Brielle didn't make it to the hotel room.
She made it to the elevator.
The gala had been three hours of torture in black velvet — three hours of Richard's hand on the small of her back, three hours of champagne flutes and camera flashes, three hours of being the perfect arm candy while under her couture gown she was hard and tucked and aching and desperate.
By the time Richard guided her through the lobby of the Northern Hotel, his hand possessive at her waist, Brielle was shaking. The boning of the strapless gown dug into her ribs with every shallow breath. The sheer Wolford pantyhose clung damp at the waistband. The tiny blush silk thong was soaked through, stuck to her skin. The tuck — God, the tuck — had been fighting her since the first course, and she'd spent the whole night willing it to stay flat under the velvet.
In the elevator, Richard hit the penthouse button, the doors slid shut, and the moment they were alone, Brielle broke.
"Daddy," she whimpered, her voice cracking, high and girlish and wrecked. She turned into him, her satin Louboutins wobbling, her hands clutching at his tuxedo lapels, her five-carat diamond flashing wildly. "Please, please, I can't — it's hurting —"
Richard didn't answer with words. He backed her against the mirrored wall of the elevator, his big body caging hers, one hand coming up to cradle her jaw, the other sliding down her side, over the liquid black velvet of her gown.
"I know, baby," he murmured, his blue eyes dark with hunger and pride. "You've been so good for me. So tucked. So perfect."
His hand found the hidden side zipper of her gown, the tiny metal tab at her ribcage. He pulled it down in one slow, deliberate drag — zzzzip — the sound loud in the small space.
The boning released its grip instantly. Brielle gasped as the velvet loosened, as she could finally breathe, as the pressure on her middle eased. The strapless bodice slipped down, catching on her hips, exposing the top of her sheer pantyhose, the blush silk thong underneath, the unmistakable ridge straining against the nylon.
"Oh my God," Brielle sobbed, her head falling back against the mirror, her RICHARD'S WIFEY choker stark against her throat, her honey blonde hair mussed. "Oh my God, Daddy, touch me —"
Richard's hand slid inside the loosened gown, his palm hot against her stomach, then lower, over the sheer black pantyhose, feeling her through the layers — hard, throbbing, trapped.
He didn't untuck her. Not yet. He just pressed, flat-palmed, holding her through the hose, giving her the pressure she'd been begging for all night.
Brielle came apart.
Not with a shout, not with anything graphic or messy — with a full-body shudder that started in her Louboutin-clad toes and rolled up through her pantyhose-clad legs, through her velvet-trapped hips, through her chest. Her knees buckled, the satin shoes slipping on the elevator floor, the black velvet pooling around her waist.
She sobbed once, a broken, relieved sound, her forehead dropping to Richard's shoulder, her hands fisting in his tuxedo shirt, her whole body trembling as the terrible, beautiful pressure finally, finally released.
"That's it," Richard soothed, his voice a low rumble in her ear, his hand still holding her steady through the gown and hose, his other arm locked around her back so she didn't fall. "Let go for Daddy. I've got you."
The elevator dinged. Penthouse.
Richard scooped her up — gown half-off, pantyhose still on, Louboutins dangling from her feet — and carried her down the hall like she weighed nothing, kicking the hotel room door open with his shoulder.
Inside, he laid her on the big white bed, the black velvet gown twisted around her hips, the sheer pantyhose still smoothing her legs, the blush thong dark with relief underneath.
Brielle lay there panting, her makeup smudged, her choker askew, her diamond catching the lamplight, her whole body limp and humming and finally, blessedly comfortable.
Richard knelt beside the bed and slowly, reverently, peeled the pantyhose down her legs — inch by inch, the nylon whispering as it released her skin, rolling over her knees, her calves, her ankles, until he slipped them free and tossed them aside.
Then he did the same with the velvet gown, easing it down, freeing her completely.
Brielle sighed, a deep, shuddering, emotional sigh, and curled on her side, naked except for the WIFEY choker and the five-carat ring, her honey blonde hair spread across the pillow.
Richard climbed in behind her, still in his tuxedo trousers and shirt, and pulled her against his chest, his big hand splaying warm and possessive over her flat stomach.
"Better?" he whispered into her hair.
Brielle nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks — not from pain, from relief, from love, from the overwhelming sensory bliss of finally being out of the boning and the tuck and the hose.
"So much better, Daddy," she whispered, her voice hoarse and happy and utterly his. "Thank you for taking care of your wifey."
Richard kissed the back of her neck, right above her choker.
"Always," he promised. "Always."
And in the penthouse suite in Billings, with her gala gown in a black velvet puddle on the floor and her pantyhose draped over the chair, Brielle Sullivan finally slept — relieved, released, and completely, irrevocably Richard's.…
