by Skye Warren
“There’s you,” she says softly, which isn’t really an answer.
It’s a distraction, and a successful one. Because for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I want her. Not her body or her money. I want to unlock her secrets. “Then let’s go upstairs, and we will see if we can make those ecstasies come more often.”
Chapter Five
Entering the penthouse, this time knowing that Bea lives here, is a revelation. Minette greets us with a plaintive meow, winding around our ankles as if we both belong.
There is a coat rack beside the entrance, draped with a herringbone coat. A tightly wrapped umbrella sits in the base. I know without touching them that they won’t be damp, despite the weather, because Bea didn’t go outside today. She didn’t go outside yesterday. How long has it been since she stepped foot outside this hotel?
“Do you want some coffee?” she asks in that too-fast way. I’m not sure whether she’s asking as a kind of date etiquette or whether she wants a reprieve, but I say what I always tell my clients.
“Yes, please. I would love some.”
I follow her to the corner of the suite where a wet bar would be. It’s been expanded, I see, to include a small two-range stove top with a wardrobe beside it that I assume serves as a pantry. It’s still less than even a small apartment would offer, but much more utility than any ordinary penthouse suite. A gleaming mini-fridge must hold the meager contents of her food supply, when she doesn’t order down for baked camembert or oysters.
What a life she leads, both decadent and desolate.
Her hands are shaking. The mug trembles for a beat too long against the metal plate of the fancy machinery, revealing her weakness. I take it from her gently, setting it aside.
“Darling,” I say softly.
She gives a small shudder. It isn’t quite a sob. That’s the only warning I have before she crumples, not against anything, not on top of anything, it’s more like she becomes suddenly small. Tiny. Like she’s shoved herself behind a dresser in an effort to be invisible.
I wrap her in my arms before I can think better of it. That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? To provide comfort with my body. That’s all I am—my hands or my mouth. My cock. And if that makes me feel cold and paper-thin, it does not matter.
This woman, though, she seems to like me for my arms.
I stroke her back softly, murmuring words of assurance. In French, I realize belatedly, but it doesn’t matter. She proved downstairs she could understand, and the language doesn’t matter. Not for what we’re doing here.
Her body feels impossibly slight in my grasp, like smoke that will disappear if I hold too hard. But her hair—God, her hair. It does not care that she is trying to make herself small; it’s a perfect bronze cloud, tickling my nose, curling gently into my skin.
Her shoulders shake against me. The sound of her worry and her grief carve themselves into my skin, leaving marks I’m not sure will be gone by morning.
“Bea.” I tilt her tear-stained face up with my thumb and forefinger. “Tell me what’s wrong. Why have you called me here tonight? Why are you hurting?”
“I’m embarrassed,” she says, her cheeks a deep red. “I mean, I know I should have gone downstairs to the bar. That makes way more sense than paying someone to have sex with me.”
“Why didn’t you?” I’m genuinely curious.
She speaks into my chest, her voice muffled. “I did. Five nights in a row, I wore this dress and went downstairs. Every night someone would send me a drink.”
My voice is softer now. “Did you accept?”
“I tried to. I took a sip and gave them a smile when they sat down at the stool next to me. But it was too real somehow. Like they would expect something more than… you know.”
“Sex,” I say with gentle encouragement.
“Sex,” she repeats.
The word sends a soft breath of heat into my cock. God, this woman. Even hearing her say the word is enough to make me hard. What will it feel like to peel the black dress from her body? To hear her moans and sighs and a thousand other sounds?
“I have no expectation,” I tell her. “Not even sex. If you want to sit with me and recite nursery rhymes, that is what we’ll do. Or if you’d like me to leave. However…”
She looks at me, hope in her green eyes. “However?”
“However, it would be an honor to take you to bed tonight.”
“Even though I haven’t done it before?”
Especially because of that.
So much that it terrified me before, when she first told me. But I’ve had time to consider it over dinner, and besides the caveman-like effect it has on my body, how hard she makes me, it makes sense that I should be the one to do this.
One of those assholes at the bar, what if they don’t make her come? What if they demand more from her than she wants to give? No, the way to make this good for her is to do it myself.
Even though I haven’t done it before?
“Even though,” I tell her, my voice grave.
She smiles, then, the parting of clouds. “My friend Harper said this would be a thousand times more awkward than a one-night stand, but it’s not. It’s easier. Is that wrong?”
“It’s perfectly right.”
I said it to reassure her, but I’m the one reassured when I stroke my thumb across her cheek. It feels perfectly right to bend my head and breathe in the faint smell of lavender. Perfectly right to press my mouth against her plush lips.
She opens her mouth with an acquiescent sigh, and I know she’s still finding this easier. The men downstairs, none of them could have given her this. There’s seduction in my movements, but confidence too. The kind of confidence that can only come from knowing I can please her.
An entire city of men who would have had her, who would have been happy for the privilege of a single night, no money exchanging hands, and she paid for me.
I wasn’t lying to her before. It will be an honor.
Chapter Six
Her freckles don’t taste like anything. I know that, but I can’t stop kissing them. Can’t stop following the reckless trail across her cheek and below her jaw. I swear there’s stardust in them, something elemental and bright. They singe my lips, my tongue.
She makes a sound of surprise, a strangled little gasp in her throat. “Is this regular? I thought it would be more like…”
“More like what?” I don’t pause to give her time to answer. She must find the wherewithal even while I move my body closer to hers. Her hands flutter against my shoulders, not pushing me away, not pulling me close. They are confused, those hands.
“Like the movies.”
That makes me stop. I pull back so I can look into her pale green eyes. Jade, I realize. They’re the color of jade, the kind of stone you would hang on a gold chain. “What movies?”
This level of red, it’s an emergency. Her cheeks burn. “You know.”
“Do you watch porn, darling?”
“Only for instructional purposes,” she says too fast.
I do not laugh. I think I should get a medal for not laughing at this. “And what did you learn from the porn movies you watched?” I ask, quite seriously.
“Usually they…you know. The clothes come off.”
Naturally I am desperate to know what sort of clothes came off. Was there a nurse’s uniform? Or perhaps a man dressed as a burglar, come to tie her up? “Do you want to take off your clothes?”
“No,” she says on a squeak.
Of course not. Because she isn’t ready for that, despite the dubious education porn movies have given her. She’s practically vibrating with nervousness. “Then you’ll keep your clothes on. For now. For as long as you want them. You’re safe with me.”
Her eyes focus with puzzlement. “Safe?”
It’s the reason she stays in this tower, this princess with red hair. Because it’s safe. And that’s what I must be, if I’m to be allowed to stay. “Safe,” I say. “Tell me what y
She looks reluctant, biting her lip.
“No matter what you say, I won’t be angry. Cross my heart.”
“I’m worried you aren’t really aroused,” she says, fast. “That you’re faking it.”
It’s not the first time a woman has ever worried about that with me, but it is the first time I’ve been as desperate to get a woman naked. That she doubts me now is a great irony. “What makes you think that?”
“In the movies they always show the—the—”
“You don’t think my cock is hard?”
She flushes. “I mean, it doesn’t have to be.”
Now I can’t help but laugh. A full belly laugh. When is the last time I had one of these? There are tears at the corner of my eyes. I turn her around, making her face the small countertop with its fancy espresso maker. She’s right up against it, her tummy pressed to the curved stone ledge. Then I cover her with my body, my throbbing cock between her sweet ass cheeks, the only barriers her clothes and mine.
She stiffens with a small gasp. “That is—”
“Do you see what you do to it? You make it hard. So hard it hurts.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no,” I murmur. “Never apologize for that. It’s all a man can dream of, a woman making him so hard it hurts. Only letting him touch her over her clothes. Dying for a glimpse of bare skin.”
She moans a little. “This isn’t like the movies.”
I press my lips to the small patch behind her ear. “No, it’s not like the movies. This is real life, and that’s why you called for me, isn’t it? Because the movies were not real.”
“Yes,” she agrees, breathless.
“When the women come, and they squeal and shake, it isn’t real. It isn’t right. You know that, don’t you? They fake it. You won’t fake anything, darling.” I turn her to face me, because for the first time this is the right way. The only way.
“What if I don’t—”
“You will,” I assure her, which only seems to worry her more.
A shudder runs through her delicate frame, making her hair vibrate like dewdrops on a flower petal. It only looks fragile; in truth it can withstand this earthquake. “It would be easier if it didn’t feel so good,” she says, her voice plaintive and pleasure-dipped.
“One day you’ll tell me why you want sex so badly, without feeling anything.”
“I won’t,” she says, but she’s only cross with me because I’m rubbing gentle circles on her back, because it feels so damn good. She arches into my touch, the same way her cat would.
And then I move my hand lower, to the upper curve of her ass. It’s a beautiful ass, which is saying something. I’ve seen more than my fair share. Enjoyed every single one of them, but the picture of her heart-shaped behind, from when she bent over the dresser, is emblazoned in my mind. So perfectly wrapped in black, silky fabric, thick enough to ward most men away. I’m not most men. The challenge only makes it sweeter as I stroke the slope of her, as I feel her gasp in response. I’m the first man to ever traverse this land, something I hadn’t thought to find pleasure in. What a barbarian I am. A Viking, to find such deviant delight in taking a young woman’s virginity. It has nothing to do with seduction, the palm I place on her, the squeeze I give her. That’s pure indulgence on my part, knowing I am the first.
She shifts closer to me, making tiny sounds I’m not sure she hears. Her body is out of her control; it’s in mine now. “I don’t even know your favorite color,” she whispers.
I laugh softly. “Red.”
The color of my Bugatti.
“Mine’s blue,” she says, but she doesn’t explain why.
I reach down to the lace hem of her dress, pulling the fabric into careless bunches, until I touch bare skin. It’s a godsend, the satin of her. Like opening my mouth to the sky after years of thirst. With a firm grasp I hitch her leg up to my hip, spreading her. “Any other questions?”
Her eyes are hazy. I can see the struggle behind the green curtain, the valiant attempt to string words together as her body comes apart. “Favorite food.”
“A tagine,” I tell her, not adding that it’s my mother’s I dream about. The spice of it on a hot night, making me sweat in the dark. This isn’t about revealing secrets, not truly. It’s about making her feel like she knows me. I won’t lie to her, but I won’t rip apart my skin to set her at ease either.
That clears enough of the arousal from her eyes to ask, “A tagine?”
It makes me wonder what other foods she hasn’t yet experienced, trapped in this gilded prison of hers. Even the richest of foods can be punishment if they’re all she can eat. “A stew. Spicy. Do you like spicy food?”
“I don’t know,” she says, confirming my worst fears.
I want to book us a flight to Thailand or South Africa, to show her a thousand buildings and give her a million new tastes. Like most penthouse suites, this one is large—for a visit, not for a lifetime. “What’s your favorite food, darling?”
She pulls back, looking me right in the eyes, proving that though she is untried, she is far from naive. “I haven’t found it yet.”
Her words travel straight to my groin, a challenge I’m desperate to accept. “You think these questions make it easier? We could talk for hours and hours, darling. And still you would be nervous.”
“Then how do people do this?”
I grasp her small hand and place it flat on my chest. “These are your questions. So what do you wish to know?”
Awareness sparks in her eyes. She moves her hand in the smallest circle, testing, asking about the solidity of my body, wondering at the reality of this encounter. I can’t let so eager a question go unanswered; I bend my head to capture her lips.
Her other hand flutters against my shoulder before settling there. A butterfly I must be careful not to spook if I want to enjoy its beauty. I dart my tongue against her lips, letting her think about the presence of it before delving into her mouth.
She startles for a moment, and I think, this is it. This was all I’ll have of her, this taste. It’s shocking, the depth of my disappointment. I can walk away from any woman. We enjoy our time together. And then we part. I have never wanted more, never needed another taste like I do now.
She moans in sweet acquiescence.
I’m overcome with relief I don’t want to examine, and I slide my tongue against hers in quiet insistence. The physical sensations are a tidal wave; they drown out any thoughts or worries. They sweep over the both of us, making her breath come faster. She’s excited and hungry and needy, and so I can push aside the realization that I am, too.
If my response to her is stronger than I expected, so be it. I can use it to be a better tutor for her. Because that’s what I am right now, as experienced as I am, with a virgin—her teacher.
I press my forefinger to the small furrow between her eyes. “You are thinking too hard. Feel, instead.” To illustrate my point, I bite her plump bottom lip. It’s only a small nip, but enough to make her jump. “Only feel.”
Her eyes spark with a lovely rebellion. “Like this?”
I know what she’s going to do before she leans forward, before her white teeth peek from between peach-colored lips. There are one, two, three seconds when I could jerk out of reach. And it wouldn’t be awkward; I would be too charming for that. I would laugh and cajole and coax her into the most pleasure she’s ever known.
It would be a beautiful performance, that. Instead I let her get close enough to hurt me, the sharp pain a brilliant counterpoint to the thrum of anticipation in my veins. It’s only a pinch, but I have to close my eyes against the raw force of it.
“Yes,” I say, and my voice is lower now. My accent thicker. “Like that.”
“What else?” she whispers, and a dark current of arousal runs through me at the hope in her voice. It wasn’t only me who was jaded, I realize. It was the women. The women who would call me, because they were tired of selfish, cheating men in their lives. I was happy to give them a reprieve from their loneliness, to take a reprieve from my own, but this is different.
Bea is full of hope, like a curved tendril of green splitting the earth in spring. She makes me want to breathe in deep, to stretch my limbs. To watch her rise.
What else? she asked. This is what else, my hand falling down her side to the indent at her waist. And lower, lower. She sucks in a breath, leaving only cool air against my collarbone.
And still lower.
My hand stops in the space below her stomach, well above her mound. A place that isn’t on its own sexual, but a place a man would only touch if he’s about to have sex.
“You have practice, yes? You touch yourself.”
Her lips form a perfect O because of course she has. She isn’t experienced, but she is curious. “That’s not weird,” she says, a little defensive. The voice of one who has to convince herself.
“But no. Very sexy, that’s what it is. I would love to see it.”
Her cheeks flame. “I couldn’t.”
“Maybe later,” I say, and then I do something a little forward. I give her a wink. That would not be an introductory lesson on flirting, on foreplay, but I find myself out of my depth with this girl. As if I’m desperate to impress her instead of a hired professional with a job to do.
She bites her lip. “Could I watch you do that?”
God, the mouth on her. She can’t even say the words, but she manages to say them anyway. So much courage and so much fear. My body tightens with the image of her, leaning forward, lips parted, while I pump my cock. I would become desperate, sweating and swearing, but still I would not come, not until she had looked her fill.
“It would be torture,” I tell her honestly. “Exquisite.”
She studies the top button on my shirt like it’s an elaborate puzzle. It would be so easy to open it myself, without even removing my gaze from her. And it’s so much sweeter to watch her struggle with herself.
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