Chapter Nine

“What are you doing here?” The roses make it sort of obvious, but I’m prickly by nature, and that’s what comes out.

Steele, I’m discovering, is able to meet me prick by prick. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

Several salty retorts cross my mind over a handful of seconds. I muster up the strength to swallow them all. “I don’t think you were getting close to me for your brother.”

“I know. I don’t think I would have shown up here if I thought you really did.”

Okay, that out of the way…

I cross the few steps between us and examine the roses in his hand. “They don’t have thorns.”

“I was afraid you’d cut yourself.”

“You’d let a woman choke but not bleed. Progress, I suppose.”

I take the vase from his hand, but before I can move to take them to my desk, he catches my waist and pulls me to him. His mouth hovers at my ear, hot and inviting. “I wouldn’t let you bleed. I wouldn’t let you choke either, if you were really choking, unless I’m choking you on purpose.”

It’s disgusting how fast my panties are ruined.

It’s not just my libido that Steele affects. My chest feels tight and agitated, and I can’t decide if I’m excited or terrified.

Both, perhaps.

“What are you doing here?” I can’t face him, and this time when I ask, it’s barely a whisper.

He leans his forehead against my scalp, and I can still feel each of his breaths as they skate across my lobe. “I came to ask you on a date.”

My heart flutters. “You could have called.”

“I didn’t trust you to answer.”

Dammit, he’s too tuned into me. But I’m not entirely sure I mind. “I would have thought about answering.”

“Progress, I suppose.”

I can’t help myself, I swivel my head to catch his grin. How can a man be so smug and sexy at the same time? Why am I so here for it? “A real date? No strings attached?”

“A real date. No strings attached.”

I bite my lip so that I don’t answer too quickly. “Okay. I’d like that.”

As soon as I give him the yes, the man is in motion. He steps away from me and claps his hands together. “Mindy. Titus.”

Mindy appears rolling a table with a cream tablecloth and stainless steel covered plates. A man follows—Titus, I presume—carrying two chairs.

“In there,” Steele says, directing them to set-up in Donovan’s office.

“Wait—what?” I chase after him as he follows the servers. “What is this?”

He ignores me. “It should be good right there. Thank you, Mindy. Titus, could you just push the couch a little to make room. Perfect. That’s all.”

“You can’t! Oh my God. This isn’t!” I’m so flustered, I can’t finish a single thought. “Steele!”

His employees leave as quickly as they came, and finally he gives me his attention. “Yes, my love?”

The floor practically disappears from beneath me at the endearment, but I refuse to be caught swooning. “What on earth is this?”

“Lunch. Typically served midday, though the menu has more of a dinner feel. A compromise, since the ideal, of course, would be to actually share a meal at the time that dinner is usually served, but…”

He trails off, leaving me to fill in the rest. “You were afraid I wouldn’t show.”

“Bingo.” He points a finger as he says the word. “And I owed you a day date.”

This certainly isn’t my definition of either “a real date” or “no-strings,” but before I can get myself thoroughly worked up about it, I take a breath.

Then I laugh.

Because it turns out I’m not upset about it at all. It’s actually very charming, and I’m entirely turned on about it.

Barely into the laugh, I bring my hand to cover my mouth. He doesn’t get to win that easily. He still has to get through the date before I’ve made up my mind about him. Isn’t that how it usually works? “All right then. A day date. In my boss’s office.”

He glances over at the floor to ceiling windows. “You normally have to pay top dollar for a restaurant view like that.”

“Ah, so you didn’t want to fork out the money.”

He gives me a wry look. “I may have gone cheap on location, but I think you’ll find the menu compensates. Sorry, not sorry, I couldn’t bring myself to pay for a mediocre meal.” He lifts a silver lid off a small dish and exposes a pear and pomegranate salad. When he removes a larger lid, he reveals steak tartare.

It’s Monday night’s menu. The meal I missed.

I can’t help myself and clap my hands together in glee. “Saffron crème br?lée for dessert?”

“Saffron crème br?lée for dessert.” He shrugs. “Or we can start with that, if you prefer.”

“No, no. The traditional order of things is good.”

He catches my gaze and holds it for a beat. I feel his stare everywhere—in my pinky toes and the back of my neck and the base of my spine and the corners of my lips. Seriously, if I keep grinning like this, my face is going to start to hurt.

If he keeps staring at me like this, lunch isn’t going to happen at all.

As if he realizes the same thing, he drops his eyes and pulls out one of the chairs. “If you’d take a seat, please?”

I sit, and he drapes a napkin over my lap. Then he bends to look under the tablecloth, and I wonder if it won’t be a traditional date after all. Which is disappointing, but I spread my legs anyway, not wanting to miss out if he’s going for my pussy.

Apparently, there’s storage underneath, and he’s only going for an ice-bucket with champagne and two glasses. “I have sparkling cider as well.”

My expression likely says how appalled I am at that suggestion.

“You are supposed to be working.” But he pops open the bottle before I can tell him not to judge. “Also, I’m lying. There’s no sparkling cider. I just wanted to appear thoughtful.”

“Suggestion for the future—it works better if you don’t admit it seconds after the fact.”

He pours a glass and hands it to me. “Yes, in the future, I’ll definitely see my lies through to the end, but I’m trying to deliver an experience here, and though you didn’t mention ‘no lying’ in your description of a normal date, I suspect it was inferred.”

I’m beginning to think the guy might be as unused to ordinary dating as I am.

It’s possible we’re made for each other.

The thought makes me shudder except it’s more like a shiver and my chest feels all sorts of warm. I cover my reaction with a sip of champagne while Steele sits himself in the seat across from me. When he uncovers his salad, I pick up my fork and bite into mine.

God, it’s fantastic.

Better than the salad from the other night, since it has real goat cheese instead of feta. I’m practically having a mouth orgasm, when Steele clears his throat.

“I’m thirty-four and the middle child of three.”

“Okay.” It’s so out of nowhere, I don’t know what else to say.

“Unless you count my secret half-brother, but I don’t usually bring him up on a first date, so we’ll leave that for later.”

I swear I usually have no problem getting substances past my lips and down the right tube, and yet I nearly choke on a pomegranate seed.

“Are you—?”

I put my hand up and shake my head. A sip of champagne helps. “Nope. Just fine.” My voice sounds raw, so I clear my throat. “Secret brother that we aren’t going to talk about. Got it.”

“My grandfather built a huge company focused on industrial materials and also, as a side hustle, started a news network.” It’s strange to hear Irving Sebastian, a man as famous as Rockefeller, reduced to a single sentence, and it’s only at the arrival of this thought that I realize Steele is giving me his bio, a component of a “real date”, according to my outburst yesterday at his apartment.

“My father took over as CEO when he was in his forties, and ran it until he had to step down for health reasons. My brother took his place after that. I work in the business and talent department because that’s where Dad said I’d work, and pretty much everyone does what Dad says, for some reason.”

“Maybe because he’s one of the most powerful men in America?”

“I think his reach extends internationally.”

“There you go.”

“He’s a hard, temperamental sort of man. Not at all loving, and since my mother died when I was five, we were taught to be equally as focused if we wanted any sort of attention from him. Or at least pretend to be as focused. Now, before you go feeling sorry for me, I must add that my Grandpa Irving is much less of an asshole and showers all of his grandkids with affection. Tough guy brand, but it counts. Oh, and I have a hundred million dollar trust fund, so I can more than make up for my lack of parental support and emotional development with therapy, good drugs, and nice cars.”

“Well, then.”

“You’re supposed to laugh at my lame jokes.” Another “real date” criteria.

“They can’t be so lame I don’t realize it’s a joke.”

He narrows his eyes. “Fine. Challenge accepted.”

Over the next several minutes, Steele gives me more of his bio, sharing mundane resumé type details about where he went to school (Dalton for high school, Columbia for his bachelor, Yale for his masters) and what sports he played (crew and diving). Then he moved to the more interesting details of when he had his first kiss (with Missy Benson at age seven), when he had his first real kiss (with Sara Epstein at age thirteen), when he first had sex (Sara Epstein’s stepmom at age fifteen), and when he last had a girlfriend (five years ago, it lasted three years, and he broke it off because he didn’t enjoy the traditional structure of the relationship).

He manages to insert at least three identifiable lame jokes that I laugh at on cue. But he speaks in monologue, giving me very little chance to comment, which isn’t really what I’d pictured when I’d given him my description of a “real date”.

But I also realize that nothing he’s told me is really useful knowledge. I mean, I know things about him now that I didn’t before, but none of it gives me insight into how compatible we are or whether I want to spend more time with him or if we might share the same biting outlook on life.

I learned pretty much all the good stuff when he showed up wanting to spank me.

When I’ve long since cleared my salad plate (his remains untouched), he finally says, “I think that’s all the important stuff. Anything I’m missing?”

I shake my head. Honestly, the only other thing I want to know right now is how good his cock feels inside me. The sooner we can get to that, the better. “Am I supposed to give you my bio now?”

He makes a face that says he finds the idea as unappealing as I do. “Unless you’d like to, but you didn’t list reciprocation as a ‘real date’ requirement.”

I run through my head to see where we are on that list:

1. His boring bio

2. Her laughs at his lame jokes

3. An expensive mediocre dinner

4. She pretends she isn’t going to fuck him, but she shaved

As it just so happens, I shaved yesterday before going to his apartment.

In other words, the date’s technically concluded.

And now I’m thinking about another list. All the places I wanted him to fuck me before the day was done.

I set my napkin on my salad dish and glance toward Donovan’s desk. “Me on that desk, you standing, my legs wrapped around your waist.”

I can sense the effort it takes for him not to jump immediately to the task. “As I recall, you mentioned there might be cameras…?”

“As I recall, you didn’t seem that concerned about them.”

“I’m trying to be considerate of your preferences. I don’t care if—”

I cut him off. “If I don’t care means I think it’s kind of hot , then I feel exactly the same way.”