The Cost of Happiness: A Contemporary Romance (20 page)

She held it by the stem. “What’s this?”

“A decent Cabernet.”

She took a sip. “Okay.”

Dan drew her into his arms. “You know I love your take-charge attitude, right?”

“Um, I guess.” Meghan looked into her wine glass, which she cradled in her palms, chest-high. A little space between them, although she could feel the prickle of his leg-hair against her thighs.

“I’m guessing you’ve figured out that if you get dictatorial in the bedroom, men will miss a few key details.”

His tone was light, affectionate even, but Meghan’s cheeks flamed with embarrassment. He did know, damn him.

He let her silence pass, probably because he knew he’d gotten it right. “You didn’t come, did you?” he asked softly.

Meghan couldn’t look at him as she shook her head.

He clasped her upper arms very gently. “That’s what the red wine is for.”

Her eyes flew open. “Excuse me?”

Dan smiled at her. “Tonight’s the night, sweetheart.”

“What night?” Her stomach had fallen somewhere down around her knees.

“You’re going to have an orgasm. In bed. With a man.” He tilted his head, but his expression was still gentle. “Your first, right?”

Meghan’s gaze fell into the bowl of the glass again. She could smell the fumes from the red wine warmed by the heat of her hands, a sensual smell. She felt like Alice in Wonderland holding the bottle marked, “Drink Me.”

She took a larger sip. As she lowered the glass, she looked up at Dan. His lips curved sweetly, then lowered to hers.

He played with her mouth, tickling it with his tongue, lapping delicately to taste the wine. Then he pulled back.

His eyes. So blue. An ocean she could drown in. A shiver rippled through her.

The buzzer—must be the food he’d ordered. Dan pecked her lips softly. “Drink a bit more.” He left her to grab some jeans and a T-shirt, then padded across the hardwood floor to the apartment door.

Meghan took a sip of wine. She wasn’t much of a drinker, so she wasn’t sure how the wine was supposed to address—that other situation. She sipped some more.

No one else had ever guessed. She’d tried to uh, climax in bed with a man, but it seemed impossible. The harder she tried, the less sexy she felt, and if she stopped trying, there wasn’t anything there. Not to mention the stuff those guys had done just seemed silly.

Dan—nothing about what had happened in bed had seemed silly. And it had been sexy. Still, Meghan had fallen back on old habits, tricks that worked with her past lovers.

She tasted the wine. It was actually quite good.

Dan came back with the food. It smelled garlicky and seductive. Her stomach growled.

“I’m sorry.” Meghan hurried forward. “I should have been helping set the table or something.”

He placed the plastic bag on the dining table, then started collecting dishes and silverware. “Go ahead and unpack those, okay?”

Meghan sat. “Smells good. What did you get?”

“Seafood Fra Diavolo, chicken piccata, and eggplant parm.” He joined her at the table and set two places. He’d even brought over serving spoons. “I wasn’t sure what you liked.”

“Well, I like all three, so you picked well.” Meghan watched him go back for the wine and his glass. He poured more into her glass then sat down before lifting his for a toast.

“To fairness and justice,” he said.

She clinked her glass against his. “Why are we drinking to abstract concepts?” For a moment, Meghan had a flash of panic that he was going to talk about her own indictment, but she pushed the fear aside.

“Someone asked me a few days ago what my goals were. I had to think about that.” He pushed one of the tin foil containers over to her. “For years, it’s been to become the best prosecutor I could be. Then one day I looked at Blackjack—”

“Wow, do people actually call him that?”

Dan shrugged. “Not to his face. He’s not a guy you can tease very easily. Behind his back, though? Sure, we mocked his telegenic charisma.”

Meghan couldn’t imagine mocking Jack McIntyre, but she just flexed her eyebrows in a “wow, okay” gesture.

Dan refilled her glass before continuing. “Anyway, I realized I was never going to do his job better than he does. So I had to ask myself what I actually enjoyed about my job.”

“And?”

“And it was securing fair and just results. Only in white-collar crimes, it’s never entirely fair or just. Or maybe I got tired of being the prosecutor.” He pushed the seafood over toward her. “Too peppery?”

Meghan spooned some onto her plate and took a cautious bite. “Mmm. Spicy but not too hot. Okay, so how does that result in you being a partner at a fat-cat firm like Fergusson?”

“Complex litigation. Wally courted me for their criminal defense department and I blew him off. Then he called to say Georgia was leaving to go to Washington, so I lobbied hard for the job.”

“But some people would say you’re protecting huge corporations from the consequences of their actions.”

“Are we? As far as I can see, we’re doing our job to ensure that the plaintiffs get the right amount.” He waved his fork at her. “Most of these class action lawsuits result in no money for the actual plaintiffs. Or it’s a pittance, a coupon, a tiny amount off their next bill. How does that help the plaintiff?”

“Okay, so the massive classes are kind of pointless, but surely it’s better that plaintiffs sue to keep companies like ProCell honest than have a world in which corporations can collude to steal a penny a month from each of their millions of customers.”

Dan finished a mouthful of the seafood, then drank some wine. “Yes, it is better. But I hate it when money goes to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. They profit disproportionately for the work they do.”

Meghan smiled and shook her head. “And that’s your goal? To vanquish the plaintiff’s bar one class action at a time?”

He looked at her, his eyes the color of a July noon sky. “No. Not tonight. Tonight, my goal is to make you have one climax after another.”

“Dan…” She stopped.

He just shook his head. “Have a bit more wine.”

She looked at her glass, which was nearly empty. She had a nice buzz on, if that was the correct term for this loose and easy feeling. “I think I’ve had enough.”

He ran his hand along her thigh, from her knee toward her hip, his fingertips grazing the elastic around the leg of her panties. “Have you? Had enough wine, I mean.”

It was like getting mesmerized by a force of nature, the tides maybe, or a fast-moving storm. All Meghan could do was moisten her suddenly-dry lips and nod.

Dan pushed his chair back from the table. “C’mere.” He tugged on her hand to get her to straddle his hips, her arms going instinctively around his shoulders.

She leaned into him, her forehead touching his. The wine buzz had spread to her extremities. She could feel it in her hands and fingers, her toes, and yes, damn him, in her pussy.

“Oh, Meghan, you’re so lovely. And generous. I loved fucking you, filling you, holding you in my arms,” he murmured. “You have to let me get you past this thing.”

When she kissed him—she really had no idea how else to respond—his mouth tasted just a bit spicy. It made her bolder, pulling herself closer to him. She could feel his hands creeping up her back, inside his shirt. And his erection pressing against the inside of her right thigh.

She wriggled closer, then tugged on his T-shirt to get it off him. She wanted to feel his skin.

He laughed. “Time for dessert.”

“There’s dessert? But I thought—”

Dan slid her carefully off his lap until she was standing. “Well, time for
my
dessert.”

Oh.

Oh wow.

He led her back to the bedroom, turning lights off on his way. The bedroom was dimly lit—he must have turned on a bedside lamp when he got dressed—and he didn’t turn that light off.

He pushed her gently toward the bathroom. “Just don’t get undressed.”

She frowned. “I’m hardly dressed as it is.”

“I’m thinking of all those buttons, undoing them one by one.”

When Meghan came back to the bedroom, Dan had stripped down to his boxers again. “You’re pretty,” she said. “Wait. That didn’t come out right. You’re—you’re handsome. I meant that your chest—” She waved. “You’re pretty.”

He held out his hand. “Thank you. You’re pretty too.”

She glanced down at her legs. “I’m too thin.”

His hands framed her face, lifting her chin until she could see his face. “You’re lovely. And you think too much. I want you to focus on a blank white wall.”

Meghan opened her mouth, ready to point out that his walls were a milky-coffee color. He kissed her, slipping his tongue in and making her forget what she’d been about to say. He was a
really
good kisser.

Finally he pulled away. Meghan wasn’t sure she could stand up straight, what with the intoxicating combination of wine and his lips.

“Buttons,” he reminded her. One by one, he’d said. She watched as his fingers started right over her breastbone. Then between her breasts, and the one below that, and another, and another, and then finally the shirt gaped open. She expected him to peel it off her, but he didn’t.

He kissed her throat, below her chin. Then down to the slight bulge of her breastbone, where he veered off to one side, pushing the placket of his shirt with his cheek. Then he was kissing her breast, her nipple, oh God that felt good, back to the middle and on to the other breast and its nipple.

When he stood up straight, the shirt was hanging off her elbows, she was hanging off him, and her sex throbbed like a bass drum. How had he done all that?

“Blank white wall, remember?”

Meghan really had no idea what he was talking about. She nodded obediently.

He lowered her slowly onto the bed, relieving her of the shirt and her panties in the process. It was a relief to be naked, but she couldn’t quite work out why. Then he parted her legs and she remembered the bass drum.

The ceiling was blank and white. Meghan focused on that as he touched her, opened her, felt how wet she was. Blank. White. Wall.

Then he kissed her sex and it was like her entire body reacted.

Blank white wall. Blank white wall.

Suddenly she relaxed into it. It no longer felt odd, to have Dan using his lips and tongue on her clit. It felt good. Oh, there was the bass drum again. And she wasn’t quite as relaxed, only this time it was like she was climbing, she had a goal in mind, she really wanted to get there and he was helping.

She closed her eyes, looking at nothing but feeling everything. The sheets scrunched in her fists, Dan’s hands stroking her legs, his mouth on her clit. Then he inserted a finger, and a second, in her pussy. The sensation of being filled merged with the pressure on her clit, helping her climb even higher.

Before she could know what was happening, she tumbled over into her orgasm. She spasmed around his fingers, the release going on and on until finally she was spent.

When she opened her eyes, Dan was lying beside her, on his side, his head on his hand. His free hand caressed her arm, which was curiously boneless. She smiled.

“Nice?” he asked.

She took a deep breath. “Very. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

“I don’t see how that can be true.” Her lips made a sloppy smile, as though her facial muscles couldn’t quite manage a full grin.

“Ever see someone come?”

She shook her head.

“It’s a trip,” he said. “And to know you did that, that you made that happen, is quite a rush.”

Meghan considered that. “Could I do that for you sometime?”

“It would be my pleasure,” he said with a grin.

Her eyes closed very slowly. “Fallacy somewhere,” she murmured as she fell asleep.

Dan woke early, pleased to find her snuggled up next to him. So self-sufficient at work but in sleep, Meghan proved to be almost clingy. He liked it.

But once awake, he had to get up. He slipped out from under her arm, pushing a pillow where his body had been. She hugged the pillow close.

A quick shower and shave, jeans and a T-shirt, and coffee. In that order.

While the coffee was percolating, Dan tidied away the detritus from last night’s dinner, grinning as he remembered how things had gone. Okay, he admitted it. He was seriously pleased with himself.

“I should be getting home,” Meghan said as she came into the living room. She started to gather up the office clothes she’d worn the day before. Damn but his shirt looked good on her.

She reached under the sofa for her second shoe, giving him a delightful view of her ass.

“What’s your rush. I actually do know how to cook breakfast.”

“You must have plans, errands, things I’m keeping you from doing?”

“It’s not even nine. Why don’t you have a shower and change into clean clothes. Did you bring any jeans to Massachusetts?” He pointed at her carry-on suitcase.

“Oh. Right. I’d forgotten.” She looked flustered, as though she couldn’t figure out how to deal with the clothes in her arms and the suitcase waiting patiently in the hallway.

Dan took pity on her. He retrieved the case and wheeled it to his bedroom, laying it on the bed so she could get at things more easily.