“Mmm whatever.”
“Thought so.”
Getting the dress off Rachel’s supine body was the easy part. The hard part was taking his eyes – and hands – off her once her naked skin was unveiled.
She hadn’t been wearing a bra, and her light blue panties were so soft to the touch that Zack found himself counting the amount of stray pieces of elastic poking out from the waistband. Would it be uncouth of me to buy her new underwear? That was something a boyfriend did. A rich boyfriend went a step beyond and took his darling out for a day of personal shopping at the most exclusive lingerie boutiques in America and Europe. I did that for Sadie once.
He briefly recalled the tense look on Kathryn’s face back in the club. Isn’t it remarkable how much she looks like Sadie?
Zack needed to stop torturing himself with those facts. And he needed to stop torturing himself with Rachel, because God only knew if she would ever be okay with a real relationship.
And God only knew if Zack would ever be ready for a “real” relationship again.
Truly, he envied the men he knew in these stable – if sometimes unconventional – relationships with women who enriched their lives in ways they didn’t know they needed. Seth had Judith, sometimes at the same time as Miguel. I give him so much shit for that, but I know he’s happy. His brother had his New York heiress girlfriend who was more like a partner now. And that rat bastard Ian Mathers had Kathryn, and now they were prime to become the next power couple if they ever got around to legitimizing all that fucking they did on the other side of Zack’s bedroom wall.
Every month it felt like some previously staunch bachelor of means was giving up singledom to declare that he had found the love of his life. The latest scandal was a Danish businessman getting caught with Damon Monroe’s executive assistant. That in itself wasn’t a scandal. It was how much he fiercely vouched for her after shady tabloids released video of her in some crazy orgy.
Zack had never thought he would find someone again. Not in the next few years, anyway. He was either going to become like his uncle Roy, a bachelor until death, or he would settle agreeable around the age of forty-five or fifty with a woman he found. Hopefully she would be around the same age and either have already grown children or be well beyond those desires. The Feldman clan would survive without him propagating.
Until then, would it be too much to ask to make love to Rachel a few more times?
He bent down and kissed her cheek before pulling the comforter up her half-naked body. Rachel snuggled into the plush pillow and mumbled something about the light bothering her. Zack left the bedside lamp on and promised to turn off the overhead light on his way out.
He also promised to join her within the hour. Taking off his clothes and curling up around her was the only way he wanted to sleep that night. Plus, homemade breakfast from a private chef in the morning would be pretty sweet…
Zack left his suit jacket on the end of the bed and undid half the buttons on his shirt before returning to the living room. Judith had dimmed the lights and immediately offered Zack a small glass of wine. “Miguel hopped in the shower.” She sat at a small table by the windows and gestured for Zack to sit across from her. “Told me to join him, but I wanted to have a chat with you first.”
He took the glass and sat down. “What did my stupid friend do this time?”
“I’m not talking about Seth. I’m talking about you.”
“Me?”
“Come on.” Judith stared at the guest bedroom door. “Who is she? Where did you meet her? I want all the details.”
“Because you’re the queen of gossip. The queen under fifty, anyway.”
“I make it my business to know who is dating whom in this city. Let alone when one of those people is someone I see on a regular basis. Besides.” Judith slammed her finger into the table. “You owe me after spilling wine on that nice dress. I had missed it. Nice to bring it back.”
“A happy accident.”
“Is that how you met her?”
Zack laughed. “We met a café down by the marina. I saw her through the window and decided I needed to know her.”
“Oh, you spoiled boys never cease to amaze me with your lack of tact and manners. Let me guess. You marched up to her and asked her out, refusing to take no for an answer?”
“Something like that. Except she did say no.”
“So…”
“We started off as just friends. We have since graduated to friends with benefits.”
“Oooh, sexy benefits? She’s got a great little body, that’s for sure. She must, if she fits into my dress like that.”
“You two have some similar assets, yes.”
“She’s a lot more modest about filling out that bust than I am.”
“Anyway,” Zack said, “she still has her boundaries. That’s all I’ll say.”
“She’s not letting you inside?”
Judith was taken aback by that news; Zack was taken aback by how quickly she figured that out. Nothing gets by her, does it? “No. I’m fine with that, though.”
“Hmm.” Judith had the uncanny ability to go from looking at a man like he was a human being to looking at him like he was a piece of meat. “But you’re so handsome! How could a woman control herself around you?”
“You seem to do fine.”
“I’m not dating you.”
“Is that the difference?”
She leveled her gaze on him as if she were his big sister bent on chastising him to hell and back. “She tell you why?”
“Something about her swearing a vow of penis in vagina celibacy until the end of the summer. I can be patient.” Right? Maybe. Every time they fooled around, Zack came this close to begging her for the kind of intimacy that could get a girl pregnant, as Rachel put it. He could barely believe it had now been several weeks since he last Biblically knew a woman.
Even though Rachel said they were not in an exclusive relationship, he couldn’t bring himself to imagine sleeping with someone else.
“Something must have happened before you.”
“She said something about it. I don’t think it’s my place to explain, though.”
“Got it.” Judith tapped her nail against the rim of her empty wineglass. “Are you serious about her?”
“Why are you asking me this? We haven’t known each other that long. We only went to the club tonight because it came up in conversation and sounded fun. As you can see, it didn’t make us so horny that we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”
“I’m asking because the way you look at her is unmistakable.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. I know that infatuated look anywhere. I’ve made my modest fortune recognizing that look in a man’s eye.” You are the greatest courtesan in all the land, yes. She must have been if she seduced tens of thousands of dollars out of miserly Seth. “You’re in love with her.”
Zack fought to keep his demeanor in check. “I wouldn’t say…”
“It’s a look I’ve never seen you give any other woman before. How many double-dates have Seth and I gone on with you and some random girl? Every time you tell us all about your favorite parts of her body. You play up how much sex you’re having.”
“To be fair, you start those conversations.”
“Tonight, even though that wasn’t what we meant, you told us that you and Rachel weren’t into group stuff. Zack with another woman would have at least tried to make it happen.”
“I don’t know about that…”
“It’s what Seth always complains about when he goes on a tear about you. You scuttle from one woman to the next, spreading your damned steel family seed from horny heiress to naïve country girl coming to the city for the first time. God! Remember that Lizzie gal? She needed me to explain to her what anal was!”
Zack did not comment on that.
“There are lots of guys like you out there, Zack, but you are truly one of the first men I’ve met who seems to actually have no desire to do anything but fuck as much pussy as possible. I’m not even saying that to be mean. You do you, whatever, wrap it up and don’t be a huge dick to the women you bang. That’s why it seriously piques my curiosity to see you gazing at Rachel like she’s your soulmate. Until tonight, I wasn’t sure you were capable of that.”
“And how do you know I’m gazing at her like she’s my soulmate?”
“Zack,” Judith said with a sigh that lowered her voice, “like I said, I make a fucking living off reading male body language and reading between your guys’ lines. Rachel probably doesn’t see it, but I do. If you don’t make that woman your wife by the end of the year, you’re going to be a wreck.”
He pretended to not have an answer. Although the inside of his mind was one variance of I can’t even make her my real lover or another.
***
Rachel was only awake long enough to hear the key parts. Zack was a philanderer. He slept with everyone, from city sluts to country hos. He discarded them like they were nothing. He barely remembered their names.
No wonder her gut instinct had always told her to not give him too much of her heart, body, or soul.