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Wesley Baker
There were times in a guy’s life that just made sense for him to be nervous. The first time he tried out for the football team, already knowing he was going to get pounded into the ground and told to fuck off and grow five inches when the pounding was done. The first time a chick let him put his hand both down her top and under the exquisite lace of her bra. Better yet, the first time the same chick decided she might not want to be such a stickler for the rules after all and let him slide his hand up under her skirt. Wesley had lived through all of these firsts and remembered them with varying degrees of fondness. He was coming to understand something, though, and it was a bitch of a time to do it. He was coming to realize that there wasn’t a point at which a man stopped risking living through another painfully anticipatory first. The one he was currently living through was making him more nervous than all of the ones that had come before combined.
“Jesus,” he whispered to himself, “I should have gone up to the door to get her. What the fuck was I thinking agreeing to this?”
An elderly woman, presumably another tenant of Liza's building, walked past him and shot him a dirty look at the profanity. Excellent. With his luck, the old bat was friendly with Liza and would tell her what a prick he was being the first chance she got. Which shouldn't matter, he reminded himself, because this wasn't really a date.
“Business, Baker. It’s only business.”
That was the part that was pissing him off about the whole thing; there was no reason for him to be so jittery. He was the one standing by a Ferrari, for starters, in one of four tuxes that he owned. And he was waiting for an employee, albeit an unconventional one, not a date he was hoping to fuck. Wesley understood inherently that the balance of power in all things was an important thing; it was one of the rules he lived by, in business and in his personal life, too. In this new deal with Liza, all of the power was his. He was the boss, she the one in desperate need of a steady job that paid well. He hadn't talked about that part in so many words, but she didn't have to. A woman didn't agree to be a fake girlfriend for hire unless she was in some real financial need. It wasn't outside the realm of possibility that she hated him a little for putting her in her current position, but that didn't matter, either. He was the one with the money, hence he had all of the control. The thought probably made him a dick, but it also made him feel better. It kept right on doing that, too, until the door to her apartment building opened and she stepped out onto the stairs.
"Holy shit," he said in a throaty exhalation of breath. He cleared his throat more loudly than strictly necessary to cover the words up, but it was a failure. Liza's eyes widened until they looked like huge saucers suspended in her face. Her face was bright pink, and her hands moved up and down her dress like she was trying to figure out where things had gone wrong. He felt bad about it, but he couldn't figure out how to explain that there was nothing wrong. Not a damn thing, at least not unless you counted the erection starting to rise in his pants. That could be a possible problem for it, assuming Liza realized it was there. He didn't see how she couldn't; with her looking the way she did it should just be a foregone conclusion. The dress fit her like a glove. He had always found sayings like that unforgivably stupid, but now it seemed just right. It looked like it was painted on her and every one of her substantial curves was there and waiting. He couldn't stop looking at her breasts, probably the most perfect he'd ever seen, and after Liza recovered a little from her discomfort, she caught him looking and smiled a little.
“Is it okay?” she asked tentatively, glancing down at herself again.
“It’s more than okay, Liza. You look fantastic.”
“That’s very sweet of you to say,” she answered doubtfully. He didn’t like the doubt. It made him wonder who had delivered what blows to her confidence.
"I'm not being sweet, sugar. That's not something I'm often accused of. You do, though. You look like a million bucks in the dress. I thought it would look good on you, but I didn't realize it would look this good," he said with a grin. He took a moment to look her over again, this time moving his eyes slowly and letting them linger on all of the best parts. When he looked back at her eyes, she was watching him closely. He couldn't make out what she thought about what he was doing. He wasn't sure he cared.
“You didn’t have to send the dress, Mr. Baker,” she said gently.
"What did I tell you about that?" he chided. He made sure he kept it playful but in truth, it kind of pissed him off. He had no right to be pissed and knowing that only made it worse. Of course, she wanted to call him Mr. Baker. He was her new boss. If it made him uncomfortable, made him feel like an asshole, that was his problem. There was a practical element to his issue with the Mr. Baker shit too, though, and that was the part he tried to keep his focus on. If he wanted this thing to look believable, and he definitely did, she couldn't go around calling him Mr. Baker. At the very least people would think his new relationship was fucking weird. Those would be the people he didn't know well or at all. The handful of people at the event who did know him, a la Adam, would know something was up before she finished getting the "Baker" part out of Mr. Baker.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, miserably maybe, “this is hard for me. I’m not trying to screw things up, I swear to God.”
“You aren’t. You won’t. You look fantastic, okay? And people are definitely going to notice.”
"And that's a good thing?" she asked with a shaky little laugh. He laughed too, hoping they were moving past the most painful of the awkward parts. He held out an arm like he was escorting her to prom, which he had never bothered to go to, now that he thought about it. She hesitated for only a moment more, but in that small span of time, he was sure she was going to back out. She would run back up the stairs, slam the door, and he'd be stuck going to the fucking ‘Bringing the Heat’ charity ball stag. Then she shook her head like she was clearing away bad thoughts, smiled, and made her way down the rest of the stairs. When she linked her arm through his, he caught a whiff of something sweet and spicy. It was her perfume, flirting with him seductively from whatever hidden crevices she's dabbed it, and the mystery of where that might be had him getting hard all over again. It was going to be a long night, but not for the reasons he'd thought driving over here. He should have known better, probably had, if he was honest. He'd known he wanted her in the bar with Adam the other night. He hadn't been able to get her out of his head then, and he'd been thinking about her off and on ever since. He had sent her the dress because he wanted to make sure she looked the part for the event, but who was he kidding? He'd mostly sent it because he wanted to see what she would look like in it. Now that he knew, he wanted to know what she looked like with the damn dress puddled around her feet on the floor.
"Tell me this isn't a huge mistake, will you?" she said, laughing. The nervous sound cut through his devious thoughts, and he put a reassuring hand on her back while he helped her into the car. He tried to ignore how warm her skin was, how warm and how fucking soft.
“It’s not a mistake,” he reassured her as he slid into the driver’s seat, “and you don’t have anything to worry about. You’re going to do great. And hey, free drinks, right? They get the good stuff at these things, too. None of the cheap shit.”
“Oh yeah?” She smiled, her eyes starting to shine a little. He was starting to have fun with this. He thought she might be, too.
“That’s right. Real glass bottles and everything. Nothing but the finest for my fake girlfriend.”
“Oh Lord,” she laughed, loudly this time and in a way that struck him as genuine, “I am going to live to regret this, I know it.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
THEY MADE IT ALL OF a dozen steps into the large, glass front concert hall foyer before they had glasses of champagne in their hands. Liza clung tightly to Wesley's arm, and he let her. He more than let her, he enjoyed it. One of the things that always drove him up the wall about Megan was the way she was never pleased with anything, never impressed. It wasn't like he wanted her to fall onto her knees and praise him every time he took her somewhere but not looking bored to death would have been nice. Liza didn't look anywhere near bored. She was one step away from her mouth dropping open in a sitcom-worthy display of shock and awe. It was kind of corny, but it kind of made him look at his surroundings differently, trying to see things the way she was seeing them, for the very first time. The concert hall was pretty impressive; he had to admit that much. He'd been to a half a dozen galas and fundraisers there and had stopped really looking at the place. All of the glass and chrome, though, with the wicked view it provided of downtown, was sort of breathtaking. He liked seeing Liza that way, without breath. He liked being the one to give her the opportunity to feel that pleased surprise.
"This is really something," she whispered, taking two large sips of her champagne and finishing the glass. Wesley laughed and turned to take another from the server who had instantly appeared. Liza looked awed by that, too, and Wesley laughed harder.
“Okay,” she said, laughing along with him, “laugh all you want to, but do they always do that?”
“What, serve me drinks? Yes, if you can believe it, they do. Don’t tell anybody but that’s actually what they’re here for,” he answered in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Okay, smartass, I understand that part. But you do realize most people don’t get another of anything as quickly as you just did, right? Most of us have to wait.”
“Luckily for you, you’re with me tonight. And this drink is for you, so you’re welcome.”
"I don't know," she said uncertainly, although she looked at the bubbling drink hungrily, "I don't want to get drunk or anything. I'm supposed to be on my best behavior, remember?"
“I do remember, but I’ve decided there’s something else I need you to do while we’re here,” he said in his most serious, official voice.
“What’s that?” she asked, looking genuinely concerned.
“Have fun,” he smiled, pulling her in close to him and slinging an arm around her shoulders, “loosen up. I would really love it if you could do that. If we could both do that it would be even better.”
“Wesley, my man! Where the fuck have you been?!”
Liza, who had been in the process of turning her face up to look at him, froze in place. Wesley groaned inwardly and wondered how quickly they could get out of this inevitable conversation. Adam was a buddy but at first glance, not somebody he wanted to deal with tonight. And he was sure as shit, not the first person he wanted Liza to have to play nice with. Wesley only had to look at the loosened tie, red face, and double fistful of shots to know that one for sure.
"Is this someone I need to worry about?" Liza asked out of the side of her mouth. Wesley shrugged and shot her a look that probably only made things worse. He was going for no, but that wasn't something he could say with any conviction. Personally, he was worried as hell. Adam, being the drunken degenerate that he was at the moment, didn't notice any of this. He shuffled up to Wesley, made as if to thump him on the back, and succeeded in pouring one of his shots down the back of Wesley's tux.
“Shit, man! Did I do that?” he yelled, genuinely confused.
“You did, brother,” Wesley answered, smiling the best he could. Adam handed him three of the remaining shots and slung one back himself.
“My bad. I just needed to know who this foxy lady you’ve got on your arm is. Seriously, man, what the fuck? This one is a looker. No skinny ass on her, is there?”
"Adam, come on, man," Wesley said. He tried not to look at Liza, but he couldn't miss the expression on her face. Because he couldn't think of anything else to do he took one of the shots and handed Liza another. She tipped it to her lips, swallowed, and handed him the empty glass. He exchanged it for a full one, and she shot that one, too. Christ, this woman was sexy. He wanted to get as far away from Adam as he could, let the guy go throw up in a potted plant somewhere and sleep it off, and he wanted to take Liza to the dancefloor. She might be too pissed to go, but if not, he wanted to feel her body pressed right up against his.
“Hey!” Adam said, holding both hands up defensively and dropping his remaining shot, “Don’t shoot me for telling the truth! You should be flattered, honey-”
“It’s Liza,” Liza interjected coldly. Wesley wanted to kiss her right there.
“Sure, whatever. All I’m saying is that when a chick’s got a fine product to work with, she should be happy to hear the praise. You know what I mean?” He went on, totally oblivious to what a dick he was being. “And Wesley, man! Props to getting off the skinny girl train! I’ve been telling you, a chick with a little meat on her bones, am I right? Now you’re getting it for yourself!”
“Right, okay. On that note, we’ll see you around. Have a good night, buddy.”
Wesley took Liza by the arm and led her away quickly before Adam could do any more damage. He didn't ask her about the dancefloor, he just steered them in that direction, right into the middle of the dance floor where they would be the most anonymous. He expected her to pull away from him, maybe to slap him across the face for good measure, but she surprised him by doing the opposite. She allowed him to slip his arms around to the small of her back and then pressed her body against his own, just the way he had imagined it happening earlier in the evening. They hadn't been at the ‘Bringing the Heat’ thing for very long, but they hadn't grabbed anything to eat at all. He could already feel the alcohol work through him and wondered if she was feeling the same. When she turned her face up to his, her lips parted ever so slightly, and it took everything in him not to bend and slip his tongue inside of that warm opening. Instead, he waited to see what she would do.
“Was there any truth to that? What that guy was saying?” she finally asked, thoughtfully rather than angry.
“Which part?” Wesley said, truthfully unsure, “The part about your body was dead on. Crude, I’ll give you that, but you really do look good.”
“The part about me being some kind of joyride departure from your usual model type. I don’t want to be a novelty, Wesley, even if the pairing up is a rouse.”
“You’re not. I can promise you that, you’re not.”
“But then-”
He couldn't control it any longer. He didn't want to. He pulled her tight, feeling her warm hips press against a cock that was aching to feel the rest of her and kissed her. Right there in the middle of the room and with zero regards as to what in the fuck he thought he was doing, he kissed her. She tasted like champagne.
