Chapter 4: Dangerous Dining
The crystal glass of sauvignon blanc trembled slightly in Celeste’s hand. She took a deliberate sip, the crisp acidity doing nothing to cut through the heat pooling low in her belly. Beside her, Xander’s leg brushed against hers, a casual, accidental-seeming touch that felt like a brand through the black fabric of her dress.
“So, Arthur, the new clubhouse at Pebble Beach is a masterpiece,” Xander said, his voice smooth as the aged scotch in his father’s glass. His left hand rested on his own thigh, seemingly relaxed. His right was below the line of the heavy linen tablecloth.
Celeste kept her eyes fixed on the seared scallop on her plate. She willed herself to be still, to be stone.
Then she felt it. The faintest graze of his fingertips against the outside of her thigh, just above her knee. She stiffened, a forkful of food halfway to her mouth freezing in place.
“Is that right?” Arthur boomed, swirling his scotch. “I heard they redid the entire eighteenth green. A shame, really. It had character.”
Xander’s fingers began a slow, insidious ascent. They trailed up the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, leaving a wake of electric fire. Celeste’s breath hitched. She placed her fork down carefully, the silver clinking softly against the china. Under the table, her free hand clenched into a fist in her lap.
His touch was unhurried, confident. It mapped the tension in her muscles as his thumb found the laced edge of her panties. He traced the scalloped border, back and forth, a maddening, gentle rhythm completely at odds with the violent hammering of her heart. She could feel the dampness there, a traitorous signal her body was sending, and she hated it. Hated him.
“Character is overrated, Dad. Sometimes modern efficiency is better.” Xander took a sip of his wine, his eyes cutting toward Celeste for a fraction of a second. A spark of pure, predatory amusement glittered in the blue. His thumb shifted then, moving inward from the lace, and pressed flat against the center of her.
Celeste jolted. A tiny, involuntary gasp escaped her lips.
“Everything alright, dear?” Maria asked, her face softened by candlelight and good champagne.
“Fine,” Celeste managed, her voice strangely tight. “Scallop went down the wrong way.”
Beneath the table, Xander’s thumb began to move in slow, firm circles over the soaked fabric. The pressure was exquisite agony. Each circuit sent a shockwave of sensation radiating out from her core, heat spreading through her veins like spilled ink. She could feel every thread of the lace, every pulse of her own body amplified under his relentless touch. Her controlled breathing, the measured inhales and exhales she’d mastered over years of maintaining composure, began to fracture. She dragged air in through her nostrils, her chest rising and falling in shallow, urgent rhythms.
Xander leaned forward, reaching for the breadbasket, his arm brushing her shoulder. “More bread, Celeste?” he offered, his voice a low murmur near her ear. His thumb pressed harder, rotating with a precision that made her toes curl in her heels.
“No,” she whispered, the word strangled.
He returned to his conversation with Arthur, discussing slope ratings and sand trap consistency, his diction perfect, his logic unimpeachable. All the while, his hand worked her. The circling became a more deliberate pressure, a rhythmic push against the swollen nub beneath the lace. Celeste’s vision blurred at the edges. The restaurant’s noise—the clatter of plates, the murmur of other diners—faded into a distant hum. There was only the roar of blood in her ears, the slick friction of his thumb, and the impossible, mounting coil of tension in her abdomen.
She was sweating now, a fine sheen on her upper lip and between her breasts. Her knuckles were white where she gripped her napkin. She wanted to shove him away, to scream, to tip the whole damn table over. But she also wanted—God help her—for him to never stop. The duality split her open, sharper than any knife.
Then his fingers curled. They tugged at the lace, slipping beneath the elastic band at her hip. He was going to push inside. Past the fabric. Into her.
A fresh, panicked lucidity sliced through the haze of pleasure. No. Not here. Not like this. Not while her mother smiled blissfully across the table.
As his fingertips sought the wet heat between her folds, Celeste moved. She shifted her weight slightly, lifted her right foot in its elegant heel, and brought it down with crushing force onto the polished leather of Xander’s loafer.
The contact was solid, a satisfying thud felt more than heard. Xander’s entire body stiffened. The teasing pressure vanished from between her legs. A sharp, indrawn hiss escaped his teeth, though his smile, fixed on his father, only twitched for a nanosecond.
“Well,” Arthur said, oblivious, placing his napkin on the table. “I think it’s time for a toast.” He stood, raising his glass. “To new beginnings. To family.”
Maria beamed, her eyes glistening. Celeste forced her fingers to unclench, to pick up her glass. She dared a glance at Xander. His face was a mask of polite attentiveness, but his eyes, when they met hers, were dark, stormy promises of retribution. And something else, something that looked oddly like respect.
“To family,” everyone echoed. The glasses chimed.
As they sipped, Arthur remained standing. “Since we’re all here,” he continued, his tone shifting to business-like warmth, “I’ve been thinking. Celeste, your mother tells me you’ve been killing yourself with that part-time job on top of your studies. It’s admirable, really. But it’s no way to live.”
Celeste’s stomach, already knotted from Xander’s touch, tightened into a cold, hard ball.
“I want you to consider letting me cover your tuition for the remainder of your degree,” Arthur announced, as if bestowing a gift of sunshine. “And of course, you’ll live here at the house. No more draining rent. You can focus purely on your future.”
The air was sucked from the room. Maria looked ecstatic. Xander’s expression became unreadable, a smooth facade.
Celeste felt the walls of the elegant restaurant closing in. This was it. The final trap. The generous, gilded cage. Her escape route—her hard-won, messy, independent struggle—was being neatly bricked over by a man who thought he was handing her a key.
Her future, the one she had clawed toward her entire life, was being rewritten on a linen tablecloth between the scallops and the scotch. And the only person at the table who might possibly understand the horror of it was the one whose foot was still throbbing under her own.