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  The man… was an animal. I sipped my coffee and shifted in my seat, the sore ache of my body reminding me of a few nights before, his skillful manipulation of my body that had brought me to orgasm four, five… then six times. I twisted slightly, watching Brant as he stepped into the coffee shop, his eyes finding me as he walked over, brushing a kiss against my lips.

  “Been waiting long?”

  “Five minutes. Here.” I pushed across his coffee. “Straight black, you unexciting man.”

  He settled into the seat, picking it up with a dignified scowl. “It’s manly. Puts hair on my chest.”

  I laughed into my cup. “I don’t want hair on your chest. I prefer it as is, perfectly manicured by your team of beauticians.”

  That earned me a real scowl. “I don’t have beauticians. They’re…” My eloquent man seemed suddenly at a loss for words. I laughed, pushing gently on his wrist until his coffee was out of reach, then leaned across the table and stole another kiss. He grabbed the back of my neck, pulled my mouth harder to his, asserted his masculinity in a rough moment of passion. I pulled off, blushing as I sat back down, a passing woman glaring at me as if we’ve just screwed on the coffee shop’s floor.

  “I’m sorry about yesterday.” The joviality was gone from Brant’s voice.

  I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I shopped. Ran some errands while downtown.”

  “I’ve been fighting a deadline on this wireframe overhaul… sometimes I get in a zone working and lose track of time.”

  “It’s fine. I was just worried. I’m not mad—just hated bothering Jillian about it.” Hated bothering Jillian was a mild way of putting it. Brant and I’d set dinner plans: 6 PM at Alexander’s. I’d waited at our table for a half hour before leaving, my calls to Brant going unanswered. I had hesitated to text Jillian, my fingers finally moving across the screen purely out of concern—in case something had happened, in case he was missing. I half-expected a snarky response, something that referenced how unimportant I must be to him. But she had responded quickly and professionally.

  HE’S HERE AT THE OFFICE. WILL PROBABLY WORK LATE. NO DOUBT LOST TRACK OF TIME. I’M SORRY.

  The fact that she had been civil in her response only irritated me more, tipped the scales a bit in her favor, setting precedence for an act of similar civility on my part. I broke off a piece of muffin.

  “Let me make it up to you.”

  I watched him while chewing, blueberries mixing with sugar and flour to make a delicious combination in my mouth. “Go ahead,” I mumbled.

  “Today, I’ll blow off work. Be all yours.”

  I swallowed the bite. “But you’re under deadline. You’ve been working for three weeks to make—”

  “I don’t care.” He reached over the table and gripped my hand. “You are more important, and I have set aside a full day of groveling to make up for last night.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “A full day? That’s a hefty commitment, Mr. Sharp.”

  He met my eyes. “One I’m ready to make.”

  I leaned over, lowered my voice. “And what do you have planned in this day full of groveling?”

  He tugged my hand up to his lips. “I thought I’d start by us dropping by my condo. I have some ideas of ways to make it up to you.”

  “Sexy ways?” I whispered playfully.

  He leaned forward, a gentle hand pulling on the back of my neck until his mouth was against my ear. “Ways that will make your legs tremble around my neck. Ways that have me so hard and ready that I may not make it all the way there. Ways that will have you screaming my name and—”

  “Let’s go.” I jerked to standing, the legs of my chair squeaking as they slid across the floor. Pulling on his hand, I bee-lined for the door.

  Chapter 8

  Brant’s downtown condo was his sex den, the place where high-class hookers had entertained my man and satisfied every carnal desire he’d had over the last two decades. Yes, I was now standing in a room where other women had moaned his name, serviced his cock. I could care less. Because the man standing before me, his eyes dark, body clenched, fingers stripping the clothes from my body… I could see into his soul. He didn’t have eyes for anyone else in the world. He wasn’t thinking, picturing, wanting, anything but what I had to offer. He lifted me, setting me on the bar top, his hands sliding my shorts off my legs, removing my sandals, caressing the skin as his hands journeyed back. He knelt on the floor, looked up into my eyes, and pushed on the inside of my knees, spreading my legs until I was open, his eyes dropping, the new height of him at a perfect level.

  “Brant,” I moaned, the exposure too much, the open stance causing air to hit places that were typically hidden.

  “Be quiet, baby.” He slid his hands up my inner thighs, my hands finding their way to his full head of hair the same time his right hand brushed over me. I inhaled, opening my legs further, and he groaned slightly as he ran a finger over the lips of my sex, outlining the folds with a whisper soft touch, the teasing brush causing my body to react, to cry for him in the only way it knew, moisture collecting, his breath hissing as he pushed a finger partially in. He looked up, his head moving beneath my hand, his eyes coming up to mine, the eye contact held as he pulled his finger out and tasted my juices, his eyes closing briefly. “God, you taste so sweet. I want to bury my face in you, Lana.” He reestablished eye contact, his finger returning, teasing the outside of me, soft strokes breaking me apart as he caressed every bit of me, the pad of his fingers exploring, testing, circling, and pushing, my back arching, mouth dropping as I stared at him, unable to pull my eyes from the scene of his touch.

  I pulled at his head when I couldn’t take it anymore, pulled his mouth to my sex, my body starting when the hot touch enveloped me, his tongue dipping inside me before covering my clit and starting a wet suction of stimulation that had me gasping into the air, my hands frantic on his head, my eyes catching in the faint reflection of us in the window, the picture it showed one of desperate need. I clutched the counter and pushed at his head, unable to… I bucked underneath his mouth… “Brant—I…” then I screamed, unable to stop myself, my hips grinding a frantic pace against his mouth, his hands gripping my hips, pinning me down, holding me to him as I broke apart.

  He relaxed his mouth as I came down, his tongue keeping the movement but softening it, the orgasm stretched out beneath his tongue, my breath coming hard, and my arms giving out. I collapsed on the bar, my legs going limp, his hands finally letting my legs close. I opened my eyes when he lifted me up.

  He carried me to the bedroom, my limbs struggling to reawaken, his deposit on the bed gentle, his hands moving my arms and legs into place, the drop of his pants revealing how ready he was. “Wow.” My arms worked enough to prop me up, my eyes flicking from his arousal to his eyes, catching on the half smile that tugged at his lips.

  “You are so beautiful right now,” he said, ripping open a condom and sliding it over his shaft, the bob of his sheathed cock tempting, the level of his erection mouth-watering. I bent my knees and spread my legs, giving him the carnal view I knew he wanted, a low swear emitting from his mouth as he kneeled on the bed, running his hands along my legs before preparing himself for entrance. “Tell me if it hurts,” he murmured, moving forward, the head of him pushing inside, the girth causing a sigh to slip from my lips, my eyes dropping to drink in the gorgeous sight of my pussy’s lips wrapped around his cock.

  He was thick. Cut. Groomed. Beautiful. He pushed slightly in, then out, several more inches left, the condom wet with my arousal, the sparse hair of my cunt wet and matted, framing his cock as he took his time, letting me adjust, the slow drag of him so… everything. I lost intelligent thought, broke from my view of us and looked up to him, his eyes on mine, and the look on his face so vulnerable, so raw. He stared down at me as if I was his world, as if our month-long courtship was so much more, as if I already had his heart and he had mine. He worshipped my face with his stare, and the only movement was the rise and fall
of his face as he thrust and pulled at my self-composure. The moment when he fully pushed, when he broke past the sweet and moved to the painful, the moment when my body fully adjusted to his length and girth, the need as great as the satisfaction… I saw it. We said it through our eyes, the words unnecessary, our bond completed as he lowered his mouth to mine and stole a piece of my soul.

  I was falling for him.

  Chapter 9

  I rolled against his chest, my touch finding its way over his stomach, the lines of his body, his abs jumping beneath my fingers as he exhaled. My hand moved lower, sliding under the sheet, a growl coming from his throat as I closed my hand around him, the thick muscle awakening underneath my touch. “Don’t start unless you want more.”

  “Of that?” I teased. “I’ll always want more.” I gave him a final squeeze and then released, dragging my hand back up to his chest, wanting a few more minutes of this. Brant was relaxed, his intensity subdued to a level that was adorable, his eyes currently closed against the pillow, the only movement the rise and fall of his chest underneath my hand.

  We lay there in silence for a bit, after-sex pleasures still shooting the occasional synapsis in my limbs. I closed my eyes and replayed the sex. I didn’t enter this relationship a virgin. I’d had my share of lovers, seven or eight if I had to guess. I’d had orgasms. A few freaky nights where I’d walked on the wilder side of the sheets. But I’d never had the sex I’d had with Brant. A full session with a man where the focus was on one thing: my pleasure. His orgasm came, it was always included, the final act, but it was a side effect, not the goal. Brant’s goal, each and every time, was to leave me sated, every possible orgasm pulled, tugged, and yanked from my body with his greedy hands, mouth, and cock.

  I wrapped my leg around him, pulled tighter. Felt his hand squeeze me in response. “Tell me about the escorts.” I didn’t know where that came from; it jumped from my lips without warning. Beneath me, I felt Brant’s body tighten a bit, his hand stopping the lazy exploration of my skin that it had started.

  “What have you heard?”

  “Hundreds. That they came here, not your home.”

  “This is closer to the office. And… I have too many valuables at home, my work, my privacy. This worked better.”

  I propped my chin on his chest and watched his face, his blue eyes coming to mine. “Hundreds?” I asked.

  He frowned. “No. Over the last twenty years…” He shrugged. “There have probably been fifteen.”

  I digested the number. On one hand, it was more than mine. On the other, it was less than I had expected. “And… why prostitutes?”

  He blushed, something I had never seen from him. “Pleasing a woman… it’s important to me. I wanted to be taught, by a professional.”

  “Taught?”

  He moved a curl of hair from my cheek. Wrapped it around his finger before tucking it behind my ear. “I was young the first time. Seventeen. Had never even kissed a girl before, my whole world pretty much confined to the basement. I wanted to date, my hormones were going nuts, but Jillian and my parents didn’t want me running around town flagging down the first girl I saw.”

  “So they ordered you a prostitute?” I pushed up off his chest, the motion causing my breasts to move, his eyes dropping to them, a deep exhale easing from his chest as he took a moment, his hands sliding up my back and curving forward, cupping my breasts with reverence. “Brant,” I said, trying to focus as he shifted total concentration to my chest. “Brant,” I repeated. “Your parents got you a prostitute?”

  “No,” he mumbled, trying to pull me higher, his mouth coming up, kissing my neck and trying to make its way lower. “Jillian got me Bridget McCullen, an eighteen-year-old girl straight off the pages of my fantasies.”

  “A prostitute,” I repeated, sliding lower, moving my breasts farther away, the new position letting me feel exactly how much my body affected him. I grinned despite myself.

  He finally looked up. “Well, I didn’t know she was a prostitute. Jillian had her knock on the door one day when I was home alone. The girl pretty much dragged me from the basement to my room. Gave me my first blow job and made me forget all about computers for a good three minutes.”

  “Isn’t that… illegal? You were seventeen. She’s your aunt! That’s creepy in so many different ways I can’t even name them all.”

  He laughed. “It was the best thing they could do for me at the time. And I didn’t want to leave the house, didn’t want…” He looked down, busying himself by pulling our sheet higher. “I understood them keeping me close. Protecting me. I didn’t know she was a prostitute. I thought she liked me, and had just moved in nearby. She hung around for two years. Took me from a boy to a man. Then… she was gone.”

  “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “Moved away, got a boyfriend? I don’t know. I was heartbroken. Was certain we were meant to be, ‘til Jillian had a heart-to-heart and told me everything. How the girl was interested in payment, nothing more. How I should concentrate on the good, what I had gotten from the relationship. I was pissed. Didn’t talk to her for a few days. I’d moved out by then, was living here. A few days passed, then she sent over a new girl. I understood the test. I couldn’t be pissed at her for giving me something I wanted. So I could turn away the girl, knowing she was a prostitute, or take her and accept the screwed up reality that was my life.” He looked at me. “So I fucked her. And it was different than with Bridget. I understood the dynamic, and I could control the situation. So I focused on what I wanted—the ability to please a woman. And I figured, one day, I would have a woman worth using that ability on.”

  I stared at him. Blinked. Stared some more. “You realize,” I said slowly, “that you shouldn’t be sharing all of this with me. This is the stuff that you’re supposed to keep secret. The skeletons that show your vulnerability.”

  He laughed, his arms wrapping around me, rolling us over until he was on top, and his cock was still there, still begging for attention. “Then there you have it. All of my skeletons. Will you still have me?” He nibbled a path along my neck, and I giggled beneath him, reaching a hand down and gripping the part of him I couldn’t get enough of. “Skeletons?” I mused. “Well, I do like a good bone.”

  He groaned into my neck, thrusting into my hand. “That was so cheesy.”

  I laughed. “Good cheesy?”

  He shook his head against my curls. “Bad cheesy.”

  “I like bad,” I whispered, my voice dropping, my hand tightening, his hips fucking his cock into my grip.

  “God, woman.” He reached forward, stretching across my body and yanking at the handle of the bedside table, his hands knocking over items in his haste. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

  “Really?” I teased. “You don’t know what to do with me?”

  “Correct that,” he rumbled, lifting off me just long enough to cover his cock, his hands slightly shaking in his urgency. “I know exactly what to do with you.”

  Then he was back above me, and his cock was inside of me, and he showed me exactly what his plans entailed.

  Chapter 10

  Jillian and I engaged in a silent battle, one where she pushed in every passive-aggressive way she could, campaigning with all her strength against the relationship that Brant and I were forming. A battle without words, but through the man she loved and I had fallen for.

  I walked into the next roadblock on a Tuesday morning, my day dedicated to HYA. Pulling through the gates, I was greeted by a shiny new male specimen, complete with a genuine six-pack, blinding white smile, and rugged good looks that a Hilfiger model scout would trip over herself to snag. He jogged across the grass, lines of dirt smeared across the ripped muscles of his chest, a trio of kids tailing him, their arms fighting for the football he carried. I watched him run toward me and wondered who he was and what he was doing inside the sanctuary that was this property.

  Employees and volunteers at HYA were carefully vetted. Background checks,
drug tests, and references were required. We’d had the same staff, give or take, for the six years I’d been involved. A new face wasn’t often seen. I watched him, his head coming up as my convertible came to a halt, his hand raised in greeting.

  I put the car in park, my mouth curving at the view of the kids, detaching from the stranger to run toward my car. Opening the door, I was accosted with hugs, greedy hands pulling at my clothes, and one helpful boy closing my door with solemn responsibility.

  “Thanks Lucas.” I wrapped a casual arm around his shoulders and hugged him briefly.

  “They like you.” The stranger stood before me, legs slightly parted, the football jumping a lazy trip between his two hands.

  “They like everyone.” I smiled, extending a hand. “Layana Fairmont.”

  “Billy,” he said, giving my hand a firm shake, then holding the grip a bit longer than necessary.

  I pulled at my hand, turning to the children to disguise the motion. Reaching out, I snagged the closest body and pulled her to me, tickling the little girl briefly before turning toward the main house and sprinting forward. “Race you guys to HQ!”

  My tennis shoes hit the damp grass, the squeal of voices behind me causing me to increase my speed. I glanced over my shoulder, seeing the new guy—Billy—staying close behind me, his eyes leaving my legs to come up to my face, a flirtatious grin shot at me.

  I ignored the look, turning back and focusing on the hill before me, my legs pumping up the embankment as I slowed my stride a bit to give the kids a fighting chance. Reggie, a seventh-grader who’d come to us three years ago, his arms already covered with gang ink, passed me, his long legs eating up the distance. I let him go, casting a quick glance around me to find the other kids. I slowed a little more, then let out a yell of mock frustration when the race ended.