that he wasn’t familiar with the area, wanted a drink, and wandered in there by mistake,” I embellished. “He was outside smoking a cigarette when I showed up, and I’ve always secretly wondered if it was because he’d just gotten his rocks off.”

Polly and I laughed together, and it felt really nice.

“Then what?” she asked, hanging on my every word.

“Well, I might have given him the ‘uh-huh, like I’m going to believe that’ look, at which point he proceeded to ogle the
girls,” I said, flexing the boobage. “Just to prove a point, I’m sure.”

“You do have nice tits.” She shrugged, as if to say,
That makes sense
.

“So anyway, he asked me out for a drink, and because he was so cute, trying to prove how manly he was, I let him fuck me. I haven’t been able to get rid of him since,” I laughed.

“Well, I’m glad to hear he’s finally decided to settle down somewhat, especially after what happened with Julie,” she said, adjusting my tits in the dress. I think she secretly wanted to grope them. I wasn’t the least bit offended, if that was the case, but I
was
curious about what she’d said.

“Julie? Who’s Julie?” I asked, eager for any intel on Noah’s past. Not because I cared, but because I wanted the ammunition should the need for it arise later.

“No one. Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said quickly. “Hey, you are absolutely smoking in this dress.”

Way to change the subject, little sneaky one. I’ll have to keep my eye on you
, I thought.

~$~

I couldn’t even begin to tell you how long we spent shopping. I let Polly choose the majority of the clothes, and all of the shoes. I wasn’t opposed to looking nice, and I actually really loved all the cute shoes she picked out, even though I knew they were a safety hazard for someone like me. She refused to let me buy any underwear because Noah wanted to do that part. But really, couldn’t a girl just get some regular cotton panties?

Finally Polly decided we should break for a late lunch.