Mating Theory

by Warren, Skye

  “Oh.” Disappointment in her eyes almost changes my mind.

  I don’t have to say anything else. I don’t owe them any explanation. Certainly I don’t owe them any lies, but I find myself speaking anyway. “I’m seeing someone.”

  Christopher’s blue eyes lighten. “That’s great.”

  That probably means he’s still worried about Harper changing her mind. I could reassure him that won’t happen, but then he asks, “You should bring her to the wedding.”

  “Or him,” Harper says, sounding hopeful.

  “Right. Maybe.” No one’s coming to the wedding, man or woman. I’m not seeing anyone. My facade has cracked. I can no longer pretend I’m fine. I turn toward the door and walk away, leaving the party and the two people I love behind me.

  Chapter Four

  Ashleigh

  Cold. Hungry. There’s no other word for it. Desperate. Everything about this life hurts, but there’s nothing I would have done differently.

  Sometimes life doesn’t give any good choices.

  Male laughter punches the silence as the door opens and closes, more men arriving. Droplets quiver on the windows. It’s shaping up to be an epic party. In a few hours there’ll be drunk men willing to pay two hundred dollars for me to follow them to a motel room.

  As long as I don’t lose my nerve, I don’t have to starve tonight.

  A dark sedan slows on the street. The window slides down. A man in his late forties looks me up and down. I could have passed him in a grocery store or a gas station without looking twice. An ordinary man. Gold glints from his ring finger. Of course he’s married. His wife is probably at home, warm and fed, scrolling through Pinterest right now. “How much?” he asks.

  Tell him two hundred dollars. Ky told me that the first time I worked this street corner. He also gave me a pack of condoms. “You let your mind go somewhere else. Do what they say, don’t ask questions, and you survive. That’s the important thing.”

  An unexpected guardian angel, for sure.

  Tell him twenty dollars. Then maybe he won’t expect so much. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and I want it to be over soon. Twenty dollars is enough to buy hot French fries, salty on my tongue, and a cool, bubbly soda to wash them down. I’m almost sick with hunger.

  Tell him a thousand dollars. Anything to make him drive away.

  “I’m not for sale,” I say, my voice catching.

  “What? Speak up.”

  “I’m done for the night,” I say, more clearly.

  Anger flashes through his eyes, mixed with disdain, and I’m glad I didn’t get into his car. I’m glad I didn’t let him put his hands on me. It might have cost more than my dignity. “Your loss,” he says, before driving away, leaving a spray of gravel on my bare legs.

  Red taillights disappear behind a building, and then I’m alone again.

  Hungry and cold and desperate again.

  Why couldn’t I have gone with him? Spread your legs. Open your mouth. Survive. That’s what Ky told me to do. It makes so much sense, but I’m stubborn. And stupid, maybe. Filled with this pointless hope that something will save me.

  This isn’t a fairy tale.

  The door slams open, and someone steps out of the Den. He’s framed by the garish, glittering light—only shadow and movement. Broad shoulders and long legs. I take a step backward without thinking about it. I’ve learned to trust my instincts in the past six months. Something about this man says dangerous.

  He takes two steps forward, stopping right on the edge of the curb, his body a hard line against the whistling wind. The streetlamp limns a face with harsh grooves. Blond hair in wild disarray, curling at the ends, turning damp in the night. A trench coat and black shoes that gleam. He reminds me vaguely of a pirate. He could be standing at the bow of his ship, watching the skyline for secrets of a storm.

  He turns, sudden and sharp, as if he heard me. I didn’t make a sound. It’s only my heartbeat that could have given me away, rapid as a rabbit.

  Blue eyes narrow. “Ashleigh.”

  It would be better if he didn’t remember my name. Better if he could have looked at my legs and my breasts the way the man in the car had done. It would be better to believe that every man would treat me like trash. Knowing that some men are good and kind and caring—but not for me, never for me—hurts worse than anything. “I’m not for sale.” The words slip out before I can stop them. He didn’t even ask my price.

  He raises one eyebrow. “Then you’d be the only one.”

  Jaded. Maybe I’m not the only one determined to think the worst of the world. “Is that how you think of women? They aren’t all out to get your money.”

  For a moment I think he’s going to stride away. He’ll disappear into the night. Hours from now I’ll be wondering if he were real. The possibility hangs in the night like dew. It’s what he wants to do. What he should do. Everything about him, from his clothes to his manner, speaks of a man with manners. With a real job and a real house and a real girlfriend. He shouldn’t be talking to me.

  Then he turns toward me, decisive. In a moment he’s in front of me. Another second, and I’m backed up against the stone bricks of the Den. “It’s not how I think of women, sweet thing. It’s how I think of everyone. Men included.”

  “Do you have a price?” I manage to ask, even though it’s risky to talk back to a man. Especially when his large frame has me tacked to the wall like a freaking butterfly. This close I can see the shadow of hair on his jaw, the mole beside his right eye.

  “Yes. Me.” A harsh laugh. “I’ve got a price. It’s not even a high one.”

  “What is it?” It’s like a street urchin wandering into Tiffany’s, this question. It doesn’t matter what the answer is. The number will always be too high. Whether he wants a society wife or a mother for his children, it will never be me.

  “A kiss.”

  The word lodges in my skin, sharp and hot. “A kiss?”

  There’s challenge in those blue eyes. And pitiless knowledge. “A kiss is all it takes for me to fall head over heels. I’d believe I was in love with you, build a fucking castle in the sky, because I’m that kind of idiot, aren’t I?”

  A whisper. “Two hundred dollars.”

  His gaze drops to my lips. “I thought you weren’t for sale.”

  I changed my mind when he talked about castles in the sky. He’s still in love with someone else. That much is clear from the bitterness in his voice. I can’t be that woman, but I can pretend for a single night. Somewhere warm. His arms.

  “Two hundred dollars and your name.”

  That earns me a clap of laughter. “My name.”

  “And dinner.” I don’t know where I get the courage. Two hundred dollars is enough to pay my rent for next month. Dinner means I don’t need to eat for another two days.

  His name should mean nothing to me.

  He bows his head, hiding his eyes. A droplet of rain falls from his hair to my chest. “Christ. What the hell happened to you? No, don’t tell me. I can’t listen to a sob story and still fuck you, and I really want to fuck you.”

  Sob story. That about sums it up. There’s a hole in my chest where those words hit me. Seared edges from the realization that I’m that transparent. That every man who’s wanted to fuck me, who’s offered me money, the man who rolled down his window, they knew. Maybe not the specifics, but they knew enough. Women don’t stand on street corners because things were going okay.

  “Fuck.” He reaches into his coat pocket. Something slim and black. He opens it and finds money. Hundred-dollar bills, I realize, as he shoves them into my hand. Two of them. “Take it. And get the fuck off the street before someone like me drags you home and makes you cry.”

  The money is still warm from the heat of his body. I clench the bills in my fist. Emotion chokes my throat. Thank you. I can’t make myself say the words.

  He turns away, not waiting for gratitude, ready to disappear into the night.

  “A kiss,�
� I manage to say, and he stops.

  Chapter Five

  Sutton

  I’m turned away from the Den, my hands into my pockets, head down. The night is caught somewhere between rain and clear. Beads of moisture gather on the sleek black fabric of my suit. Fog mutes the sound of my dress shoes on pavement.

  The entire world narrows to the woman behind me. A kiss.

  Leave. Walk away. Don’t fuck a girl that broken.

  I know about the underbelly of Tanglewood. And I know better than to think I can solve problems that thick. A few Benjamins aren’t going to change her life. But there’s a difference between not helping her and actively using her. Touching her, even the lightest brush of my fingertip across her cheek, would cross a line.

  She doesn’t want to be here. There are women who choose sex work without a dark history but none of them do it this way. Only the most crude and dangerous men would shop for a woman here. Men like me, apparently.

  The brick wall holds her up. She looks fragile against the city. Small and fundamentally breakable. How am I supposed to leave her here? But how can I take her with me? There’s only the thinnest thread between the beast inside me and the man I pretend to be. My true self, the bastard who loses everyone he loves, has never been this close to the surface.

  She looks at me with unfathomable dark eyes. There’s pain hidden in the depths, but I don’t see that right now. I’m only looking at trust. Undeserved trust.

  The corner of her lips hitches up in a private smile.

  It seals her fate.

  I back her up against the wall, crowding her, stealing her air.

  Her eyes go wide like a doe caught in the headlights. That’s me—a fucking truck. I’m going to break her to pieces. I’ll break myself, too. I lean down to breathe her in. I’m not even touching her yet. I don’t have my hands on that pale skin or my cock in that sweet cunt. No, I’m scenting her now. It’s a fully primal move. Every veneer of civility has been stripped away. This suit is a goddamn lie. I’m an animal, getting ready to mount her, getting ready to mate.

  A kiss, she said, not knowing what she tempted.

  My lips brush her forehead. It should be ridiculous with my cock like iron in my slacks, but it doesn’t feel ridiculous. Tenderness moves inside me, sharp enough to make me grunt. I drop my lips to the bridge of her nose. Even this much is wrong. Wrong when the woman doesn’t really desire me. Wrong when she wouldn’t be wet if I shoved two fingers in her pussy. I’ve never had a woman who was anything less than enthusiastic, but I want her too much to walk away. She stands very still as I reach her mouth. That full, pretty mouth with the garish red lipstick. I nibble away the waxy layer, searching for the dry, chapped, realness of her.

  When I pull back her eyes are wide. Her nostrils flare where she breathes hard. I haven’t even gotten started yet, and she already looks ready to bolt. “What was that?” she asks, her voice shaky. I want to pull her hair and spank her pretty little ass. I want to spread her legs and ride her until she sobs her climax into the sheets. And she looks shocked by a single kiss.

  Anger swells inside me, inky black. “You ever have a boyfriend, Ashleigh?”

  “Yes,” she says, but it’s so clearly a lie it makes me want to laugh. Or cry. “I know how to kiss. I know how to—how to fuck. But that wasn’t a kiss.”

  The word fuck sounds completely foreign on her lips. It sounds like a made-up word. A Dr. Seussian exaggeration. “That was the way you kiss someone you care about.”

  Defiance in those brown sugar eyes. “You don’t care about me.”

  “No,” I say, even though I’m the one lying now. I’m the one exaggerating to prove a goddamn point. “I don’t give a shit about you, but I never learned to kiss any other way.”

  That small point of a chin rises. She may not have a lick of self-preservation, but she has pride. And God, that makes me want her more. “Then maybe I can teach you something.”

  Grim amusement curls my lips. “You just might.”

  I came outside because I needed some air that hasn’t been breathed in and exhaled by Harper and Christopher. I wanted to smell dirt and grass and the weather foretold on the wind. Nothing in the city can come close. Except for her. I breathe her in, and the same sense of rightness, of coming home fills me. She’s like the goddamn earth—sweet and elemental.

  It’s almost like I conjured her up. Or maybe I’m hallucinating. Alcohol can do that to you, even if it’s been eight hours since I touched a drop. If she isn’t real, there’s no reason not to touch her, not to fuck her. No pesky morality to keep me from paying for the privilege.

  Besides, he does not seem like the type.

  The type of man who likes tits and ass, you mean?

  The type of man who likes to pay for them.

  I’ve never paid for a fuck, either. It would be a new low for me. I’m full of those lately.

  I bend down to nuzzle her cheek, the underside of her jaw. Her neck. I kiss her there, and she shivers. We’re standing in a cold drizzle, but she actually shivers at the feel of my lips. Ashleigh is an orchid in a snowstorm. She’ll never survive.

  “Come home with me,” I murmur, finding the hollow at the base of her neck. Slipping my tongue out for a taste. Rainwater. The weather has slicked away her flavor.

  “There’s a motel,” she says, breathing hard even though I have her trapped, because I have her trapped. “Two blocks away. The Rose and Crown. We can get a room there.”

  A motel that rents by the hour. “I want the whole night.”

  Her gaze doesn’t leave mine as she shakes her head. It’s a refusal that has nothing to do with money. Everything to do with her fear over a soft kiss.

  I bend my head to take her mouth, searching the depths through the rain and the air until I find the elusive flavor of her, the fire of her. I drink it down and relish the burn. My palm cups her cheek, and she jumps. Only by slow degrees does she melt into my hold.

  “Sutton,” I say, my voice thick. “That’s my name. Sutton Mayfair. Say it.”

  “Sutton,” she whispers, and the sound makes me tighten.

  Her body becomes pliant against the brick and my body. I lap at her, slow and hungry, showing her the way I’d fuck her. Not so different from the way I kiss. She may teach me how to do it rough and meaningless. That’s a lesson I need to learn, but I’m going to show her how good it can be. My tongue moves against hers in a sensual glide—patient, patient, patient until she flicks her tongue in timid answer. The feel of her, the warmth, makes me ache. My cock throbs in my dress pants, and I press forward, seeking more pressure. She’s boneless against me, willing—and if I could bet my entire construction business—between her legs, she would be wet.

  Finally I lift my head and look into her lust-drowsed eyes. Triumph beats in my chest, as if I’ve proved some kind of point. Her lips are swollen and stung from my incipient beard. She waits, lax, for whatever happens next. I could kiss her sweet little cunt up against this wall, gravel digging into my knees, the wind whipping at her hair, and she’d let me.

  Because you’re fucking paying her.

  “Two hundred dollars,” I say, and she flinches, coming awake.

  “That’s what you gave me.”

  “We’re not done yet.”

  “A kiss. That’s what I offered you. That’s what you took.”

  “And dinner,” I remind her. My stomach growls as if remembering that I’m starving. Alcohol is rich in calories. It keeps me from getting hungry. “That was part of the deal. I’m going to get you dinner. What do you like? Chinese? Steak?”

  She licks her lips, and I know that I have her. It feels a little dirty, that I’d tempt her this way, this little slip of a woman, so slender I know she’s gone hungry. Well, I have some experience with the feeling. The gnawing inside your stomach, as if it’s going to eat you from the inside. The yawning pain that keeps you from sleeping no matter how tired you are.

  I glance up the street, where you can see the brigh
t lights of a Thai restaurant. “Curry? That’s the good thing about Tanglewood. You can find every kind of food here.”

  “Not curry,” she says, her voice trembling.

  How long has it been since she ate anything? “No curry, then. You let me decide. There’s a great place only a five-minute walk. You usually need reservations, but I know the owner.”

  Chapter Six

  Ashleigh

  If I had thought about dinner, I would have thought about burgers or burritos from a fast food joint. Maybe, if we were dreaming big, I would have thought about a Styrofoam container of cheese fries from the diner. I could not have imagined this place.

  Intricate stained-glass windows send shards of colors across pristine white tablecloths. Wooden arches soar above our heads. It was a church, the maître d’ explains as he leads us to a secluded table for two. A church from the 1920s that was restored for this restaurant. The other patrons are wearing suits and evening wear. I’m in a top I found in the trash and a skirt I found in the thrift store. Did Sutton bring me here as a joke?

  I glance at him, and he’s watching me with challenge in his blue eyes. He expects me to balk at the fanciness, and maybe I should. I’m probably going to make a fool of myself. I have to weigh my pride against my hunger. Hunger wins.

  I’m handed a large, leather-bound menu that has words I’ve never heard before and no prices. A bread basket arrives laden with thinly sliced raisin bread and thick slabs topped with caramelized onions. I take a piece of the onion bread with shaking hands and tear it apart. God, it’s so soft. And still warm from the oven. My mouth feels like it’s too full of saliva. I understand those cartoons with drooling animals in a real way. I’m not drooling, but this is how it would happen. Days without eating and then a gourmet bread basket in front of me.

  I shove it in my mouth. My eyes close in unwilling ecstasy.

  Sutton’s lids have fallen low, and I realize I made a sound. A moan.