by Claire Kent
“Gonna come. You come too.” She clawed at his bare ass, knowing she was marking him, wanting to mark him. Then her whole body arched back and her mouth opened in a silent scream of pleasure.
Her inner walls clamped down around Ander’s cock, and he fell out of rhythm too. With a few last grunts, he pushed against her clenching. Then his cock pulsed, his whole body pulsed, as he climaxed on a choked word.
His breathing was fast and sloppy as his elbows buckled and his body collapsed briefly on hers.
She clung to him for the few moments he remained on top of her, holding him with her arms and her legs.
Then he heaved himself up with a groan. “Got to get the condom,” he muttered, holding it in place as he pulled out of her before his cock softened fully.
Lori was sore, and her muscles felt overly stretched, but as she scooted back fully onto the bed and got under the covers, she felt ridiculously satisfied.
Ander was right about what he’d said in the elevator last month. Why should she overcomplicate this? She paid Ander good money. And he gave her good sex. They got along just fine, and she liked to spend time with him.
Her only regret was that Ander had won the pillow fight.
Ander stayed in the bathroom a little longer than usual but not as long as he had that night she returned from Hong Kong.
She realized, as he walked back into the room fully naked, that they’d stopped turning the lights off at some unspecified point over the past few months. She could see Ander’s lean, nude body as clear as day as he made his way over to her side of the bed and bent over to pick up his boxers.
He had broad shoulders, a tight abdomen, long legs and a trim, gorgeous ass. His butt was exposed to her as he pulled his boxers on, so she had an excellent view of the firm cheeks and trim flanks. And the angry red marks crisscrossing his fair skin from her fingernails.
She stifled a snicker at this evidence of how vividly she’d marked him, and she pulled the sheet and comforter up to her armpits. She wasn’t wearing anything except her cashmere tank, and her body wasn’t perfectly chiseled for public appreciation the way Ander’s was.
Ander gave her a questioning look as he returned to the bed and got under the covers beside her. “What?”
She must not have hid her snicker very well. “Nothing.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why are you laughing at me?”
“I’m not. Not really. I was just looking at those scratches I made on your ass. Sorry about that.”
With a half shrug, he replied, “No big deal.”
“I didn’t realize I scratched you that hard. They don’t hurt, do they?”
“Not much. Don’t worry about it. At least it wasn’t my head.” His mouth quirked into a smile. “Although you were rather enthusiastic.”
His tone was light and teasing, but Lori’s cheeks burned painfully. She had been enthusiastic. More than enthusiastic. She’d been almost frantic in her need to get him inside her. She’d liked the feeling at the time, but now she was embarrassed by her brazenness, her almost childish eagerness.
“What’s the matter?” Ander asked, studying her face. He tried to meet her eyes, but she avoided his gaze.
“Nothing.”
“Lori.” Ander’s voice held an edge of warning, the way Sabrina’s always did when Lori was being foolish.
“Fine,” Lori relented with a scowl. “I’m just embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s not rational. It’s just that the world seems to think that being cool and collected is the way to go. And I can never manage to be that way, no matter how hard I try. I just get too excited about things. And this sex stuff is still pretty new to me, and you made it sound like I... like I...” She trailed off, not sure how to articulate her uncomfortable feeling.
“Like you what?” Ander had turned onto his side and was watching her with a frown.
“Like I was overly eager or something.” The flush on her cheeks deepened, and she couldn’t look him in the eye. She wished she’d never brought the ridiculous subject up. “Never mind. It’s just a stupid feeling. I know it’s silly.”
“Yes,” Ander said slowly. “It is.”
She gasped and cut her eyes back to glare at him.
He just lifted his eyebrows. “Surely you know better than to think being enthusiastic in bed is a turnoff.”
When he put it that way, her embarrassment did sound pretty silly. But still... “No need to be snotty about it,” she huffed.
Ander just chuckled and changed the subject. “So have you been practicing with your vibrator?”
It seemed a perfectly natural transition to Lori, so she answered easily. “Yes. I’ve been doing pretty well, I think. Thanks for getting it for me and helping me with it.”
“You’re welcome.” Ander stretched his long body as if he were trying to make himself more comfortable. “So your boyfriend was a disappointment in bed?”
Had Lori been thinking about it, she might have noticed that there had been no real segue to this question. But she was feeling relaxed and satisfied again, and she didn’t notice anything odd about it. “He wasn’t my boyfriend. We never got that far.” At Ander’s puzzled look, she clarified. “We never got far enough for him to be my boyfriend. And actually, we never got as far as bed.”
“I see. He was one of those. Sloppy sex in the back of a car?” Ander asked, his voice dry and teasing.
“No!” Lori’s tone was outraged, but she was more amused than anything else. “We never had sex at all.”
Her quivering smile faded as she thought about Phil and how he’d made her feel. She shook her head ruefully. “Evidently that was the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t put out soon enough for him, so he found someone younger and hotter.”
“What?” Ander’s question wasn’t loud, but the understated astonishment in his voice was once again comforting.
“So you think it’s bad too, don’t you?” Lori asked, meeting his eyes earnestly. “I mean, you don’t think it’s acceptable for a guy to treat me like trash just because I didn’t fuck him on the third date.”
For a moment Ander’s jaw was tense and a little muscle flickered in his cheek. Then his face relaxed, and he turned to give her a small shake of his head. “Sounds like you picked out an asshole for yourself.”
Lori giggled, feeling absurdly better about the whole thing now that Ander had so matter-of-factly sentenced Phil to the same level of hell she and Sabrina had. “That’s what I say.”
When she glanced over at Ander, she caught him scanning her face with obvious scrutiny. “What?” she demanded.
“You hadn’t really fallen for the asshole, had you?” His tone was casual, nonchalant, and it didn’t quite match the urgent searching of his eyes.
“No. I really hadn’t. I mean, I felt like crap after he dumped me. But I was mostly humiliated. I really thought he had potential, so I felt so stupid afterward. And it did hurt. I’ve always felt...” Her words had spilled out unthinkingly, but she cut herself off when she realized what she was about to say.
“You’ve always felt what?”
Lori closed her eyes. She had no intention of opening up about this, but she heard herself saying the words anyway. “I’ve always felt second-best. You know, always in the shadow of someone else. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I was in love with a guy all through high school and college who didn’t love me back. And this thing with Phil kind of made me feel that way again. Like I was being stupid for expecting the hot guy to fall in love with me.” Her voice cracked a little as she concluded. “I guess I keep waiting for someone to choose me, to want me, over all the other women he could have.”
The hotel room was silent as she finished, and she darted nervous eyes over to Ander. His expression was quiet, reflective, and it made Lori burn with self-consciousness again.
What the hell was she thinking? Spilling her guts like that.
>
He must think she was a needy, foolish girl.
Ander didn’t speak immediately, and Lori couldn’t think of anything to say. She squirmed restlessly, trying to talk herself back into the comfortable familiarity she’d felt earlier this evening.
She was just on the verge of back-pedaling when Ander finally spoke.
“There was a woman who was a business associate of my father’s. She was about ten years older than me, but she’d been making moves on me since I was eighteen.”
Lori blinked, disoriented at first with the change of subject. Ander lay on the bed beside her with his hands crossed behind his head. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, and there was no trace of emotion on his face.
She realized he was answering her question from earlier that evening—about his first time as a male escort. Maybe her confession, her making herself vulnerable, had opened the door for him as well.
“After my dad and I got into our ten-millionth fight, I swore I’d have nothing more to do with him. I kept my word. I’d been working on an MBA, but I dropped out of school, and I would no longer use any of his money or resources. I bummed around for almost a year, living with friends and doing nothing constructive. And this woman kept making moves on me. I wasn’t interested. She wasn’t my type, and I didn’t like her connections to my dad. Then she offered me five thousand dollars to go on a date with her.”
Ander’s voice was dry and matter-of-fact, and his features were so calm they were almost stoic. “I accepted. I didn’t have a job, and I had no money of my own. I took her to dinner, then a cocktail party, then back to her place where I fucked her. I lived for a month on one night’s work.”
Lori’s heart was racing for some reason, and she couldn’t seem to take a full breath. But she kept her voice natural, not wanting to make a big deal about the fact that he’d opened up for the first time. “Did your father know about it?”
“Oh yeah. I made sure he knew. It seemed so easy to me. Take women out. Make money doing it. This woman had a lot of friends, so I got referrals from the very beginning. Gradually I made a whole business out of it.”
“Was it hard?” Lori asked, keeping her voice as light as possible. “That first time?”
“No.” Ander shifted his eyes over to meet her gaze, although he only held it for a few seconds. “It really wasn’t. I was angry and... and determined. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard at... other times. But the first time wasn’t. At all.” He gave a bitter laugh. “It didn’t take long for my father to disown me completely.”
“He knows you still do this?”
“Yes. He pretends not to recognize my existence. But he knows.”
As she gazed over at Ander in the artificial light of the room, she thought for a moment that he looked incredibly young. Which was ridiculous. He was seven years older than she was, and he’d had more than one lifetime’s worth of experience already.
But he looked young. Like a boy. Like a boy who still wanted his father to love him.
She moved instinctively, without planning ahead or thinking her actions through. She just raised herself up on her elbows and leaned over toward where his head was resting on a pillow.
Then her lips found his. Pressed against them in a soft, brief kiss.
It all felt perfectly natural until Ander’s breath caught audibly in his throat. His body jerked slightly, and he stared at her in astonishment, his blue-gray eyes wide and bewildered.
Lori blushed hotly and pulled away.
“What’s going on?” Ander asked, his voice slightly breathless.
Lori felt breathless too. “I don’t know,” she admitted sheepishly. “I just... just felt like kissing you. Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” Ander’s shock had subdued, and he was looking more like himself, quiet and watchful as his eyes scanned her face. “I told you from the beginning we could kiss if you wanted to. I just thought you didn’t want to pretend.”
“I don’t. I still don’t want to pretend anything. I don’t know why I did that.” Lori was still propped up beside him, looking down at him, but she wished she’d never started this whole thing. She was nervous, confused, and self-conscious, and she didn’t like feeling that way.
Ander’s eyes never left her face. “We’ve never done it before, so maybe you were just curious.”
It wasn’t the truth, but it was a good excuse, so Lori wasn’t about to object. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to try kissing?” Ander asked. “If it feels unnatural, we don’t have to do it. It’s entirely up to you.”
Lori stared down at his sober face, deep eyes, and gracefully curved lips. She did want to try—just to see what it was like. But she was suddenly so nervous she couldn’t make herself move.
“Lori?” Ander prompted. He hadn’t moved. Not a muscle. He lay perfectly still and watched her. Waited.
Her body moved of its own accord and she scooted closer to him. Leaned down so her mouth was just a whisper away from Ander’s. Her heart was pounding so loudly she could hear it, feel it in her head, in her fingertips, in her lips.
There was no rational reason for her to be so hesitant and anxious about a kiss. But she felt frozen in place, breathing unsteadily and shaking a little.
“Just try it, Lori,” Ander said, his voice a little thick. She could feel his breath on her skin. “Kiss me.”
Then suddenly she was kissing him. She didn’t know who had closed the gap between their mouths. She didn’t remember moving, but Ander’s lips were suddenly pressed against hers.
With a choked sound, she grabbed his bald head with one of her hands. A thrill of excitement and arousal ripped through her as her mouth moved eagerly against his.
He slid his tongue against the line of her lips in a questioning exploration. When she opened for him, his tongue dipped inside, teasing and stroking with both hunger and confidence.
Then Ander turned them over on the bed so he was on top. One of his hands cradled the back of her head as the kiss grew deeper and more intense.
Lori clutched at his head with both hands, feeling the tight skin of his scalp with her fingertips. Her whole body rocked up into his as their lips and tongues danced and dueled. He was so hot it felt like he was branding her—on her lips, all over her body.
She whimpered against his mouth and breathed desperately through her nose until he finally pulled away and collapsed back on the bed beside her.
Lori panted hotly—aroused, exhilarated, and terrified.
“How did you like it?” Ander asked. She was glad to hear that he sounded rather breathless and his voice was a little hoarse.
“Um.”
“If it feels fake or unnatural to you, we don’t have to do it. It’s up to you.”
“Um.”
“Sometimes it’s nice to do something different, but we can do whatever you want.”
“Um.”
Ander’s eyes finally found and held hers. “Well? What did you think?”
Lori swallowed hard. “Wow. You’re really good at that.”
Something softened almost imperceptibly in Ander’s face. “Should we try it again?”
Lori would be a sorry fool not to try something that good again. Why the hell hadn’t she been kissing him all along?
Feeling a surge of deep desire, she rolled back over and grabbed his head once more. Then she kissed him hard and deep.
His arms came up around her immediately, and he helped pull her into position on top of him. She sprawled over his warm, lean body and couldn’t seem to stop kissing him.
This time she used her tongue more actively, trying to match the skillful motion of his. She stroked his smooth scalp and felt a jolt of sharp pleasure when he moaned softly at the back of his throat.
While they kissed, his hands were busy. He caressed down her spine and then moved lower to her thighs and bottom, where he fondled and groped with intimate entitlement.
Breaking off the kiss for a minute so she could recoup and catch
her breath, she slid one of her hands down past his chest and belly until she could feel his erection through his boxers. The silk was thin and slippery, and she squeezed his hard flesh through the fabric.
She heard his breath hitch and figured it must be a good thing. She hadn’t quite evened out her own breathing when Ander took her head in his hands and pulled her down into another kiss. His fingers tangled in her hair as he teased her mouth open once more with his tongue. She kept massaging his cock as they kissed, loving how firm and substantial he felt beneath her hand and how his body kept tightening with each squeeze.
Soon she got lost in the embrace. Her body did what it wanted to do, which was rub against his and try to suck his tongue into her mouth. She felt his hands move down to her cashmere tank. She hazily thought he must be trying to pull it off her, but she wouldn’t release him enough to let him do so.
Eventually he gave up and instead moved her hips away so he could free his cock from his boxers. Their lips broke apart as he reached for a condom. Then he helped her into position as she straddled his pelvis and sank down, sheathing his erection with her wet heat.
She started to ride him the way she knew how, but after a few minutes, he guided her upper body down against his and claimed another kiss.
She had no objections. She didn’t have much freedom of motion, sprawled over him in this position, but she didn’t care. He felt full and hard inside her, and the slight friction of their rocking together was delicious. She could get some good stimulation on her clit from his pelvic bone, and she started to moan and huff against his mouth as the pressure of an orgasm developed between her legs.
Her head was spinning. The whole world was spinning. And it felt like Ander would eat her alive, swallow her whole.
She jerked her head to the side as her body clenched up, just on the verge of shattering. She whimpered and panted, twisting her hips to get more stimulation from the penetration of Ander’s cock against her slick inner walls.
Then she came, her body writhing clumsily on top of his as the spasms of pleasure sliced through her.
Ander grunted and his hips bucked up with short jerks against her groin. His fingers dug into the flesh of her ass. “Lori?” he rasped, his face twisting briefly.
