Hard Work

by Micah Persell

She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “I was seventeen.”

  “What?” She nearly screeched the word, and as she tried to shoot upright, his arms tightened around her.

  “Calm down.” He sounded amused. “It’s not a sad story.”

  She gritted her teeth. “That’s a pretty damn sad beginning.”

  “She was seventeen, too.”

  She paused. “Oh.” Her brow furrowed. “Where the fuck does a seventeen-year-old girl get that kind of money?”

  He shook her shoulder. “Are you going to let me tell the story?”

  Her lips twitched. She raised her arm and waved him on.

  “Thank you.” He shifted beneath her, and she felt his chin press into the top of her head. “I took her to prom our junior year of high school.” He breathed a laugh. “Had a great time, actually. She was hilarious and this amazing dancer.”

  This isn’t a sad story? There was a shade of nostalgia in his voice that led her to believe otherwise.

  He blew out a breath. “Anyway, I took her home, and I was all excited the way high school boys get, wondering if I was going to get laid or not. We pulled up in front of her house, she turned toward me, and I’m like this is it! Thought she was going to kiss me or suggest we climb into the back seat. But”—his shoulder shifted beneath her in a shrug—“she paid me instead.”

  “What?” Victoria rolled so she was lying across him more and could prop her chin on a hand she spread over his heart. “Why?”

  He was looking up at the ceiling, and he frowned. “I can guess, but I don’t know for sure. She wasn’t . . . popular is a word you could use. I was, though that was entirely an accident, too, and I didn’t care about it at all.” He looked down at her, and his lips curved on one side. “I know enough about how women think of themselves now to guess that she probably thought she wasn’t pretty enough. She was . . . a little bigger? I thought she was gorgeous,” he added quickly. “God, she had this rack I just wanted to bury my face in.”

  Victoria felt a sudden and irrational surge of jealousy toward this nameless, faceless seventeen-year-old with a great rack.

  “I’d thought I had a real date to prom, right up until she slipped fifty bucks into my hand.”

  She felt a pang in her heart. Not a sad story, my ass.

  “Anyway, she told some friends, and next thing I knew, I was going out a lot. But I didn’t sleep with anyone for money until college.” He shifted a bit beneath her. If she thought it possible for Kip to be embarrassed, she would have sworn that he was feeling the emotion currently. His heart rate had steadily increased, and he seemed to be avoiding meeting her gaze. “I didn’t want to lose my virginity on the job, and it wasn’t until after high school that I actually had some real dates, so . . . ” He shrugged.

  She felt her jaw drop. She couldn’t imagine anyone more sexually experienced than Kip, and it sounded like he was a late bloomer. “How old were you when you—” She snapped her mouth shut.

  He answered her anyway. “Nineteen.” He gave her a long look, and his lips quirked. “I made up for lost time quickly, though.”

  He would have had to. “Wait.” She had a sudden feeling of dread. “How old are you now?”

  “I’m twenty-three. Why?”

  She stiffened. “Twenty—” Shit! “Kip!” She jerked upright, and though he tried to hold her close, she persisted until he reluctantly let her rise.

  “What’s wrong?” He looked sincerely confused.

  She threw her hands up in the air. “I’m thirty-three! A full decade older than you.” Oh, God, she’d robbed the cradle. Contributed to the delinquency of a—Well, Kip was pretty delinquent already, and he definitely wasn’t a minor. But, still. “Oh, this is terrible.”

  “You can’t be serious.” He sat up, too. “Honey, an age difference doesn’t matter.”

  Her shoulders sagged. Yeah, she was making a big deal out of their ages, when, just like he said, it shouldn’t blip on her radar. For one, she was never going to see him again in a few hours. But most important, she was paying him for sex; he was accommodating her. What did age have to do with it? She felt like an idiot.

  “What did I say?”

  The soft question made her open eyes she hadn’t realized she’d closed. She frowned.

  “I said something that made you sad.” He leaned in and traced a finger down the curve of her mouth. “I saw it right here.”

  “Was probably just a wrinkle.”

  He chuckled but grew serious again quickly. “Tell me why you got sad.”

  “I’m not sad.”

  He tilted his head. “Victoria.”

  She huffed. “I’m not excited about being ten years older than my lover, okay?”

  “Did you know I was ten years younger before I told you?”

  She swallowed. “No.”

  “It’s when one of us acts so immature that everyone knows without being told that it’s an issue.” He scooted closer to her. “And even then, that’s private and nobody’s fucking business. That’s what I meant when I said age doesn’t matter. I didn’t mean it didn’t matter because you’re paying me.”

  His words were nearly a physical blow. She’d been that obvious? “I didn’t think you did.”

  He gripped her chin between thumb and crooked finger and raised her face toward his. “Liar.”

  She’d kept her eyes lowered, but now her gaze jerked up and locked with his. If his eyes had contained anything other than amusement, she’d have been pissed, but as she could see the laugh he was holding back bouncing in his blue eyes, she had no choice but to bat his hand away with a smile. “Fine.”

  “You’re admitting I’m right.”

  “Nope.”

  “Victoria.”

  The way he said her name was grave. “What?”

  “When we’re together, I’m not thinking about the money.”

  She longed to say something back. Something pithy and quick. Something that didn’t feel as heavy as his words made her feel, because—

  “I’m not thinking about the money either.”

  He snagged her hand and gave it a little tug. Reluctantly, her gaze met his. He grinned. “I certainly hope you’re not, or I’m not doing it right.”

  This got a small, answering smile. God, he was so good at this. At everything, really. He seemed at ease every second they were together, no matter what they were doing, which was something she had to work very hard at. And even with all that work, she was not always successful.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  His fingers tensed against hers, but only for a second.

  Though he could have, Kip didn’t pretend to have misunderstood her question. Didn’t take the easy way out. “I want the money.”

  He drove a Mercedes. He always dressed well, even when delivering greasy diner food. He didn’t appear to need the money. “But, why?”

  His shoulders straightened; his chin lifted. “I’m going to start my own business.”

  Now he was speaking her language. She leaned forward and tightened her grip on his hand. “In what?”

  His eyes darted away from hers. “In whatever I want.”

  Okay, that was . . . “What do you want?”

  He was silent for a moment. “Hey, I’m kind of hungry. Want to get something to eat?”

  Never once in the admittedly short time they’d known each other had Kip dodged her. She absorbed the fact that he had just done so in a second of shock before she tugged on his hand. “Kip—”

  “Don’t.” He finally did look at her again, but his blue eyes were pleading. “Please?”

  By some sort of accident, she had managed to find Kip’s weakness. She hadn’t thought he possessed one, but here it was, staring her straight in the face through his puppy dog eyes. Her heart ached in a way it never had. She cleared her throat.

  “How much money do you need?”

  He pressed his lips together. Was he going to answer her at all? Sh
e had no right to this line of personal questioning, and she fully expected him to call her on it.

  “About twenty thousand more,” he said.

  At first, she was shocked he’d answered her. But then her mind made the connection, and a different feeling took place in her chest. One she didn’t like very much. “Well, then, you’re almost there.”

  He looked down at their hands, which were resting on his knee. “Pretty damn close. Yeah.”

  She wanted to touch him. Her fingertips ached to stroke his jaw, but he felt so fragile to her right now, she wasn’t sure he’d not shatter if she tried it. “But you don’t know what you want to do.”

  It wasn’t a question. Kip didn’t reply.

  “Kip.” He looked at her warily. She could understand why. The guy’s big life plan . . . well, “That’s not a plan.”

  He dropped her hand as though she’d scalded him. “I know that,” he gritted through tight lips.

  “But it easily could be.”

  He froze in the process of leaving the bed, and the thundercloud that had crossed his expression froze, too. He blinked. “What?”

  “Let’s think about this for a second.” Her heart started racing, as it always did when she perched on the edge of some excellent work. “Twenty thousand alone is pretty decent, but I’m guessing you have more saved?”

  After a slight hesitation, he jerked a nod.

  “That’s really good.” She tapped her teeth with her fingers. “Really good. You have a great starting budget for advertising.” She tilted her head as she looked at him and narrowed her eyes. “You’re incredibly charming, but most businessmen are. No, your real talent is finding what someone wants and giving it to them. That’s rare.”

  He looked as though she’d hit him in the face with a board.

  “Would you want to still work with women, or do you want to branch out?”

  She waited for him to answer, but he simply stared at her. “Ummm,” he said.

  “Because there are lots of options for either. Especially in Vegas. And especially since you’re not a one-trick pony. Let’s see—funny, well-educated, experienced, personable, good taste. God, you could do anything, really.” She lurched from the bed and started toward her laptop bag. “I have some ideas we could look over, see if anything strikes your fancy.” She reached into her bag and found her thumb drive. When she spun around again, however, she collided with a wall.

  A warm, muscled wall she’d grown increasingly familiar with over the last weeks. She removed her face from his pecs and wrinkled her stinging nose. She blinked up at him and stilled.

  The way he was looking at her right now—Kip had a lot of expressions, but she’d never seen this one: a mixture of hungry and sated all at once.

  Her lips parted. “Are you o—”

  His mouth cut off her words. With a growl, he thrust his tongue into her mouth and jerked her body against his.

  She gasped; he used the opportunity to deepen the kiss. His fingers were in her hair, and she felt her bun loosening. Wisps of her careful hairdo began to brush her collarbone and shoulders while he gripped her head and tilted it so he could kiss her deeper still.

  With a moan, she dropped the thumb drive, not caring where it landed, and fisted both hands in Kip’s shirt. He ground his erection into her belly, and she ground right back against him, whimpers slipping out of the small breaks in their kiss.

  He began walking forward, pressing her back. Her ass met the wall, and he kept coming, crowding into her and pushing his front against hers so that she could feel every tense inch of him. His kiss grew wild, and she could barely hold on as he nipped and licked with a passion he hadn’t shown her until this moment.

  And then his kiss was gone. She was gasping, staring at the space that had held him moments before. Dizzy with lust, she gazed down to find Kip on his knees. He tugged frantically at her fly, and, so on board with the direction this was going, Victoria canted her hips, bringing her ass away from the wall so that he could tug her pants down.

  He hissed shortly at the sight of her red, high-cut lace panties, but, unlike his usual routine, he tugged them down, too, with barely a glance.

  She kicked one leg out of her pants, and he dragged her panties down far enough to get the same leg out of them as well, but just as she was getting ready to remove her other leg, he grasped her bare knee and directed it over his shoulder.

  Her calf trailed down his back, and his muscles rippled against it as he leaned in and nipped at her bare mound.

  She jerked; he gripped her thigh with sprawled fingers and squeezed until she couldn’t move again. Then he licked, his tongue darting between the lips of her sex and finding her clit in a firm undulation that left her gasping all over again.

  “Kip.”

  He shoved closer, his shoulders forcing her captured leg wide and opening her completely to him. To his mouth. He scraped his teeth against her lips, and she shuddered. Her fingers found his hair and held on tight, drawing him closer.

  The hand that held her leg steady against his shoulder disappeared, and she flexed her thigh to keep it right where she needed it, whimpering a little in distress at the thought that maybe he was stopping. Getting ready to rise to his feet.

  Instead, he spread her lips with both thumbs and licked her with the flat of his tongue from her opening to her clit, where his tongue then darted a circle. And another.

  “Shit.” Her hands jerked in his hair, and she knew she had to be hurting him, but he never stopped. He closed his lips over her clitoris and one of his broad fingers eased inside her.

  Victoria’s hips arced, and she threw her head back as pleasure radiated from what he was doing to her, shooting throughout her entire body. Another finger eased in next to the first, and Kip began drawing on her clit with firm sucks from his lips. All the while, he flicked that tongue over her again and again.

  In seconds, it was over. Her body stiffened. A moan turned into a cry, and she arched back, grinding her clit against his face as he thrust his fingers inside her once, twice, countless times.

  He groaned against her skin, and as her orgasm began to abate, she grew overly sensitive. Every lash of his tongue now felt like ten. She tugged at his hair, but he didn’t move. She moaned again, this time with a little distress at the edges of the sound. He said nothing but shook his head against her, picking up the pace of his licks so that Victoria couldn’t gain a breath.

  She sucked in air that didn’t seem to find its way to her lungs, and Kip wedged a third finger inside of her. He began lapping at her clit—quick, broad licks that seemed to cover every inch of her.

  And then, his pinky stretched. Brushed against her back entrance. Just that—a brush and nothing more.

  But it was everything.

  The orgasm stormed through her, taking her by surprise and sweeping aside all thought, all inhibition until she was shoving against his hand as he penetrated her. Grinding desperately against him as she keened toward the ceiling. She screamed his name, and he nipped at her clit in response, sending shooting sparks through the powerful waves of her orgasm.

  Almost as though he knew her body better than she, he slowed the thrusts of his fingers, the flicks of his tongue, as those waves began to abate until they were gently rolling through her, just barely kissing the shores of her nerve endings.

  She shook so badly from the pleasure she wasn’t sure she could stand if he moved. But he didn’t. Instead, he gently withdrew his fingers from her, brushing the tips over flesh swollen from what he’d done to her. He pressed a soft, tender kiss to her clit; then, with a sigh, he palmed her thigh again, and, holding it tightly, rested his cheek against its soft inner skin.

  He glanced up at her, rubbing his day’s growth of beard against her leg. His lips were swollen and shiny, and as she watched, he licked them clean, making something clench low in her belly all over again, as though her body had anything more to give to this man.

  Who was she kidding? It’d give Kip whatever
he wanted.

  She braced her hands on the wall behind her and tried to catch her thundering heart so she could slow it down. When she had enough breath, she dared to speak.

  “Your turn.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Kip was so hard inside his pants it was difficult to think of anything else. But he was somehow managing it. To a fantastic degree.

  As the soft, warm skin of her inner thigh cradled his cheek, he stared up at her and the way her lips were still pursed after her statement, and all he could do was think.

  Think about all the things she’d said before he’d flown across the room and pinned her against the wall. Think about the way his heart ached even more than his cock at present, and that was really saying something.

  Think about the way she’d tasted as he’d licked her to orgasm twice. The way he didn’t feel life was so hopeless and scary because she believed in him.

  She believed in him.

  His fingers tightened on her thigh.

  “Kip?” She pulled one shaky hand from the wall and ran her fingers through his hair. He turned into the touch, forcing himself to keep his eyes open when they fluttered. “Don’t you want me to—?”

  He kissed her fingers and shook his head. If she touched him right now, his going off like a rocket was the least embarrassing thing that could happen. The back of his throat felt full of words that—surely not—had the shape of . . .

  He jerked to his feet, dropping her leg without ceremony. Victoria swayed and grappled at the wall, and, feeling like a heel, Kip gripped her shoulders and steadied her.

  And again, those words crowded the back of his mouth.

  I love you.

  He clenched his teeth. You are an ass! He schooled himself to keep his grip light when his fingers wanted to tighten.

  Two and a half weeks.

  Two and a half weeks he’d known this woman. He’d never said those words before, and he was certainly not going to say them now, hours away from telling her good-bye.

  But I feel them. God, how he felt them. No one had ever, in his life, said the kind of things to him that Victoria had minutes ago. No one had thought he was worth them.