by Skye Warren
In the reckless thrusts that follow I hit the place inside her body that makes her head fall back, her breasts push up, her legs open wider. “Oh my God.”
Despite the intensity inside me, an unsteady laugh escapes me. “You are breathtaking. You are perfection. And I don’t think I can ever leave your body.”
For a moment she looks lost. “Is it always like this?”
In this moment there is only raw honesty. “It’s never like this.”
The thought terrifies me. This is supposed to be new for her, not for me. Never for me.
Then her lips are under mine, her body pliant and accepting, and I am lost. There’s only the drive to make her come, fucking into her until she moans and stiffens. “Yes,” I mutter. “Again.”
There’s a faint protest, I think. You don’t have to, she says, but she does not understand how much I want this. So I show her, with the unrelenting drive into her body, against the place inside her that makes her legs shake. She comes again and again, drenching my cock with her pleasure, testing unused muscles that might make her sore tomorrow.
I can’t think about tomorrow, when I definitely won’t be inside her. Won’t be in this large bed. Won’t be breathing in the air around Bea.
So I fuck her until her eyes are hazy with orgasms.
The jade green clears slightly, and she places a hand on my cheek, impossibly soft and not quite steady. “Aren’t you going to?”
I don’t know why I haven’t already. I would have with any other woman, with any other client, after bringing her to climax a few times, if only to punctuate our evening. But I don’t want this to end. As soon as I spill inside her, I have to leave.
Ripping my body away from her is an acute pain, the cold air like razor blades on my cock. I grab one of the white pillows, feeling the abrasion of lace. There are two of them, enough to pad my beautiful girl as I turn her over.
“Oh,” she says in lovely surprise.
There are a sprinkling of freckles coming down from her shoulders, like a shooting star fading into empty space. She’s pale white down to her lovely ass, where she’s peachy and flushed from my grasp. It’s a beautiful sight, but I didn’t flip her over to see this; I did it to hide myself.
“This will be an education,” I murmur against her ear, my body covering her back. “That’s why you wanted me, yes? Because of things I know. Things I can teach you.”
Her moan is tortured pleasure. “Yes. Please. More.”
I slide back into her as if her body was made for mine. She squeezes me in welcome, and it’s enough to make me curse in Arabic under my breath. “My name,” I tell her.
And thank the sweet Lord, she understands. “Hugo.”
“Again,” I say, reaching around to stroke two blunt fingers over her clit. She’s slick and wet and warm, and I never want to leave this, never want to leave her.
“Hugo!” So low and breathy I feel the vibration in my cock.
“One more time, sweet Bea. For me. I want to feel you come like this.”
Each one of my thrusts pushes out a little whimper from her; every strum of her clit makes her breath suck in. Mon Dieu, how am I going to last? Because I want one more.
I run the edge of my teeth along the curl of her ear and feel her shiver in response. “Do you know what it does to me? Having you like this? Helpless underneath me? I want to tear your pretty lace sheets into strips and tie you to the bedpost. I want to fuck you all night long, until we’ve made you come a hundred times. And even then it wouldn’t be enough.”
The words bring her close, but it’s the bite of my teeth on her shoulder that sends her over the edge. She comes with a scream that makes me insane.
I want to come on her pale back, on her plush ass, on the pretty lace sheets. But I can’t do that. This isn’t about what I want. This has never been about what I want.
The pulse of her chatte is ecstasy on my cock, fierce even through the latex, and I come with sharp, bright-light bursts that seem to go on forever, longer than can be borne, until I collapse, wrung out on her sated body.
Chapter Fourteen
I’m alone at the Den the next day, because we aren’t going to meet again until Sunday. I could have called the other men in the Thieves Club, but that would have meant admitting how much last night meant to me. How hard it was to leave her with a kind but reserved, That was lovely, darling. So when someone sits down at the armchair beside me, I’m startled.
Damon Scott looks out the window at the blur of cars and glint of sunlight. He does not ask permission before taking the seat, because he owns the place. Though I’m not sure he asks permission for anything, regardless. Except perhaps to his pretty lady friend.
We sit in silence in the way that only men can do. A woman would have asked me twenty questions by now. And normally I could field them with charm and seduction. Right now I’m only fit to brood.
“Beatrix Cartwright,” he says. “You didn’t know?”
“That she was rich, yes. Not about her family.”
“More than rich. She has one of the largest portfolios in the country. I knew she lived in Tanglewood, but I never met her before last night.”
“She doesn’t get out much,” I say, my voice bland because I don’t wish to share the details of her personal struggle with this man, even if the information might be worth something to him.
“Because of her guardian? That’s what I always assumed.”
My curiosity is piqued despite myself. Her guardian. The missing link between when she lived in a mansion in California and when she was planted in a penthouse in Tanglewood. The person who must have raised her after her parents were killed.
Someone who must know the owner of L’Etoile.
“Who is she?” I ask, but it’s impossible not to appear interested. Not when I’ve been searching for this for so long. I’m leaning forward in my chair, any pretense of being casual long gone. There is a burn in my body, like acid. It fills every inch of my skin, singeing me from the inside out. The fire is revenge.
Damon doesn’t look surprised, as if he knew I would want to know. Perhaps he did. He’s that kind of man. Dangerous to someone who would cross him. “Her parents were both isolated. Both only children. There was no extended family to take her in.”
“Her name.” I’m gritting my teeth against demanding more, now, faster.
“It’s a man, actually. I’ve met him a few times.”
A man. Why does that make me uncomfortable?
Perhaps because he has her locked up in a damned tower, so afraid of men she had to pay one to take her virginity. Or perhaps because he let her hide herself from the time she was a child instead of helping her recover from her parents’ death.
“Is he a member here?”
“Yes, although he does not come frequently. I could introduce you.”
That would be… exceptional, considering I would no longer need to use Bea for that purpose. Would she find out? That depends on how much this guardian, this man, has done. “What would it cost me?”
Damon only smiles. He does not refute the claim that he will charge me something, because we both know that this is a place of business. “I’m not certain it’s a price you’re willing to pay.”
“Ah, money. How crude.”
“It is how I’m accustomed to doing business. I’m sure you know that.”
“It’s not the cost I was referring to, however. What if you had to choose between Beatrix and finding this person? What if you had to choose between Beatrix and revenge?”
I sit up straight. It’s one thing for him to guess at my curiosity; another thing for him to know the source. Hearing her name makes a strange possessiveness rise in me. Possessiveness and pain, at the idea of losing her. “How the fuck do you know what I want with the owner of L’Etoile?”
“Do you know what I sell, Hugo?”
“People,” I say, because Damon is known to own strip clubs in the city. Many of them. High-end ones. And he held a virginity
auction in the Den once.
“And how would I sell people without information? That’s the leverage I truly need to run my business. Which is how I know about the discreet inquiries you’ve made.”
“Not discreet enough.”
“I’m rather a special case, if you don’t mind me saying so. Most people won’t know.”
“Well, I hope you don’t plan on selling me to the highest bidder. I’m afraid my virginity is long lost.”
“Lost early, if I had to guess.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Guess, that is.” I was fifteen when I lost my virginity, though it didn’t feel like a loss at the time. It felt like I had won something—a beautiful, glamorous woman. “If you have information to sell me, then sell it. But don’t think that you will leverage me, because I have enough people doing that.”
“The beautiful Melissande.”
Of course he would know her.
Perhaps I had been too young. At fifteen I had felt like a man. Had been built like one after working summers in the field. Mama had been gone two years before then. Breast cancer, caught far too late, and with far too little money to do anything about it. There had only been enough to buy Valium to ease her pain toward the end.
I had been young, but I’d grown up early.
“Beautiful indeed,” I say grimly.
“I want her out of business,” Damon says, his voice flat and final.
That’s his price, I realize. It really won’t be a sum of money I can pull from my investment accounts. It will be a person that I must sell in order to achieve my revenge. “Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“Perhaps.”
“Would it make you feel better if I said there was a noble reason? That she is a danger to Tanglewood and the people inside it? That I care about this city more than money?”
“You are not a noble man.”
He smiles. “No matter what Penny thinks, you are right. And so the real reason is much more simple than that. She’s competition. And here is a way to get rid of her.”
“I see.” Melissande has done me no favors in this life, despite what she may think. I was too young to have sex with a woman in her late twenties, someone sophisticated and with an ulterior motive in bringing me to the states. She encouraged me to fall in love with her knowing I would be nothing but a pretty little commodity for her business.
But I also do not wish to harm her. There’s a connection between us. She’s the woman who took my virginity. And gave me a future in the process.
Damon’s mouth twists in bitter understanding. “It’s not so easy, is it?”
Hurting a person to further my own gains? Not easy.
Then again it was not easy for my mother to clean soiled sheets and toilets for rich gamblers in Tangier. It was not easy for her to trudge two blocks before dawn only to return after nightfall, her muscles trembling with exhaustion.
It was not easy when one of those gamblers followed her home.
“A name would not be enough,” I say.
Damon nods as if he expected that. “The means to ruin him.”
I would only wish to ruin him if he’s the man who pushed in the door when I was seven years old. The man who shoved me into the closet while my mother shrieked, blocked me in with a chair. The man who raped my mother on the floor while I watched from the crack in the door.
Once I meet the man, I’ll know if he is the one. I would recognize him anywhere.
From the look on Damon’s face, he knows what my answer will be. Which proves my deal with the devil is inevitable. I will trade anything for revenge.
Even Beatrix Cartwright.
Chapter Fifteen
The nice thing about only working one day a week means that I have most of the week for leisure. Walking the park that winds behind my loft. Painting. Reading. I thought that it was a fulfilling life. A sign of success that my bank account continues to grow through solid investments. And the Saturday nights have always been more about pleasure than work.
Today nothing seems to hold my interest. My books look empty and cold. The outside is a lonely place. This is Bea’s fault. The world only looks colorful when she’s near me, which is hardly any time at all.
Suddenly one day a week seems like not enough.
I’m looking through my phone, listless, before finally giving in. I pull up the video app so that I can view her page. There are so many videos here. So many days of her. It feels like a feast for someone who’s been starving, even though I know it isn’t real. Is this what her fans feel like? I scroll down to the comments.
There are many of only a few words: Beautiful. Queen. Perfect soul.
Many emojis as well. Hearts and music notes and faces that are crying, with happiness I think.
Other comments are more in-depth. I love you so much, Bea. I’m your biggest fan and you’re beautiful in every way. Follow me back PLS.
And, When are you going to go on tour?? I would love to hear you LIVE. #frontrow
There are also some rather inappropriate ones that have me raising my eyebrows. If they are willing to say this in a public forum, I wonder what kind of private messages she gets. There was no reason for her to hire someone to take her virginity. There’s no shortage of volunteers in the comments section.
But I know more than anyone that women don’t hire me because there’s no one else. They hire me because they want me to be the empty man, the one who can fuck them the way they want, not the way I want, the one who can act like I love them without feeling a thing.
And I’m good at being that man. Empty.
I scroll back to the top, where a new video has been uploaded since I looked at the page yesterday. This one is titled Over the Rainbow. I press the PLAY button and settle in to watch.
Most of the videos start with music. Only rarely does she say a brief piece before she begins. This time she begins speaking. “I met someone recently, someone who made me think that maybe there’s more to life than what I knew before. Someone who makes me think there’s somewhere else worth going.”
My heart squeezes, because she must be talking about me. I can hear it in the husky bent of her voice, the way she speaks when my mouth is on her clit. Hungry and low.
“Most people would think he’s happy. It feels like he’s full of joy, but there’s sadness, too. A part of him that longs for a world more colorful than this one.”
How does she see inside me, like my skin is made of glass?
“And when I’m around him I long for that world, too. Have you ever met a person like that? A person who made you dream of more?”
There’s a silence in which my mind fills in the answer. You make me dream, Bea. Because it’s not as simple as one direction. It’s what happens when we’re together, the possibilities like sparks in the air, giving us a glimpse of what could be.
“I love doing the new songs for you, but I have this one on my mind. It’s a classic song. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but maybe today it will sound new to you like it does to me.”
And then she plays the song in a slow, sultry, beautiful tune. It makes goose bumps rise on my arms, the deep sound of her breath coming through the small speakers. How does she do this?
By the time she gets to the end, there are tears in my eyes. I do not have the worry that other men have in Tanglewood. That other men had in Tangier, also. That I will not be properly masculine if I cry, but there is very little that can move me. A beautiful painting. A poem. I can enjoy them without being moved, but this is different. It’s like she’s singing to me, and my body responds as if she’s touching me. I want to clench my hand in her wild hair. I want to press my lips against the rapid pulse at the base of her throat. God, she’s perfect.
The notes end in a weighted silence. And then the video ends.
I feel the loss of her, acute and painful.
The video app gives me only a small pause before spinning into another one of her videos. And another, while I sit there, cold as a
statue on top of a building, watching the city stream by. Eventually the app moves to play other musicians who share their work. And then pop music published by the major labels.
Still, I cannot bring myself to move.
The notes she played have embedded themselves in my head. It’s all I can hear.
Until the phone buzzes in my hand. An incoming text. I glance down, detached from this ordinary world, disinterested, until I see Melissande’s name. I try to ignore how much anticipation rises within me at the thought of seeing Bea again.
She booked the next three weeks.
A deep breath makes me realize I had been holding it, but for how long? Since I saw Bea perform that haunting melody? Or longer, since I left her bed? I text back, Okay, glad Melissande isn’t here to see me. She would sense that something was wrong, no matter how well I try to hide it.
Your other clients will lose their minds.
My other clients will go back to their regular lives. They will find a nice man in a bar. Or finally approach someone they’ve had a crush on. There’s nothing for them with me.
It’s Melissande who’s in danger of losing her mind. I’m not giving you any more nights, I type.
Three dots hover on the screen for a long time. Either Melissande is typing out something very long or she’s doing a lot of erasing and starting over. In the end her message is brief: I made you.
That makes me laugh out loud, the sound echoing in the large loft. Do you want me to thank you? I type back, before adding, Thank you, Melissande. For making me a whore.
She’ll read the sarcasm fine, because it’s been a very long time since we were friends. A very long time since we were lovers. There must be fondness there, to make me reluctant to ruin her. I’m not in the business of ruining women. Usually I prefer to pleasure them. Could I make an exception for Damon Scott? Would I make an exception for revenge?
