It was his eyes. More specifically, the way he never broke contact. He looked at me the entire time he moved inside my body. Looked at me with an intensity that didn’t falter. Looked at me as though I were of value. A man had never looked at me like that while he was fucking me the way I liked to be fucked. I liked it rough and dirty. I liked to be debased and humiliated and commanded. Liked to be manhandled like a doll with no apology for how the sharp wood edge of the desk dug into my back or how the unbridled thrusts of his cock felt like they were ripping me apart.
How could someone do those things to me and still gaze at me with appreciation? With something akin to affection?
How could I let someone do those things to me and feel better about myself than I ever had? Feel more for him than I had for anyone I could remember?
Most of the time before this night and after, Reeve didn’t show that to me. Usually he took me from behind so we never had to look at each other at all. Often, he’d make me come. Hard. Again and again. And sometimes it would be base and primal and only about him. He was always rough. Always raw. He fucked me however he wanted – fucked my tits, my mouth, my cunt. He’d tell me when he wanted my ass in the future, he’d take that too.
And then sometimes, rarely, in the middle of the night, he’d be sweet. Pulling me into his lap, kissing me, caressing me. Letting me fly but anchoring me with his eyes. Speaking words he’d never dare say in the light of day. Words that I’d never dare say in return.
It was these times that I felt the most connected to him. It was these times that he scared me most.
CHAPTER 17
After Amber and I had left Liam, we’d spent a couple of years in Mexico at a luxury resort. We had gotten a permanent room by banging the manager, and, on occasion, his son. The rest of the time we’d bang the men who stayed there. Retired men with loose pockets who were ready to sleep with anyone for the night. Finding a blond young thing was the highlight of their trip.
We were no longer a package deal, at that point. Sometimes we would share men. More often, we wouldn’t. It had been riskier than staying with one man the whole time. Being a mistress. There were times during low season when we didn’t get as much attention as we would have liked. The all-inclusive meal plan at the hotel kept us eating, but we hadn’t always had money for other things. Things like waxes and pedicures and birth control. Once every couple of months we’d had to splurge on antibiotics from the local clinic to clear up whatever STD we’d managed to contract. Twice, I’d sat with Amber until they took her back to terminate a pregnancy, waited until she came back out so I could walk her to our room. Then we’d take a couple of nights off, sit on the beach, drink. And not talk about what it was that we did.
But as risky as it had been to our health, I’d thought it was safer. Emotionally safer. No one could get too close. No one could know me enough to really know anything about me at all. Or so I had told myself.
I’d been twenty-one when Amber first rescued me from a bad situation.
It had happened the way many hook-ups had back then – at the bar. Amber and I would go to the lobby for the nightly shows and then sit at the counter and wait for someone to approach us. Someone always did. The men were usually older than my father, but one night a preppy college boy named Aaron had found me instead. He told me he was spending the summer selling risky stocks for his daddy to the rich old guys at the resort, and I’d thought, We’re so alike. Both preying on the deep-pocketed wrinkly Republican men in different ways.
I had liked feeling a kinship with someone. And Aaron seemed to like me as well. He bought me pretty things from the gift shop. Took me out on his father’s yacht. Took me to bed. He was cocky and conceited, an asshole really. But I liked him, liked the kinky things he did. Sometimes he’d tie me up or put clamps on my nipples. Sometimes he’d put a collar on my neck. Sometimes he had hit me, and it was really sensual when he did. Sometimes he had hit me, and it only hurt.
Other times he had invited other men to take me to bed. Men who were possibly interested in going into business with him but needed an incentive. Aaron made me the incentive. When I didn’t want to, when the men were too eager, too arrogant, I’d tell him no. And he’d tell me to do it anyway. More than once I came back to him bruised and bleeding, and he’d tell me he loved me, tell me what a good girl I was, tell me how I’d earned him another hundred thousand. Then he’d throw me a washcloth and tell me to clean myself up.
When I was staying with Aaron, Amber and I would meet by the pool each day, and I’d smile and explain away the marks on my body. At any point I could have told her what was going on, but what would I tell her? It wasn’t like my relationship with Aaron was abusive. At least, not most of the time. I had loved a lot of the things he did to me personally. I had craved them. The rest, I figured, was what I should expect to live with if this was the person I truly was.
As summer had come to an end, Aaron became more desperate to make as much money as he could. His father had given him some goal that should have been impossible, but with me as his secret weapon, he was closer than he’d imagined he could be. He became obsessed with reaching it. Which meant he was more forceful with his demands for me. He pushed me to entertain more clients. He pushed me to let them do more and more depraved things to me.
And when I wasn’t enough to win their accounts, he took it out on me. One night, his abuse pushed me to my limits. He used me in ways that a woman should never be used. I screamed, but I wasn’t sure I ever said no.
I spent the next day in Aaron’s room, curled in a ball on top of sheets that were bloody and soiled. When he left to do some work, I didn’t leave. If it had occurred to me to get help, I was in too much pain to do so. Then when he returned that evening, he was apologetic. But cruelly so. In the way that I would have loved if I weren’t so wounded.
I was barely conscious when Amber appeared. I wasn’t even sure how she’d gotten there, but I heard her yelling and crying. “Get off of her,” she’d shouted, over and over.
Her voice brought me to lucidity and for the first time in hours I was aware of what was happening to me. Aware that I was being hit and beaten and tortured while being fucked.
Amber wasn’t a threat to him. He had no reason to stop. “She likes it,” he had said. “Didn’t you know that about your friend? She loves to be hurt. And she’s better than a whore because she takes it for free.”
She had pulled at him. Clawed at his shoulder and I’d remembered thinking I should help her. Or I should explain that Aaron was right. This was what I liked. And even when it wasn’t, it was what I accepted.
But then his weight became heavy on top of me, and his movements still. I looked up over his shoulder and saw her standing with a nearly full bottle of tequila, blood dripping from the glass. Blood dripping onto me. Blood that wasn’t mine but his.
She’d rolled his rigid body off of mine, not bothering to check his pulse or if he was breathing before she’d wrapped me in a blanket and took me to our room.
I went in and out of sleep for the next two days, but each time I had woken up she had been there, taking care of me. She fed me, brought me painkillers she’d swiped from someone or other. She cleaned me up, wiped away the blood and semen from my skin with a warm washcloth that she never let get cold.
And she had talked to me. “When you’re well, we’ll go back to the States,” she had said. “We’ll be partners again and nothing like this will ever happen again.”
When I could talk, I asked her, “Do you think he’s dead?”
She shook her head, but her words were honest. “I don’t know.”
Later, I told her that it had been going on all summer. She spooned me in the bed and cried, stroking my hair. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t,” I told her. Which had been true. All the opportunities I had to tell her, I’d thought about saying something and the words never made it past my lips. Because I’d wanted parts of it. Because I had been too addicted to the
thrills Aaron gave me to know when he’d gone too far. Much like how she was addicted to the cocaine that the hotel manager supplied her with on a regular basis.
Amber misunderstood me, thinking that it must have been Aaron threatening me that kept me silent. “We should have a code,” she’d said. “A safe word. Something we can say to each other that means we need help, but no one else will know what it means.”
I got silent after that. What was there to say? She’d saved me from something that I’d willingly put myself into. Someone that I had desired beyond anything explainable. Someone that she’d possibly killed, and, if she hadn’t walked in, I might have let kill me.
I loved her for it. But, I hated her a little bit too.
Her iPod played in the background, something moody and unfamiliar that she’d put on repeat, something she did whenever she discovered a new song that she loved.
“What’s playing?” I had asked, more interested in changing the subject than finding out.
“Do you like it? One of the men I met last week introduced me to it. It’s a Leonard Cohen remake called ‘Famous Blue Raincoat.’”
“It’s pretty,” I’d said. Then I’d closed my eyes, wanting to drift back into a never-ending sleep.
But Amber shook my shoulder gently. “I’m serious, Emily. We need a word. Anything.” She paused, waiting for me to agree.
When I said nothing, she said, “How about ‘blue raincoat’? We’ll remember that from this song. How does that sound? Em?”
“Yes,” I’d said, not opening my eyes. “That’s good.”
“Then that’s what it will be.”
She sounded comforted by this decision, as if it fixed everything bad that might ever happen to us.
It was ignorant thinking on her part. “Blue raincoat” couldn’t help me. Because what good was a safe word if I knew I’d never use it?
CHAPTER 18
We wrapped up the season for NextGen on the last Friday of March, the same night Chris Blakely texted to say he was back in town. I used the burner phone to call him and made plans to see him the following Monday.
The weekend was spent with Reeve, as was every weekend. I left him Sunday night not expecting to hear from him again until Friday. But just as I was getting ready to leave for Chris’s house on Monday afternoon, Reeve surprised me with a phone call.
“I miss you,” he said, and tingles ran down my spine. “Since you aren’t shooting anymore, I should have had you stay the night last night.” There was never an invitation with him – he told me when I’d come over; he told me when I’d leave.
Was it wrong that that turned me on about him?
I cradled the phone on my shoulder so I could throw my hair in a ponytail. “But the rules,” I teased. “I still have two days before I can be seen around your house during the week. My two-month probation isn’t up until April first.” I was actually down to counting the hours. Not just because I was eager for him to take me places, but because I was tired of balancing two lives.
Also, with each day that passed without looking for Amber, it was getting easier to forget that I meant to be doing that.
“Fuck two days,” Reeve said.
“What exactly does that mean?”
“It means that my ranch manager from Wyoming happens to be in town along with some of his crew.”
I nearly dropped my phone at the mention of Wyoming – the last place Amber had been with Reeve.
“I have meetings with them throughout the day,” Reeve continued. “But I’ve also invited them for dinner at my house. I’ve decided you’ll join us.”
“Really?” I was almost as excited about him showing me off as I was about whom he wanted to show me off to.
“And afterward, if things go well, I’m going to fuck you in the ass. Prepare for that however you see fit.”
I let out a laugh that showed more nervousness than I wanted it to. “Thank you for the warning.”
“My pleasure.” His tone was low and gruff. “And yours, of course.”
After we hung up, I clutched my phone to my chest, heart pounding, trying to process the news. After all the time waiting, time that took me farther and farther away from finding Amber, I’d finally gotten a break. While it was entirely possible that I might not get the chance to ask any of the Wyoming staff anything useful, at least it was an opportunity. An opportunity that I planned to make the best of.
The acceleration in my pulse wasn’t just because I was looking forward to dinner though. The after plans also had me anxious. I wasn’t opposed to them, necessarily. I might even be excited about them. I’d been with men who’d given me the best orgasms of my life with a backdoor entry. I’d also been with men who’d hurt me so bad that I’d blacked out from the pain. It was never a position I agreed to without trepidation.
Honestly, it was never a position I agreed to at all. But since I seemed to have no willpower with men, I didn’t ever refuse either. Sometimes that worked out in my favor. Most of the time… well, most of the time when it came to anal sex, my favor wasn’t part of the equation.
So far, Reeve hadn’t taken me too far, but I believed he could. I believed sometimes he wanted to. The question was did I trust him to be careful with me in this area? And did it even matter if I didn’t? Because I knew damn well not to trust myself to know my limits.
Chris and I had spent the last hour talking about the part on NextGen. I’d advised him on his resume and listened to him read through the audition piece. Now it was time to segue to the topic of Missy.
I just hadn’t figured out how to do that yet, whether I should casually drop her name or plunge straight in.
“Hey, I appreciate all this, by the way,” Chris said. “Let me get you a beer as a thank you.” He scooted out from the banquette and headed to the fridge.
I took a deep breath. “Hey. There’s something I’ve been thinking about since the last time I saw you.” Plunging in it was then.
“Shoot.” Chris shut the door with his foot and started back with two Coronas.
Here I go. “Missy Mataya.” I braced myself, not sure if the subject was a sensitive one or not.
He slowed his steps, his expression suddenly reserved. “What about her?”
A sensitive one, then. I’d have to tread lightly. “Well, she’s the mystery of the century. I’ve never met anyone who actually knew her.” I paused, hoping my curiosity seemed innocent. “And you said you visited the Sallis Resorts with her – does that mean you were around when she was dating him?”
He twisted the cap off a bottle and handed it to me. “Yep. I was.”
“Damn.” I took a swig and let the pause hang, hoping he’d volunteer more. When he didn’t, I pushed. “So?”
“So… what?” Chris studied me. “You want to know if I think he did it?”
His tone said he was annoyed, but there was no backing down now. I lifted my chin. “Yeah. I do.”
He scrutinized me. Then, with a huff, he shook his head and took a swallow of his beer.
I felt like such a scandalmonger, ready to feed on the gossip like every other person you meet in Hollywood. The press hacks, the paparazzi, the starfuckers, the wannabe celebs. I was as disgusted with myself as he was.
All I could do was own it. “That’s really tacky, isn’t it? I’m sorry. I’m too curious for my own good. I really don’t mean to be that asshole.”
The acknowledgment seemed to be all Chris needed. “It’s fine. People used to ask all the time and it was bothersome, but I haven’t thought about it now in a while, so it’s really fine.” He slid into the seat across from me. “It was rough back then, though.”
“I’m sure it was. Losing a friend is never easy. No matter what the circumstances.” At least this part came naturally when improvising, so much of it stolen from my own life script.
Chris took a long pull on his beer. “I was lucky though. I wasn’t working a lot then and I got to spend a lot of time with her those last months.”
; “That’s why you were at the resort in the Springs?”
He nodded. “She’d call me and tell me she was lonely so I’d drive down there. Hang out until I had another audition. Drive back. Good times.”
I allowed him a moment for the memory before asking, “Why was she lonely? Wasn’t she dating Reeve Sallis?” It felt strange to say his name in such a detached way, as though I had no connection to him. As though he were someone I knew from infamy rather than someone I knew intimately.
It almost seemed like a betrayal.
“Yes.” His tone was laced with barely restrained hostility. “And that dickface was most of the reason she felt that way. He was hardly ever around and when he was, he treated her like she was his property. Like she was a toy that he brought out for social events and blowjobs. The rest of the time he forgot she even existed. Left her with real strict instructions to not go anywhere, not talk to anyone. I was one of the few on the approved list of friends.”
Now it definitely felt like a betrayal. This was Chris’s version of their relationship. I knew full well how things looked different on the outside. There were things I could say, ways I could defend, but I bit my tongue.
“Oh, and she’d tell me about stuff he liked to do – kinky stuff.” He said the word “kinky” as though it were repulsive.
“Like what?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“God, I don’t remember now. But it seemed like it was some pretty fucked-up shit.” He leaned back and put his arm along the top of the bench. “He’d bring other people into the bedroom. I remember that. Sometimes to watch. Sometimes for big orgies. And he liked to have her blow him in public. The worst, though, was when he wasn’t around. He loaned her out to his buddies. Let them have their way with her.”
It was funny how I hadn’t noticed how straightlaced Chris was until that moment. He was alpha in the bedroom – a little rough, a dirty talker. But besides that, he was straight up vanilla. I’d detached myself so much from my past that I’d allowed myself to think his style was enough for me.
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