Chapter 54 My Boyfriend?
The hair and makeup crew leave 15 minutes before David is due back. After I’ve put the dress on, with Leo’s help, they do a bit of touching up, making sure my makeup hasn’t smudged, changing my lip colour, and reshaping some strands of hair that have fallen out with me getting the dress on.
In my last few moments of solitude, while Marcus is in David’s room getting ready, I decide to set up for David’s arrival.
I pour a couple of glasses of wine, placing both on the coffee table in the lounge. I set the box with the chain beside them. I put my shoes by the door, choosing a pair I already own. A pair I have worn a few times at the Red Room with David.
Leo had made me eat before I put the dress on, so I am content sipping my glass of wine and waiting for...
My boyfriend?
The term seems so juvenile in terms of our relationships. It sounds tenuous. Naive. And nothing about me or David is naive. Especially when I consider my past.
Having clearly spent a few minutes spiralling into that particular thought process, I suddenly hear the lock of the front door click.
It makes my spine straighten, and my leg cross over the other, reminding me that I am in fact, wearing nothing but the dress. I glance at the coffee table, checking everything is still in place, then look up at the doorway, where David is now walking in.
And comes to a stop.
“Wow, Nora you look…” He trails off as his eyes run over me, making me revel in the way he is looking at me.
I stand up, putting my glass on the table and then hold my hands out to the side.
“Good?” I prompt, and I see him swallow.
“No, more than good. So much that I’m dangerously close to retracting my invite.” He murmurs, before taking two, three strides across the room, grabbing my neck and crashing his mouth to mine.
I melt in his touch, surrendering to his mouth, but then I remember my makeup that took over 2 hours to put on, and gently push him back slightly,
“You can’t ruin my makeup.” I say, breathlessly, and one look in his eyes says that my makeup is the last thing he cares about right now.
Instead, his attention has been drawn elsewhere.
Specifically to where his palm is now sliding down my empty chest.
“You’re not wearing it.” He says.
“I was waiting for you.”
“Why?”
“So that you could put it on me yourself.” I smile, before pointing down at the box on the table.
He smiles back, then takes his hands off me to pick up the box, open it, and pull the piece of jewellery out.
The choker button snaps apart easily in his fingers, and he circles it round my neck, my already hypersensitive skin prickling as his hands graze me and closes the clasp. Then he holds his fingers under the chain, running down the length of it so that it lays neatly between my breasts and over the top of the dress.
It is a moment before he looks back up at me. Before I feel like I can breathe again. There is something so intimate about what he is doing, what it means, that I don’t want to risk breaking the spell we are both under.
It means something, the necklace. I’m not completely sure what, but I know it is something.
“I like seeing my name on your neck.” He muses, and my next exhale is shorter and sharper than it had been before.
Instead of holding back my thoughts this time, I feel the need to say them, to bare my soul and mind to the man that has completely stolen my heart.
“I like it too. I like being yours.” I smile, looping my arms around his neck as much as the sleeves of my dress will allow.
He wraps his hand around the chain and tugs slightly, making me bite my bottom lip as a shot of desire spears through my stomach.
“Then let’s make sure everyone knows it.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Before I know it, David is guiding me up the steps to the DeVane Hotel, his hand sturdy on my lower back as I carefully navigate each step. The walk inside seems like a blur, with me not really knowing where I am going, and David leading the way as though he’s been there a million times before. In fairness, him and his organisation have been there a lot lately to scout the place out.
We’ve entered a giant hall, which I assume is the main event room, and a glass of champagne is pressed into my hand.
I feel Theo, Marcus and Harlan close by as David and I manoeuvre deeper into the room. I know David has more people around, but my focus is on him the whole time. Once we’ve reached the middle, almost lost by the giant crowd, David turns me to face him, tugs on my waist, and catches me in a bruising kiss that is definitely not suitable for public eyes. But from the way his tongue licks into my mouth, I am close to forgetting I am in public at all.
When he finally releases me, I follow his lips for a second before catching myself, and he smiles down at me.
“Do you think we got everyone’s attention?” He asks cheekily. I glance around and see most of the crowd looking in our direction, causing a hot flush to rise in my cheeks. I nod at him. “Good, now everyone knows you’re here with me. From this moment, you are untouchable Nora.”
The shiver I feel after that sentence should have scared me.
It should have made me want to run for the hills, being placed on such a pedestal, to have that much power in this dangerous side of the world.
But it just makes me feel wanted. Confident. Invincible.
It bleeds through my actions over the next couple of hours of upper-class socialising. Every time I stand dutifully by David’s side, commenting in conversations, I feel everyone else taking a metaphorical step back. As though they know who is in charge.
It is making me feel riled up.
David’s minions are seamless in scouting the event, reporting back to him when they pass him a new drink. So far, there has been no warnings, no moves from the enemy, and the threatening aspect of the situation is starting to dwindle in my mind, as it becomes preoccupied with something else.
The touches on David’s arms become touches on his chest. Glances at him turn into holding his gaze. Walking to the bar turns into swaying my hips and taking longer strides, so that the slit in my dress shows off a little more of my legs, and keeping his attention on me for just that little bit longer.
Not that I’d ever lost his attention in the first place.
At one point, his hand drifts down to my hip, fingers gripping me slightly while I charm yet another pair of upper-class a-holes that David’s company clearly takes care of.
I feel him still for a second, then his fingers shift again. When I look up at him, he is staring at me with a specific look. The look that tells me he has finally caught on to the fact that I’m not wearing any underwear. I can tell that once we get home, I won’t be going to sleep for a while.
And that was exactly my aim.
My elated mood lasts for ages. Up until I tell David that I am heading to the bathroom quickly.
The bathrooms are off to the side, opposite the bar and the door, the walk alone spanning just under a minute due to the sheer size of the hall. On my way back, I’m looking around for David when I collide into someone’s shoulder.
“Oh! I’m so sorry, I was–”
My apology dies on my lips when my brain processes exactly who I am standing in front of. Who I have bumped into.
Who I never thought I’d see again.
“There you are, Doll.” Comes David’s voice from beside me, but the intense fear I am feeling makes it sound muffled, as though I am underwater with everything bubbling around me. “What…”
“Who is this?” The man in front of me asks, the question directed towards David, who I sense has stiffened by the way his shoulder nudges against mine.
“This is my secretary.” David replies, his voice starting to sound more normal now, but with a snappy edge to his words.
I know why. I know exactly who this man is, and why David will be less than impressed that he has found me with him.
There is a tense few seconds where I am still staring at the man, the man is glancing between me and David, and David is subtly trying to tug at my elbow to pull me behind him, to be barrier between me. But my feet are frozen to the spot.
Eventually, someone speaks.
“You have one chance to leave.” The man says. “Take it, or get shot.”
David breathes before responding.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” David asks.
The man looks at me.
“You have my word.”
If David replies, I don’t ’t hear it.
I simply allow myself to be pulled by him, away from the man, and across the room towards the door. It isn’t until the crisp outside air hits me in the face that my brain catches up with what has just happened.
I look over my shoulder to see the man stood in the same spot, his eyes trained on me.
Then the door closes, shielding me from the event, and shielding me from the piece of my past I’d been dreading for years.