by Bec Linder
I didn’t look at him. I hated his constant reminders that I was a whore.
“And you’re offended now,” he said, sounding amused. He pulled me upright again, his hand moving along my spine until it cupped the back of my neck, forcing me to stand straight and meet his gaze. “Of course. Sell yourself for money, and get annoyed when someone reminds you of that simple fact. All right, we don’t discuss it further.” The hand that wasn’t holding my head in place slid down my bare chest to the swell of my breasts, hoisted into lush roundness by my corset. “Take this off.”
I sucked in a deep breath. “You’ll have to help me.”
“Gladly,” he said. “How like a woman, to wear something you can’t even remove without assistance.”
“I don’t think that’s something women do,” I said. “I think that’s something whores do.” I spat the word at him, full of venom, but he just gave me a bland look, like nothing I said could possibly affect him.
It probably couldn’t.
Well, I didn’t fucking care. He obviously liked me. He wouldn’t have requested me again, otherwise. For some bizarre reason, he liked my smart mouth. So why hold back? He said he wouldn’t fire me for refusing him, and Germaine said she wouldn’t let him fire me no matter what, so why keep Sasha under lock and key? Sassy was sweet and melting, but Sasha, the real me, was ready to spit flames.
I was tired of being a plaything for men. Fine. There: I admitted it.
But it didn’t matter what I wanted. There were people depending on me.
Furious, aroused, I gave in and turned in his arms.
I expected him to go straight for the laces of my corset, but instead his hands settled lightly on my shoulders. His thumbs swept across the bumps where my collarbones met my shoulders, a teasing caress that sent a shiver through me. I heard him chuckle, and then felt his mouth at the back of my neck, brushing against my hairline. “What do you think might happen in this room tonight, Sassy Belle?”
“That sounds like a trick question,” I said.
“You’re not as dumb as you look,” he said. His hands left my shoulders and slid down my back to the tightly knotted laces near my waist.
“You’re a jerk,” I said, ignoring the heat kindled in me by even these fairly innocent caresses. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
“I can’t say anyone has,” he said, sounding amused.
“Well, you are,” I said. “You can’t go around telling girls that they look dumb. What a terrible idea. I can’t believe anyone’s ever had sex with you.”
“Who says anyone has?” he asked. “I could be a virgin.”
Yeah right. Not with the way he’d touched me the night before. “You’ll have to find someone else to pop your cherry,” I said. “I’m not in that business.”
He tugged at my laces, picking apart the knot Scarlet had tied. “I imagine it would be fairly lucrative.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Virgins cry. Or else they fall in love with you. I don’t have time for that.”
“It’s just business to you, then,” he said. “A monetary transaction.”
“That’s right,” I said, “so don’t get any big ideas.” My heart pounded. Bantering with him seemed dangerous, somehow. Like I was taunting a large and ferocious animal that could eat me in one bite.
He didn’t respond, just started unlacing my corset. He was slow and clumsy, and started loosening the laces from the top, which wouldn’t work and might ruin the corset, but I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to delay the inevitable. I was weirdly nervous. I didn’t want to get naked and get down to business just yet.
Christ, why had he come back? Why had he requested me again? I had a nose for trouble, and this situation was a big fat grenade just waiting to go off. It wouldn’t end well. He was too handsome and too cocky, and my body liked him way, way too much. Definitely a recipe for trouble. I should tell him to leave me alone, walk out of the room, and go work Webster’s party.
I didn’t want to do that, though. I wanted to stay right where I was.
That was the problem. When shoulds and wants conflicted.
“This damn thing is impossible to take off,” he said, tugging sharply at the laces.
“You’re going to break it,” I said. “Start from the middle.”
“I thought the entire point of being a stripper was removing your clothing,” he said. “Not making it incredibly difficult to remove.”
“It looks sexy,” I said. “That’s the point. This corset isn’t supposed to come off when I’m dancing, and zippers cost extra. Nobody forced you to show up and request me tonight. If you don’t like my corset, I’ll go find somebody who does.”
He stopped pulling at the laces and leaned forward, mouth brushing the back of my ear. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart.”
And just like that, I went from irritation to desire in less than a second. He could insult my stripper clothes all he wanted as long as he kept talking to me in that voice, low and complex like rich chocolate.
When I didn’t reply, he went back to loosening my corset, doing it properly this time. When he was finished, I turned back to face him, looked up to meet his eyes, and undid the first hook at the bottom of the busk.
And there it was: the powerful feeling I always had on stage, except this was even better, because it was Turner watching me, and I had never wanted any man’s attention as much as I wanted his. He held my gaze as I opened the corset hook by hook, his eyes dark and compelling, never wavering.
The air between us was charged as the sky before a summer thunderstorm. Something was going to happen, and I was kind of scared of it, but I also really wanted to find out what it was.
He wanted me. I could see it in his eyes, and I felt myself responding to it, meeting desire with desire.
I wanted him just as much as he wanted me.
I unhooked the final stud and the corset fell open, baring me from neck to waist.
Without taking his eyes from mine, Turner seized the corset in one hand and tossed it onto a nearby chair.
And then he touched me.
His hands slid over my breasts, skimming across my nipples, and I felt the waiting storm break over me.
I gasped and threw my head back, eyes closing as heat spread through my body, nipples to pussy. He’d barely touched me and I was ready to go on all fours and beg for him. Like a whore.
Well, I was a whore. Might as well own it.
“You are the most responsive creature,” he said, pinching lightly at my nipples and making me squirm. “Let’s take off these panties and see what you’re hiding underneath.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” I said. I opened my eyes again and lowered my head, watching him as he stared down at my bare breasts. “You saw it yesterday. It’s not like I grew a tail overnight or something.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you,” he said. One of his hands skimmed down my side and slid across the silky tap shorts covering my ass. He lifted his hand and spanked me lightly, not hard, but enough to make me jump.
“That’s extra, sugar,” I said.
He chuckled and met my eyes again. His gaze was dark and warm with sex and laughter, and my breath caught because I recognized that look. It was the way he’d looked at me the first time we met, when he knelt at my feet and cleaned my bleeding knees.
It really was him, then. The same man. Okay, obviously he was the same person, there was no disputing that, but I hadn’t really believed it. It was too strange to believe, that Turner was the same person as the Good Samaritan I’d met on the street. Turner was so closed off and commanding and cold, except for when he touched me and heat flared between us like wildfire.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said, shaken now, because maybe that kind man wasn’t lost to me.
Christ. Rule 1, Sasha.
And rule 2.
And rule 3.
“If you’re thinking this much, I’m obviously doing something wrong,” he
said. The hand on my ass slid beneath my tap shorts, squeezed, and tugged the fabric down. The shorts weren’t tight, and they slid down without much effort, down to my knees and then taken by gravity all the way to the floor, where I stepped out of them.
And then it was just me, naked except for my shoes, waiting for him to touch me.
“Get on the bed,” he told me.
I wanted to, but I also didn’t, because who knew how I would embarrass myself this time. So I stalled. “Boring,” I said. “We used the bed last time.”
“No. I used the bed. This time you’ll be on it. New and different,” he said. “It’s a shame you don’t know how to keep your mouth shut. I’m not paying you to talk.”
Well, fair enough. There probably wasn’t a man alive who would pay to listen to me talk. I walked over to the bed and did my best to climb onto it gracefully, which wasn’t easy, because the mattress was about eight feet tall. Turner didn’t laugh, though, as I clambered on and arranged myself against the pillows, reclining with one knee drawn up, showing him everything he wanted.
He waited until I was settled, and then turned and opened a drawer in a small side table.
“There’s nothing in there,” I said. “There’s tissues over here, and—”
“I don’t want tissues,” he said, cutting me off. “Stupid of you to think I would show up unprepared.” He took something from the drawer and shut it again, his back turned to me so I couldn’t see what he was holding. Maybe a blindfold, or those stupid fuzzy handcuffs that some clients liked to use. I hated them because they dug into my wrists and I had to be really careful not to break them or tug too hard and yank them open.
“Your ground rule is that you don’t touch me,” he said.
I swallowed. Where was he going with this? “That’s right.”
“Ample loopholes,” he said. “My favorite kind of rule.” He turned, then, and I saw what he was holding in his hand.
It was a glass dildo, curved at one end.
Oh dear Christ.
Was he really going to—
“Spread your legs,” he said, which sounded like he definitely intended to.
I flushed all over, face heating and pussy growing even wetter. I spread my thighs apart as he approached the bed and climbed onto the mattress. The bed sank beneath his weight as he knelt between my legs.
He was still wearing his shoes.
Funny the things you fixated on when you were totally freaked out and about to cream all over the sheets.
He held the dildo in his left hand. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it: the fat rounded tip, the smooth shaft. He was going to put that thing in me, and I was going to—
Well. I was definitely going to lose control of myself.
Some things were foregone conclusions.
“I should have made you take that damn wig off,” Turner said. “Too late now.”
“I can take it off,” I said, and then wished I had kept my mouth shut. Putting the wig back on was a pain, and it got crumpled unless I put it on a wig form. But I wanted him to be pleased with me, and if he liked me better without the wig, well, I would do whatever it took to keep him looking my way.
Stupid. There was nothing appealing about him.
His body, maybe. Sure. Okay. He was hot.
But he was a jerk, and a creep, and I didn’t like him at all.
God, I was really bad at lying to myself.
“Leave it alone,” he said. “I don’t feel like waiting while you fumble around with it.” Still grasping the dildo in one hand, he slid his other hand between my legs, grazing over the soft skin of my thighs before his fingertips made contact with my slick, heated flesh. I inhaled sharply, and he moved his fingers higher, until they were pressing against my swollen clit.
I bit my lip, teeth digging in hard, fighting to hold back the cries that wanted to escape from my mouth. Every time he touched me, it was like there were angels singing in the sky, fat little cherubs. Blindfolded cherubs, though. I didn’t want any angelic babies watching what I was up to.
“Breathe,” he said, and then, without any other warning, slid the dildo into me.
I did cry out then, teeth and cherubs be damned. It was cool and unyielding, not at all the temperature or texture of a real penis, and that somehow made it more overwhelming than if Turner had just pulled out his cock and fucked me. He slid it in and in and in, until I was sure I couldn’t take anymore, and then he spun it in a quick circle, an arc of pleasure so strong I felt the muscles in my thighs twitch in response.
“I wonder,” he said, taking his other hand away from my clit and curling it over the wing of my hip, holding me down. “Can I make you come just from this?”
I took a deep breath. “Probably not,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“I’ll take that as a challenge, then,” he said, with a quick flash of white teeth that didn’t quite count as a smile. He moved the dildo so that the curved head pushed gently upward, toward the ceiling, and my toes curled at the wave of ecstasy that rolled through me. “There we are,” he said, and pressed again, and again.
My eyes fluttered shut. He kept moving the dildo inside me, and each push gave me that same tight, eager feeling, like I was building toward something odd and wonderful. It didn’t feel the way it did when someone touched my clit. That was a surface pleasure, easy and uncomplicated. This was deeper, stranger, and still mysterious to me. The feelings took root in my belly and grew up through my chest, into my arms and legs, spiraling along all of my nerves, until I was a squirming mess of desire and raw sensation, taken past the point of thought and into a world of pure bodily feeling.
“There we are,” Turner said again, from a great distance.
I ached. I was on fire. I rocked my hips up to meet every push of the dildo. I didn’t care if he thought I was greedy or a slut; I just wanted him to keep going. I had never felt anything like this, and I didn’t want it to stop.
“You’re going to make a mess,” Turner said. “Come on, then. Let me see you.”
I was so out of at that point that his words didn’t mean anything to me. They were just background noise, a white roar in my ears. I understood the tone of his voice, though the raw undercurrent that said he wanted me.
I had been with a lot of clients over the last two years. They all wanted me: my body, my pleasure, my attention. But the way Turner looked at and touched me, somehow rough and careful at the same time, made me feel like he wanted me.
He moved the dildo again, his fingers digging into my hip, and the pleasure twisting in my belly rose up too high for my body to contain, and I spilled over into orgasm.
It wasn’t like any orgasm I’d ever experienced. It felt tighter somehow, deeper inside me, and it went on and on while I clamped down on the dildo and shuddered and throbbed. And then I felt Turner’s fingers at my clit again, teasing lightly and sending me into a fresh wave of spasms.
I curled away from him, finally, totally unable to take any more. I lay on my side on the bed, panting, feeling a droplet of sweat roll down one of my breasts.
Turner’s hand slid from my hip to my knee, stroking my thigh, soothing me.
“What did you do to me?” I said, when my brain cells had recovered enough to produce language.
“I thought you might like that,” he said. “Now roll onto your front.”
I obeyed with rubbery limbs, and flopped down with my face pressed into the mattress. “What are you going to do?”
“Do you really have to ask that question?” he asked, and I heard his zipper slide down.
I pushed up onto my elbows, suddenly concerned, but he curled one hand around the back of my neck and pressed me back against the bed. “Calm down,” he said. “I told you I’m not going to force you.” I heard a sound, and tried to turn my head to look, but he kept his hand where it was, pushing me down, and I couldn’t move.
Maybe I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. For some stupid reason, I trusted him.
&n
bsp; The noise got louder and came faster, and I realized what it was. He was jerking himself off. Looking at my bare ass and touching himself. The realization made me flush all over. I thought he was probably trying to make me feel dirty, but it wasn’t working. It had the opposite effect. I felt like a queen, and he had come to lay offerings at my feet.
“Christ,” he said, and groaned loudly, and then I felt a splash of heat against my lower back.
Holy shit, he just came on me.
That wasn’t exactly what I meant about laying offerings.
His hand on my neck relaxed, and I pushed up onto my elbows, indignant. “Why don’t you give a girl a little warning?”
He laughed. “You loved it. Hold still, I’ll clean you up.”
I lay there, annoyed and kind of turned on, while he pulled a box of tissues from the side table and mopped me off. “I’m not a living porno,” I said. “Cumshots aren’t classy.”
“And you’re a real classy girl,” he said, with a hard edge to his voice that I didn’t like. I turned my face away from him. Emotional whiplash. He’d just neatly dethroned me. I was back to being nothing but a whore.
“Don’t sulk,” he said. “It isn’t attractive.” I heard his zipper glide up again, and he climbed off the bed and tossed the tissue in the wastebasket. I turned to look at him. He was neat and tidy again, every stitch of clothing neatly in place. You would never know that two minutes ago he’d been stroking himself off onto my bare ass.
“I’m not sulking,” I said.
“Women always say that, and it’s never true,” he said. “Now. I’m going to order some wine, and then we’ll sit down and have a conversation.”
“I thought you weren’t paying me to talk,” I said.
“Of course I’m not,” he said. “This is different. I have a proposition to make.”
6
“So,” Turner said, leaning back against the sofa.
I swirled my wine in its glass. I didn’t like red wine and didn’t ever drink it—didn’t drink much at all, really—but I was happy to hold it in my hand and pretend I was a sophisticated woman of the world. Drinking red wine meant you were a real grownup. I had never graduated from the wine coolers I drank with my friends in high school: sweet as sin and barely even alcoholic. I lifted the glass to my nose and inhaled. It even smelled expensive, something I couldn’t afford to drink.
