Page 13 of Carnal Desire (Sapphic Billionaire Club #1)

Sadie

I woke up on the couch, pressed up against Ariel’s side. She’d fallen asleep too, sitting up with her head propped up against a throw pillow. On the TV, My Name is Earl played on.

Ariel looked so beautiful sleeping, her dark hair spread out around her, face soft and relaxed. Of course she’d also looked beautiful riding my hand and thrashing with the force of her orgasm.

My mind wandered back to our earlier conversation. I hadn’t known Ariel for long, not really, but it was already obvious that she was a little over the top. Impulsive. Impetuous. I assumed she wasn’t like that when she was in the business world. Or maybe she was, what did I know about business?

The scary thing was that when she asked me to stay, said she wanted to keep me, I’d wanted nothing more than to agree with her.

I was falling for Ariel, falling fast, but I’d learned a hard lesson about falling into relationships too quickly.

Ariel seemed great, but so had Jane, at least when we first got together, and I was still healing from the emotional scars of that relationship.

Ariel woke up a little while later, looking adorably rumpled.

Somehow she convinced me to go down to her private gym and do yoga.

We set out some purple mats and Ariel put on an on-demand class that she said was suitable for beginners.

I’d never done yoga before, but Ariel assured me that it was particularly helpful for people with physical jobs like me.

It turned out that I liked yoga. It was a little distracting at first, watching Ariel gracefully moving from pose to pose while wearing her tight little yoga pants and an equally tight tank top.

But eventually I tuned her out enough to focus on my own practice, and to my surprise, I really enjoyed it.

I couldn’t believe how good my body felt when we were done.

“God, my back feels so much better now,” I told Ariel as we rolled up our purple mats. “I’ve had a kink in it ever since I started staying at the shelter.”

Ariel’s eyes hardened and I knew she was dying to say something about the events that led me to staying in the shelter, but I was too relaxed to think about Jane right now.

“What do you usually do on Sunday nights?” I asked quickly, rolling up my mat and putting it back on the shelf.

“I usually do a little work,” she said. “I like to get a jump on my Monday.”

“Do you work every day?” I asked curiously.

“Well, not all day, but usually there’s too much to do during the week, so I have to put in some hours on the weekend.”

“I have a better idea.”

Ariel looked at me. “What?”

“Let’s read in bed.”

“Read in bed?” Ariel repeated, as if she’d never heard the idea before.

“Right after I eat you for dinner.”

Her eyes widened as I added, “Race you.”

We hurried upstairs, tearing off our clothes as we headed into Ariel’s bedroom. I hopped onto the bed, then laid on my back.

“Come sit on my face,” I instructed.

“I think it’s your turn,” Ariel said.

“You first. I’m dying to taste you.”

She strolled over like she had all the time in the world, then moved to straddle my head. As soon as she lowered her body I gripped her hips and started moving my tongue through her folds.

“Sadie!”

Ariel ground herself against my face, but I could tell she needed more.

I focused my attention on her clitoris, sucking the little bud into my mouth and adding pressure until she exploded above me with a gasp.

I licked and teased her with my tongue as she shuddered her way through her orgasm, finally collapsing beside me with her eyes tightly closed.

“When I can breathe again,” she gasped. “I’m going to make you come until you black out.”

“I can’t wait.”

***

Three weeks later…

“How was work today Goldilocks?”

I toed off my battered trainers – there was no reason to wear my new shoes to clean houses -- and walked over to kiss Ariel on the cheek.

She was in front of her laptop, like she usually was if I didn’t insist that she take a break – or distract her with sex.

I’d been here for three weeks now, and it had been going surprisingly well.

Most days Ariel woke up early to run on the treadmill in her gym.

By the time I was awake, she was drinking coffee and reading her email at the dining room table.

I’d join her for breakfast, then we’d both head off to work.

In the evenings we’d have dinner together, read or watch TV or do some yoga, and then we’d make love and go to sleep, cuddled together in Ariel’s giant bed.

The sex was great, and the more we were together the more I wanted Ariel. The intimacy after was even better. Falling asleep cuddled next to this woman was like a balm to my battered soul.

The only source of contention was around my job. The more time we spent together, the more it seemed to bother her that I was heading out to clean other people’s houses.

“What did you want to do when you were younger?” she asked me last week. “Before you moved to Chicago?”

“I was studying social work in college,” I told her. “I guess I always imagined I’d do something to help kids, or maybe single mothers like my mom.”

“You should quit your job and go back to school,” she said in that bossy tone of hers. “I’ll pay for it.”

“No.”

Ariel got that same look that crossed her face every time I refused something, it was like she couldn’t believe someone was disagreeing with her.

Not because she was a jerk, but as I came to realize, in Ariel’s world almost everyone was a yes man or woman.

There were very few people who argued with her about anything other than Theo and her friends Grace and Maeve.

“Sadie, what’s the use of me having all this money if I can’t spend it on the people I care about?”

It was an argument she’d used before. Many times. It was how she justified buying the groceries, refusing rent money, and every time she tried to buy me something. I’d lost count of all the ‘little gifts’ that just happened to come my way.

“I appreciate that you are so generous Ariel,” I said firmly. “But as I’ve told you several times now, I will not be beholden to you. I don’t want to be a kept woman.”

She knew I was serious. It was hard, but I had to maintain my boundaries with her, even if she didn’t like them. If I became too overly dependent on Ariel, I’d just be recreating the same dynamic I had with Jane, and I’d promised myself I’d never let that happen.

“My work was the same as always,” I answered her earlier question. “How was your COO-ing today?”

She shrugged. “Bought some properties, sold some properties, same old same old. What do you feel like for dinner tonight?”

“One of my coworkers turned me onto this new food cart,” I said. “She says they have the best street tacos in the whole city.”

She smiled at my enthusiasm. “Where is this paragon of Mexican food?”

“Millennium Park.”

“I’ve never eaten at a food cart before,” she said.

I shook my head. For someone so worldly, she was also very sheltered. At least in the ways of normal everyday people. “It’s going to change your life. Food is much better outside.”

“Well then, let me change into something more comfortable and we’ll head out.”

Ariel returned a few minutes later wearing loose shorts, a sleeveless blouse, and sandals. Dressed like this, she almost seemed average, at least if you didn’t know that everything she wore was designer.

“Let’s go.”

I wanted to take the El, but Ariel insisted on calling for her car service. It was hot and muggy outside, so I didn’t argue too much. The train had been super swampy on my way home and I wasn’t too proud to enjoy the air conditioned comfort of the air conditioned Town Car.

After getting dropped off at the entrance, we walked through the park hand in hand, checking out the various vendors until we found the cart that everyone at work was raving about. We ordered a variety of street tacos along with two bottles of Mexican Coke, my favorite.

“That’ll be twenty-nine seventy-nine.”’

I reached for my wallet and so did Ariel.

“Let me get it,” she insisted. Ariel always insisted.

“It’s my turn to pay,” I shot back.

Before I could even open my wallet Ariel was shoving a black credit card at the man behind the counter.

“We only take cash, lady,” the unimpressed cart worker told us.

“What do you mean?” Ariel asked in obvious confusion.

“Good old American cash,” he said slowly, like he was pretty sure she was an idiot. “We don’t take plastic.”

Ariel frowned at her wallet. “I, uh I don’t carry cash.”

I pulled forty dollars out of my wallet and handed it to the guy. “Keep the change.”

He winked and got to work putting our order in.

Ariel seemed a little discombobulated. “I can’t believe they don’t take credit cards,” she said. “Who doesn’t take credit cards?”

“Small businesses who want to keep their costs down by avoiding credit card processing fees.”

“Hmm.” Clearly she’d never thought about it.

A few minutes later they called out our order, and we grabbed our bag of food and sodas and took them to a nearby bench to eat. The food was just as good as I’d heard and we wolfed down our tacos like it was our last meal on Earth.

“Holy shit,” Ariel breathed. “These really are good.”

She had a smudge of crema on her lips, and I reached over to wipe it with my napkin. At the last minute I changed my mind and leaned in to lick it off.

“Yum. That crema is delicious,” I said, smacking my lips. “Almost as delicious as you are.”

Ariel’s eyes darkened and she leaned closer, intent on kissing me, until we heard someone call her name.

“Ariel? Is that you? What on Earth are you doing eating in a park?”