Derailed II (7 page)

As I continued to suck his dick with accelerating speed, he began to stroke my sex harder and faster, alternating between up and down motions and circles. I was soaked and my clit was on fire. And deep inside my core, I was digesting my egg. It was all too much. I wanted to whimper. Actually, shriek, but I couldn’t because his member filled my mouth and was suffocating my vocal chords. It was so not fair that he got to moan and groan.

I went down on him again, and this time he held me there. His thickness exploded. He let out a loud guttural groan as his orgasmic ruptures shuddered deep inside my throat, spurting cum into the cavity. Syrupy, it tasted sweet and salty like his dick.

“Swallow,” he ordered.

I gulped down the cum as he slowly pulled back my head by my ponytail. My eyes met his, and I rolled my tongue around my moist upper lip to let him know that I had enjoyed my appetizer.

With a squeeze of my clit, he thanked me. The orgasm that was building in me erupted like a volcano, and I could finally let out the cry that was begging for a release. God, I hoped this part of the limo was soundproof.

Ari zipped up his fly over his glistening mound of flesh and returned to the seat next to me. “Saarah, look at me,” he said, his voice all breathy.

I turned my head toward him. He looked more gorgeous than ever. I couldn’t help running my hand through his tousled golden blond locks. Inside me, the little egg was still vibrating, prolonging the burst of pleasure I had just experienced.

He traced my lips with an index finger. “I hope you enjoyed your appetizer.”

“It was very tasty,” I managed.

His lips curled into a satisfied smile as he poured champagne into two fluted crystal glasses. “I hope you enjoy French food as much.”

“Sure,” I said stupidly. The closest thing to French food I’d ever eaten was Knorr’s French Onion Soup mix.

“I’m taking you to a little French restaurant in my neighborhood. Have you ever eaten moules marinières avec frites?”

I didn’t even know what they were.

With a wink, he clinked his glass against mine. “To another delicious meal.”

The bistro Ari took to me was small and intimate. Tables with red-checkered tablecloths and votive candles were lined up against mirrored walls. Since it was early, we had the place almost to ourselves. Ari insisted we sit side by side, our backs against the mirrored walls. His thigh pressed into mine as he ordered from the menu, which was written entirely in French. A chilled bottle of expensive champagne was brought immediately to our table. Our waiter poured us each a glass.

Although the vibrating egg was deliciously distracting, I was feeling more relaxed in his presence. For a change, I started the conversation. “What were you doing in the city today?”

He hesitated and then said, “I was seeing my shrink. We have a weekly standing appointment on Tuesday afternoons.”

My mind flashed back to my conversation with his Ice Queen sister. She had mentioned that Ari had been in years of therapy as a result of his bitter divorce. Loosened up by the champagne, I was ready to venture into dangerous territory.

“Why do you need to see a therapist?” I asked, feigning innocence.

He took a sip of champagne. “My ex fucked me up. I’ve got issues.”

This was a start. I was dying to know if he talked to his shrink about me but instead asked, “How long were you married?”

“Three years. The first year was a fairy tale. The last two a nightmare from hell.”

I was making progress, getting him to open up. “How did you meet?”

His eyes grew distant as if they were going back in time. “We met in St. Tropez. I was vacationing there with my family. My dad was gravely sick, and I had just graduated Harvard Business School. We knew it was going to be our last family vacation with my dad. She was there on a shoot—she was, at the time, one of the world’s top supermodels at the peak of her career.”

Inwardly, I cringed. I knew he was the supermodel type. I was a far cry from any cover girl and wondered again what he was doing with me. A wave of insecurity swept over me.

He continued. “My parents and my sister didn’t care for her—they all thought she was an opportunist. But for me, it was love at first sight. I proposed to her three months later. Sadly, my father didn’t live long enough to see us get married.” His voice grew watery, and he took another sip of champagne. “In retrospect, maybe that was for the best.”

Although I was dying to find out her name, I did not dare ask. He wasn’t offering; I wasn’t asking. Instead, I asked another brave question. “What happened to your marriage?”

He drained his champagne and poured himself another glass. “Her modeling career began to wane—there’s always a fresh new face—and then she got pregnant with Ben. She gained a lot of weight and could never get her body back to what it was. Her career was over. The loss of her looks put her over the edge. She became manic depressive.”

I was familiar with that term. Lauren had once been diagnosed with that condition. She could either be hyper with glee or dark with gloom. When extreme depression set in, she could be dangerous to herself. Suicidal.

“Did your wife try to hurt herself?” I asked nervously.

Ari’s eyes flared. “No, she hurt Ben.”

“What do you mean?”

“She physically assaulted him.”

I gasped, unable to mask my shock.

Ari’s lips hardened into a grim line before continuing. “She blamed him for her problems; we grew apart, and she turned to alcohol and drugs. One night when Ben was three, he was afraid to go to sleep, and he cried out for her. Drunk out of her mind, she couldn’t put up with his wailing and shoved him to the floor. He hit his head and had to be rushed to the hospital. He was in a life-or-death coma for a week. I never left his side.”

Ari’s eyes grew haunted as I gasped again. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine him sitting in a hospital room anxiously waiting for his beloved son to wake up. The image broke my heart. I had been there myself with my mother. I wanted to clasp his hands but refrained.

“I filed for divorce immediately after that incident.”

My eyes gazed at him, begging for—and then what?

“When she got the divorce paper, she went crazy. We had a terrible fight… she stabbed me with a kitchen knife. Ben watched the whole thing.”

“Oh my God. The scar on your back?” My jaw stayed wide open in shock, partly because of what she had done to him and partly because I could not believe his darling little boy had to witness this brutality.

“So, you’ve noticed it.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“It’s hard to miss,” I said, finding my voice. “How serious was it?”

“Serious enough to require thirty stitches and hospitalization.”

I gasped yet again. “Oh my God. Did you call the police?”

“No, I didn’t want to drag my family into a
New York Post Page Six
scandal. My mother was just getting over my father’s death but was still fragile, and I was restructuring the family business. And I didn’t want to scare Ben, who was already traumatized enough. It was the last thing everyone needed. My twin sister, an attorney, the rational one in the family, came up with a plan to pay my wife off. She offered her a multi-million dollar settlement if she would change her name and never have contact with Ben or me again. Her attorney insisted she take the deal over a trial and possible imprisonment. She agreed to it, and I’ve never seen or heard from her again. Thankfully, Ben doesn’t remember her—or anything about the incidents. He’s been told that she died in a car accident.” He sighed and lowered his champagne glass to the table.

I was verging on tears. His story was way more complicated and tragic than I anticipated. My darling Trainman was damaged. So, so damaged. Emotionally and physically. I desperately wanted to hold him in my arms and heal his scars. But I held back.

We both sipped our champagne in silence until our waiter brought us a large bowl of moules and a side of frites. The delicious garlicky smell rushed up my nostrils.

Ari’s face brightened. “Ah, Saarah, fresh mussels from the South of France.

I wondered—did he eat these with
her
in St. Tropez? I loathed Ari’s ex-wife for what she did to him and even more, for what she did to that poor innocent child. No wonder my Trainman was so afraid of getting involved with another woman. The chances of having a long-term relationship with him were dismal. And I hated his ex even more for that.

Stopping me in my thoughts, Ari demonstrated how to eat a mussel. “It’s easy, Saarah. Watch.” He plucked the meat from the shell, dipped it into the broth, and then bit off the lower plump, fleshy part, and savored it. My eyes followed him as he discarded the tendons in a bowl along with the iridescent black shell.

“Okay, your turn,” he said brightly.

I reached for a mussel and copied his actions. The tender mussel meat rolled around in my mouth. God, it was good. Buttery, garlicky good. It got my mind off the intense conversation we’d just had. I instantly wanted another one.

I glanced at Ari. The expression on his face indicated he was pleased with my reaction. He opened another mussel, but this time held the meat by the grisly tip over my mouth
. “Ouvre
ta bouche,”
he ordered in French. I assumed it meant, “Open your mouth.” My mind instantly flashed back to the blow job I’d just given him, bringing me awareness of the little vibrating egg still inside. It was making me hunger for him.

Parting my lips, I let him circle my lips with the succulent meat until he deposited it on my tongue. Closing my eyes, I savored it and swallowed. I opened my eyes slowly.

Ari’s blue eyes searched mine. His warm breath brushed my neck as he said in that deep, sexy voice, “Do you know, Saarah, mussels are a natural aphrodisiac. The ancient Greeks believed they were the sustenance of the Goddess of Love.”

My God of Love must be right. My hormones were raging out of control. Wetness was pooling between the pantyless triangle between my inner thighs. Heat was coursing through my body, and a fluttering sensation extended from my gut to my crotch. Ari must have known the effect the mussels were having on me. He reached his hand beneath the table and through the entranceway of my thigh-high slit, he slithered his fingers to my hot, moist cleft. He massaged the folds, arousing me further, and then pulled away with a smirk on his lips. The tease!

“Feed me,” he ordered. He tilted back his head and parted his lips. I dangled a mussel over his kissable mouth and slowly lowered it inside.

“Hmmm,” moaned Ari.

We continued this sensual back and forth feeding ritual until all the mussels were devoured along with the cone of skinny fries.

Ari placed my hand on his lap. Beneath his fine gabardine trousers, his member was as hard as I was wet. A deep shudder traveled through me. The flutters below turned into throbs.

Ari gazed into my eyes. “Saarah, have you ever been to the south of France?”

I shook my head.

“It’s still my favorite place in the world. You should go there some time.”

In my head, I fantasized being there with my Trainman. Staying at one of those five-star Côte D’Azur hotels I’d read about in magazines… sunning topless on the beach… swimming in the warm Mediterranean… making glorious love after champagne in a delicious bed… sharing mussels at a local café… fucking our brains out yet again in bed… And waking up next to him in the morning to greet the sunshine and start all over again.

Why bother dreaming? That was never going to happen. Not with this damaged man who was so afraid of commitment. So afraid of getting hurt and hurting his beloved son.

Ari’s sexy voice put an end to my mental ramblings. “Saarah, would you like dessert? The crème brûlée is excellent.”

The restaurant was filling up. My mind flashed back to dessert at The Palm. Dessert could prove to be too embarrassing in this small, intimate restaurant. I could not risk it.

“No thank you,” I stammered, although my pussy was hungering for him.

“Ah, then we should, at least, share a French kiss.” Framing my face in his manly hands, he crushed his soft lips onto mine and consumed them. I closed my eyes as he brushed his tongue across my upper lip, signaling me to part mine. His velvety tongue dipped into my mouth and flicked mine, inviting it to dance. Our dance was slow and sensuous. A lyrical waltz with sliding, gliding, and swirling that was making me want to swoon. I took small breaths through my nose so I would not lose consciousness. Three words ran circles in my head.
Oh. My. God.
I forgot how this gorgeous man could kiss. The sweeping movements sent sweet sensations of desire to my sex. I moaned into his mouth. Oh, the power of a kiss!

As his lips deepened the kiss, he placed my hand once again under the table, back on the bulge between his legs. My fingers clasped the rigid thickness beneath his trousers, and I knew instinctively what he wanted me to do. I moved my hand up and down. Up and down. My grip grew firmer, my stroking faster. The heat of his member surged beneath my palm.

And then I felt his warm hand once again down below me. I spread my legs, allowing him easy access to my flooded cleft. I moaned softly, loud enough for him to hear me as my hand continued to travel up and down his hard-as-rock cock. After massaging and squeezing more juices out of me, his middle finger moved to my already hard bud and focused only on it—making deep, overlapping circles, with the fervor of a finger-painting child. Oh, how he knew how to push my button. Meanwhile, the little egg inside me kept vibrating, intensifying the insane pleasure that was coursing through me. As I headed toward my climax, I wanted to jump out of my skin. I dug the nails of my free hand into his thigh and my heels into the floor. His rod began to spasm, and my arousal was peaking. Oh God! Why did his gourmet dessert always have to be the best part of the meal?

“Well, Ari, how nice to see you again.”

As fast as Ari had thrust his tongue inside my mouth, he withdrew it. Just as fast, his hand pulled away from my crotch as did mine from his cock. The voice made me shudder.

The color on Ari’s face drained, and I’m sure mine was as white as a ghost. Standing before us was a tall, stunning, thin-as-a-whippet woman dressed to the nines. The scent of her Chanel No. 5 perfume wafted up my nose and made me dizzy. The scathing look she sent my way made me shake.