I never thought I was sexy. That isn't to say I thought I was unattractive, but there's a difference between sexiness and an acceptable look. Everyone has something nice about their personal appearance, but that doesn't mean they have that je ne sais quoi sexual appeal.
I dressed as nicely as I could, though, wearing nice looking skirts and blouses. Maybe I bought my clothes at Macy's or JC Penney, but they looked good. Probably not as fashionable as women in Lucas Wellington's tier, but I could buy ten full outfits with what they paid for a single blouse. I owned shelves full of body scrubs, soaps, facial cleansers, and a ton of other woman's essentials for my early morning routine when I was getting ready for the day. I loved to take baths, used rose, sandalwood, and green tea scented shampoo, and splurged on the more expensive conditioners.
I looked nice; I liked how I looked. Blonde, average weight, a little bit of a tan from the tanning machines at the gym where I shared a membership with a friend. I kept in shape, ate as well as I could, and cared about my appearance. Cosmetics, styling my hair, making sure my clothes were fresh and clean and without wrinkles.
Still, that didn't make me sexy. I was sure men found me attractive enough, and I'd had boyfriends in the past. Sex, compliments, and everything that went along with relationships.
But…
When Lucas Wellington, the billionaire CEO of Wellington Enterprises asked to take sexy photos of me, I balked.
It was a requirement, he said. Not a requirement of his choosing, either, but mine. At least it was mine in a way. I could say no, I could disagree, but if I wanted him to agree to what I'd asked of him, then I needed to accept his requirement.
A small part of me wanted to run away right then. What was I getting myself into? He'd invited me to a restaurant to discuss something and that was it. Granted, he wanted to discuss me possibly becoming an egg donor and surrogate mother for him and his wife, so the situation was already awkward, but this just made it worse.
He teased me, tormented me, except I thought he didn't mean it in a bad way. An accident, like someone who was unsure how to proceed. Thinking back to what I'd done, I felt the same. Why did I curl my toes, let them trace towards his crotch and his stiffening manhood hidden beneath his pants. He'd offered me a calf massage and nothing more, and I was the one who took it further. Lucas was the one who elevated it, almost getting me off with his foot, but then it stopped.
And started. And stopped.
Sitting in our private booth at The Simple Path, a luxurious Japanese restaurant, I answered him.
"Fine," I said. "I'll do it ."
"Good," he said with a deliciously deviant grin on his face.
I wanted to kiss him so badly, but he reached for a piece of battered and fried sweet potato from our vegetable tempura plate. Why was I sitting next to him now? I'd started across the table, less intimate, and now here I was, sitting elbow to elbow with him, the Lucas Wellington.
It was the sake. I was never a good drinker, always quick to get a bit of a buzz, and we'd gone through three cups of the drink already. Not drunk, not by a long shot, but I wanted an excuse. I needed a reason to stay near him, desired it. As per our agreement, I would answer him about surrogacy when I was good and ready, and not a moment sooner, and he would spend the day with me until I did. Was that selfish? Who had the better part of the deal there? It was his idea, a type of control, or the giving away of it, but what did he really want out of this?
I could keep him to myself, at least for a little bit, and pretend there was some other reason he wanted to share my company, some other purpose besides his request for me to think about becoming his wife's egg donor. She was infertile, they didn't see each other often, maybe he was lonely?
Maybe… he wanted… me?
I didn't know if I could let him take sexy pictures of me, though. A hobby, nothing more, just something he enjoyed doing in his spare time.
I never thought I was sexy. I still wasn't sure.
…
Lucas didn't know what had come over him. He didn't know why he'd asked Amira to model for his photography. It wasn't a shameful thing, not in his mind, and he owned all of the proper equipment, but this was new to him. He couldn't help himself. It was as if he needed to ask her, some fate ordained.
He never believed in fates or destinies or anything like that, though. People made their own paths in life, and he'd made his. He'd invited her here under the awkward, though innocuous reason of seeing how she would answer his request from the day prior.
Yes, nothing more than that, right? Except yesterday he'd chastised her by putting her on the table in his private meeting room and stripping her of all her clothes. True, she ruined one of his favorite books first, the one that his father had given to him after he graduated from private school and before he'd gone to college, but it was replaceable. Special, with memories, but she never destroyed the memories and sentiment.
He didn't think Amira could ever do something like that. She only made them, new ones, blossomed and nurtured thoughts.
She was plain, regular, and… no, she was none of those things. Her clothing looked average, but like any book, there was a lot going on beneath her cover. He wanted to know it, to read her, to sit by a fire while drinking a fine wine and exploring every aspect of her as if she were a classic work of literature and he was stuck inside on a rainy, dismal day.
He had a wife. He couldn't do these things. This was some inexplicable fascination. He tried to dissuade himself, letting himself look at her. She wore the casual chemise shirt he gave her yesterday after he'd ripped the buttons from her other shirt. The skirt covering her legs went a little higher than her hips, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. Her perfume, whatever the scent, was pleasant but not too intoxicatingly so.