“I love you,” he said directly into her ear. He also chose that moment to gently rub her clit, sending Kathryn into a fit of gasps and desperate squirming against his body. “I’ll give you whatever you want, Katie. What do you want for Christmas? It’s all yours.”
Naturally, what Kathryn wanted most couldn’t be purchased with all the money associated with Ian’s name. But he could still give it to her, as he steadily had ever since they decided to make this relationship work.
She wanted love, of course.
But she always wanted emotional stability and the knowledge that they would always be on the same page about what they desired most in life.
She wanted sex. She wanted passion. Desire. Need. Want.
She wanted to feel like the only woman who truly mattered in Ian’s life, just like he was practically the only man who mattered in hers.
It was easy to believe that when he was this tender with her. The way he touched her, knowing exactly how to wake up her desire, was what a woman like Kathryn craved. As it so happened, Ian also loved this kind of lovemaking with his girlfriend best. Kissing her wet and warm throat. Stroking her clit and pinching her nipple. Making her moan and undulate against his erection as it dug more and more into the bottom of her back.
He was determined to make her come before broaching any other kind of sex that night. But he was also hopeful that it would open her to more poignant conversations about what she really wanted for Christmas and for their mutual life to be like in 2017. For it was coming fast. Like Kathryn.
What neither of them knew was how big of a change they would go through next year. By this time a year from now, Ian would no longer just be a Mathers, and Kathryn would no longer just be an Alison. There was a name greater than the both of them ready to take over the business world by storm. It would make this petty argument about some woman named Cassandra seem so unnecessary.
Scene 3
The Gaines-Warrens
Very little was able to distract mega-heiress Eva Warren around this time. After a grueling process through grad school, she had finally accomplished her thesis and was (im)patiently awaiting the results that would deliver a degree to her soft, manicured hands.
That wasn’t to say that nothing had the power to sway her from these ongoing thoughts. For one, she had a beautiful, voluptuous girlfriend to take up her precious spare time these days. That girlfriend was currently on the couch in the middle of Eva’s spacious studio apartment downtown, wearing a big, blue fluffy sweater that accentuated certain curves that were sure to distract Eva every time she walked by. Those tight pants weren’t helping, either. Here she had thought things would get better in the distraction department once the weather turned cold and Nadia went from wearing skirts 24/7 to the occasional pair of jeans. Nope. Instead of seeing the white of Nadia’s thighs and instantly wanting to die from sexual frustration, she was now tortured with slender legs wrapped tightly in dark denim that made Eva curse the Levi gods.
That particular afternoon, Nadia was curled up on the leather couch with a paperback in her hands. A glass of red wine was half-consumed on the coffee table and half a candy bar on the arm of the couch. Nadia often read as a form of entertainment, so that wasn’t out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary was the look of absolute decadence on that freckled face. Red hair more vibrant than the gray day outside spilled over the side of the couch, giggles peppering the air whenever Nadia turned a page. Whatever she was reading, it was certainly amusing.
And it was driving Eva wild, because she was supposed to be doing important shit to get ready for her upcoming graduation. Meanwhile, this vixen over here was going to be the death of her.
“Okay. You win.” Eva sat on the edge of the couch and flung her arm over the back. She hovered over her girlfriend, who quickly covered her paperback with two flat hands. “You’ve got my attention. What do you want? Some fingering? My tongue in your pussy? Want me to lie down and let you ride my face? Can we try all three at once? I think it’s possible.” It was, but Eva was not going to be the one to achieve it that day.
Nadia pressed the open book against her chest and kept the title covered. “I didn’t realize I had put out the Evangeline-bat-signal.”
“You had. Now you have to deal with me.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
Eva furrowed her brows. “What? Come on. What could possibly be more interesting than me? Definitely not a book.” She snorted. “Can a book make you come? Wait. Don’t answer that.” Eva definitely knew all about books and their abilities to turn a girl on. She may or may not have spent one summer devouring lesbian erotica as written by a real woman. (Something she didn’t think would be so hard to find…)
“I’ll have plenty of time for you later.” Nadia drummed her fingers against the back of her book. “You go along and do whatever you need to do. I can wait until you have plenty of time to waste on me.”
“I didn’t realize it was wasting time on you.” Another huff claimed Eva’s chest. “What the hell are you reading, anyway?”
“Some non-fiction about archaeology. Fascinating stuff about Middle Eastern dig sites.”
Bull. Shit.
Eva snatched the book from her girlfriend’s hands. Nadia leaped up, arms waving in a vain attempt to get the book back.
Like that was going to happen.
“Entwined With You by Sylvia Day.” Eva scrunched her nose. “What the fuck is this?”
“Give it back!”
Eva had a great advantage over her girlfriend – namely that she was well over six feet tall and Nadia was south of the national average. All Eva had to do was stand up and hold the book high above her head to keep Nadia from taking it back again. They must’ve looked the sight while they fought over who got to read the book and who had to deal with the repercussions.
It was mostly Eva who had to deal with any and all repercussions… because what she read on the back of the book and on the page that it was opened to? So. Nasty.
“Is this some straight woman’s fantasy porno?” Eva almost dropped the sullied book right on top of Nadia’s head. Except then her girlfriend might get it back, and then what? The end of their lesbian relationship? “Oh my God, what the fuck are you reading?”
Nadia gave up. She sank back down onto the couch with a sigh of defeat. “I like reading those books sometimes, okay?” Sure, now she was going to act totally unaffected. “It’s not a big deal. They’re funny. Very amusing.” Ahem.
That was Nadia’s story, but Eva was far from believing it. Indeed, she should not believe it, because one of Nadia’s biggest secrets – that she kept from even her most heterosexual female friends – was that she harbored a strong inclination for reading the most over the top erotic romances featuring one woman and one man with a very powerful cock. She had read this whole series before, in fact! Perhaps twice. Or was it three times now? Either way, that was a well-loved copy in Eva’s hands, and Nadia should have known better than to bring it by the girlfriend’s apartment. Then again, if they were ever going to move in together one day, Eva would have to get over the fact her girlfriend liked reading about women getting fucked by big appendages. Even though she was gay. Especially since she was gay, probably.
Eva, on the other hand, was torn between mortified and disgusted. Safe to say that a woman of her mindset had never indulged in this kind of literature before. If she read naughty stories, they always included two women exploring what it meant to have plenty of orgasms together. (Which also happened to be Eva’s life goals.)
The book landed on the coffee table as if Eva had found a bug in it. “How can you read stuff like that? You like that?”
“What? Just because I don’t wanna do it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a finely crafted paragraph about dicks.”
“You said a bunch of words that don’t go together.”
“And you make it sound like I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Throughout their relationship over the past year, Eva and Nadia rarely fought over what labels they used to describe themselves. (They both identified as lesbians, although Nadia had taken a more meandering path to reach that point than Eva had.) As it so happened, however, Nadia had described herself as bisexual until a while ago. Sometimes Eva forgot that, even when Nadia talked about her past boyfriends and their dating days. Eva rarely got that jealous over the fact. After all, Nadia often followed up those conversations with how glad she was to be done with men and only involved with women now. Didn’t even matter if she talked about previous girlfriends in the same vein. All Eva heard was that her girlfriend no longer cared for men, and that was all she cared about.
Then shit like this happened.
Did Nadia like this kind of thing? Did she fantasize about replacing Eva with her male equivalent? Because Eva knew enough of this book now to know it was about some rich-ass billionaire with a dick of steel. God, who read that shit anyway! Sometimes Eva conveniently forgot that stuff like Fifty Shades existed. She knew enough of those types of men in real life. Books may have been fantasy, but they certainly didn’t get the supposedly realistic parts right!