Page 56 of Dominant
I laughed. “Maybe I am! That’s not a bad idea!”
When Mike came back with the shots, we lifted our glasses to cheers with Stephanie; she was drinking straight out of a wine bottle.
“This is her parents’ wine!” she shouted at Mike, holding the bottle up. Stephanie loved Chateau Andilet wine.
“Yes!” I nodded. “Chateau Andilet!”
“Chateau Andilet? That’s your family?” Mike was incredulous, and I beamed drunkenly at him. It was nice to have a man hang off my every word for a change, instead of always brooding, frowning, quick to anger…
Stephanie answered for me. “Yeah! Jordan’s an Andilet. Or should be, but she has a different name.”
Mike burst out laughing at her seemingly nonsensical statement, and then I did, too. I was having fun. More fun than I’d had in a long time.
I smiled at Mike again, holding eye contact this time. He was cute, in a boyish way. He had a stocky build, maybe a little on the softer side, but so what? I thought to myself. Alexander had a rock-hard, ripped body, and where had that gotten me?
The best sex of my life, came my immediate subconscious answer. And I felt guilty and disappointed in myself that the best sex of my life had been with a self-serving bastard who was only using me as a pawn to take over my parents’ company.
I’d always dated guys like Mike, pretty average guys going nowhere fast. I knew Alexander was out of my league from the moment I saw him. It seemed so unlikely that we’d ended up hooking up… until I understood it was all a con.
What I needed, I reasoned to myself, was someone uncomplicated. The kind of guy you knew would eventually propose, and push the baby carriage, and work a shit job to cover the mortgage. Someone you could really grow old with. Someone… like Mike.
I hoped that one day, the sting of Alexander’s betrayal would fade, and I would look back with wonder at that brief time in my twenties when I had been involved with a billionaire who looked like a male model, ran with his own illegal sex club and used the money to fund his high-end investment firm. I would be putting our baby to bed and then settling down on the couch with Mike to watch TV before bed, and I would think to myself, I have really lived.
Stephanie’s boyfriend Jacob sidled up to her. He was ten years older than her, with shaggy, unkempt hair, and a chronic inability to hold down a job because he always prioritized his music. She beamed at him. That’s what love looks like in my circle, I thought to myself.
I downed my shot - tequila - and felt the warm, pleasant burn as it slid down my throat, then slowly radiated throughout my body.
I was better off without Alexander. Without Mark, without Abbott Holdings. Fuck all of them. It was time I did more of the normal stuff my peers were doing.
I leaned over to Mike, feeling flirtatious and bold, and whispered in his ear. “Let’s go fuck in the bathroom.”
He gaped at me in utter shock. “Whoa! What? Are you serious?”
“Uh huh,” I grinned.
“What? Here?”
Where else? What was I going to do, take him home to my house but then fuck him in the bathroom there?
“Yeah the bathroom here. C’mon!”
He looked unconvinced. “Is this some kind of trick?”
“No,” I laughed.
I was feeling great, and now I wanted something that would make me feel even better. Even if what was best about Mike was that he was everything Alexander was not, I wanted a taste of the excitement I got when I was at the club. Something illicit and pleasurable.
And it couldn’t hurt to get my mind off Alexander for a minute.
I grabbed Mike’s hand. “I just want to have some fun, Mike. Don’t you?”
“It’s Matt.”
Whoops.
I cast my eyes over to Stephanie, who couldn’t hear us but saw me look at her. She passed me her Chateau Andilet bottle and I took a swig right out of it.
“Okay, fuck. Sure,” said Mike/Matt, shaking his head in disbelief. “Call me whatever you want. Let’s go.”