He whirls to face me and I take a step back but he’s smiling that puppy-dog smile of his. “La Mason Sur L’eau.”
From his tone, I’m obviously supposed to be impressed. Why is it that all fancy restaurants are French? “How the hell do the patrons even pronounce that?” I speak fluent Spanish and English, but French always confused me. All that phlegm.
He chuckles. “They don’t. They call it by its English name, The Restaurant on the Water. Or they just say La Mason. It’s the only French restaurant in town.”
“Were you born in France?”
Jerome stops and takes my hands in his, holding my gaze. His blue eyes shine in a way they didn’t last night or this morning, almost as if lit by an invisible fire. “Kiss me?” He puckers up and leans in but I place a hand on his chest and gently hold him in place. He doesn’t resist. I want to be angry that he’s not respecting my “no-kissing rule” but he was pretty out of it last night so I’m not surprised he doesn’t remember.
“Not right now, Romeo.” Ah, now the proverbial other shoe drops and he didn’t even wait twenty-four hours. Yikes. I just can’t figure out exactly what he wants from me, and at some point we’re going to have to have that conversation. I may even have to rethink my no-sugar-daddies rule if I can’t get my face fixed. I already broke one rule . . . or was it two? Shit—I’m losing track. Not a good sign.
“Romeo was Italian.” He crinkles his nose.
“Um, okay, not right now, Casanova?”
“No, no. This is worse!” He places his hand on his chest and turns to walk through the massive living room. I follow. It boasts two full-size couches, a coffee table and two bright blue chairs with odd angled, tilting backs. Eclectic, I suppose. On our way into the hallway we pass a floating circular staircase and I crane my neck upward, spying wooden floors and a small metal railing at the top.
“I was born in France, yes. My parents are still there, in Paris.” He says it the French way, Par-ee. “My father is a chef and taught me everything I know.”
“Wow, Mr. Fancy Pants,” I say and immediately regret it.
He ignores the slight and pushes open a door. I peek over his shoulder into the long, narrow half bath. It’s gorgeous, like everything else in this place. Quartz countertops and shining faucets in a classy raised bronze basin.
I push past him, squinting at the toilet, which has some kind of lighted panel. “What’s this?”
“It’s a bidet. That’s one thing Maggie always joked about. You wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water after you go the bathroom but you wipe your butt with paper?”
I smirk. “Can’t be too clean down there. But are you sure the bidet was for her and not because of your French upbringing?”
He shrugs. “It does make sense. Unfortunately, they don’t include them in the houses in France anymore either, but when I was a boy we had one.”
“Do all of the toilets have this feature?”
“Why don’t you take a look?” He gives me a playful wink.
He doesn’t sound heartbroken at all anymore. Definitely some sort of coping mechanism. We quickly peek into the room at the end of the hallway. It’s staged as a library but could be used as a workout room or an office and has a door leading back into the front room of the house.
Jerome mounts the stairs first and I follow. At the top, the landing opens onto a long hallway that leads to a balcony. There are two doors on each side of the hallway. I open the doors to each and peek in. On one side, the rooms are identically sized bedrooms facing the ocean, while the rooms facing the street side are equally sized bathrooms. With bidets.
I run into the bedroom at the end of the hall and glide to the sliding glass window. It opens onto a shared balcony and I pause to blink at the spectacular sunset descending behind the water.
Jerome follows behind me and I tear my gaze away from the beauty. “Why are both bedrooms and baths the same size?”
“The owners said it’s a new trend. They’re offering it as a husband-wife unit, meaning each person gets their own space and no one has to fight over it.”
Interesting. Someone’s finally catching on. “How much is the rent?” I’m afraid to ask.
“I can cover whatever you can’t.”
I put my hands up. “I already explained, handouts make me uncomfortable. Like I owe something I’m not prepared to pay on the back end. Something other than money.” Or sex. Geezus, Syd, you’re forgetting you’re a whore. What’s the fucking difference? You’re running out of options. This guy wouldn’t be offering if he didn’t want to and Maggie did say he’s loaded. The idea of living somewhere safe and luxurious speaks to every part of me I’ve kept hidden.
“I want you to live with me here, and I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to make that happen.”
Time to jump off my high horse. I move to the bed and pat the space next to me. He eagerly sits down. “Whatever it takes?”
“Oh yes.” He cups my face in his hands. I flinch and draw back, the bruises and gash throbbing despite the anti-inflammatories I took. He sits back, placing his hands on his lap. “Sydney, please just let me take care of you.”
14
Niall
I pace around the room upstairs. What the hell is taking Sydney so long to get here? My watch says it’s after eight and I asked for her at six fucking thirty. The bottle of champagne I ordered is swimming in a sea of melted ice. I am not used to waiting. As a matter of fact, I don’t wait. For anyone. People wait for me. After several minutes of grumbling to myself, I draw a bath.
My favorite room here at Ichor is room H. In my more maudlin moments, I call it the starlight room because it sports several skylights and a glass ceiling in the bathroom above the Jacuzzi tub. I fill it to the top with near-scalding water, just the way I like it. By the time I’ve stripped and dropped myself into the tub, I’ve been waiting for the woman for almost two hours, and why? Why don’t I pick some other piece of candy from the menu? I don’t even like fucking the same woman twice, and Ichor always has new beauties available for my delectation. The one time I came here and Miss Cheryl didn’t have any new girls, I left. She hasn’t made that mistake since.
The bathroom door creaks open without a knock. I startle, a little water splashing over the edge.
Sydney peers around the doorjamb, her face in shadow but her pale green eyes sparkling in the fake candlelight, a prism of color and radiance. “Knock, knock.” Her voice holds a layer of playfulness.
My anger bristles in the warm tub and I sit up, barely able to contain myself from pouncing on her, but I say nothing.
She pushes the door open and enters. I bite back a wail—her gorgeous face is a ruin. I will fix it first and then kill whoever did this to her. I leap out of the tub and reach for her face. She shies back.
“I was supposed to work tonight, and then this happened. No one wants a whore who looks like this.” She gestures to her face.
“Let me heal you.”
“Miss Cheryl insisted I drink from a vampire and heal before coming in, but I refused.” She raises her chin. A flash of pain stabs her eyes and her brows crease.
Does she think I don’t want her because she’s broken? If it were another woman, any other woman, I can’t say that wouldn’t be my first thought, but for some strange reason it’s the last thing I care about right now. I’d take this woman in any form, and seeing her hurt this way only makes me want her more. To heal her. To help her. To hold her and keep her safe. “Why?”
Her eyes shut and she sucks in a deep breath. “So many reasons, but . . .” She sits on the edge of the tub. “The most important reason is my mamá. I promised her I never would.”
I sit down next to her. “Okay, I will respect that, but I want to know who did this to you.” And where I can find him. I don’t want to reach for her face and spook her so I just touch her leg. “Does it hurt?”
She waves a hand in front of her face. “Of course it hurts but I’ve endured worse and I don’t know
who did it. It was too dark and it all happened too fast.”
“Where?”
“Here, right outside of Ichor.”
What. The. Fuck? I bristle with anger, muscles tensing to the point of a spasm, but I’m not sure which piece of information I’m more upset about. I will talk with Miss Cheryl and insist to see the camera footage so I can find—and take care of—the guy who did this. She had better have a camera trained on the front of the building.
“Pimps and johns know to go for the body, not the face. Never the face. This is my moneymaker right here and now . . .” She looks away, blinking rapidly.
Not bothering with a towel, I pivot toward her and wrap my arms around her trembling frame. We’re so much alike, she and I, putting on a solid front to mask the pain inside. I stand up with her, walk out of the bathroom and over to the bed, then sit her down gently.
She looks up at me and forces a smile but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Another show. Reaching for my cock, she licks her lips. I shake my head and she lets go, falling back on the bed. She grabs a pillow and covers her face, then pulls up her mid-thigh-length skirt. She’s wearing crotchless fishnet stockings and no panties. I groan at the sight of her pussy shaved into a perfect landing strip, beckoning me to touch down.
Sydney raises her ass and spreads her legs open with her hands, dipping a perfectly manicured nail into her warm cleft. Putting on a show, she groans and gyrates her hips. I place a hand on each of her thighs to still her, then lie down on the bed next to her and prop myself up on an elbow. Gently, so as not to startle, I remove the pillow from her face.
“Let’s talk first,” I say.
Remaining on her back, she lets out a sigh. “I knew it. I’m too hideous to fuck. Just say it.”
I touch her upper arm, stroking up and down with one finger. “That’s not it, beautiful.” It’s about as far from the truth as she could imagine.
She closes her eyes, a small tear running out the corner. I reach up and wipe it away. She turns away from me, her lips tightening. “Fuck off.” Sydney sits up and adjusts her skirt to cover her exposed crotch. “If you’re not going to fuck me, I’m leaving.”
I sit up too but refrain from touching her, which I’m finding increasingly difficult to do. “I paid for your time. You’ll stay.”
Shifting to look at me, she crosses her arms below her ample chest. “Fine.”
“Move here, please.” I motion to the headboard and wait until she’s sitting back against it. I sit cross-legged, facing her, and reach for one of her hands. She pulls it back out of reach. “I’m the client and though you should do as I ask, when it comes to physical contact, I won’t push you.”
Looking up at me, she touches the base of her neck, her fingers pressing in and out of the notch there. “Seriously?”
I push my ginger hair out of my eyes and nod at her. “Seriously. But that doesn’t mean I won’t ask for what I want. You can either comply or refuse, it’s up to you. Understood?”
That green gaze searches mine, the purplish bruises surrounding her left eye almost pulsing in the low light. After a few beats she nods, once.
“May I hold your hand?” I don’t reach for it. I keep mine in my lap, my very naked lap.
After another second she holds hers out to me and I reach for it, grasping her long cold fingers in my warm ones. I make no other moves. I don’t run a thumb along the ridges of her knuckles or bring them to my mouth for a kiss, even though that’s all I want to do. My concern for this woman both confuses and thrills me. I haven’t felt anything like it before. Women and men have been mere conveniences. It’s not that I disrespect them. I only use those who want to be used and leave the rest alone. It’s an agreement I made with myself long ago and one I intend to keep. Still, there’s no harm in exploring this a little bit. It’s not like I wear my heart on my belt buckle. I don’t even have a heart. Do I?
15
Sydney
I don’t know how to react to Niall. No doubt this act is all because he’s assuaging his guilt for not wanting to fuck me now that my face is messed up. Whatever, his time, my money.
His hand is warm and stirs a memory I’ve worked to hide. My first “love,” if Connor can even be called that.
Niall doesn’t squeeze my hand in his, he doesn’t caress it. He just holds it, which is kind of weird but what’s weirder is that I like it.
He doesn’t move. His eyes don’t roam over my body or linger on my glaring facial bruises. They remain glued to my eyes. Other than the occasional blink, it’s like the man is a statue.
“Okay, I give. Whatcha thinking?” Why the hell do I care anyway? It’s easier money if I just sit this way with him for an hour without speaking.
He shifts his body to the left and looks me straight in the eyes. “I have an offer.”
Of course he does. Let me guess, turn around with my ass in the air so he can do the deed without me pulling a pillow case over my head? Now, why didn’t I think of that? I pull my hand from his and turn around, throwing my body over one of the larger pillows and hiking my skirt back up over my ass.
“Oh, wow,” his voice is husky, “you are, without question, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
My ass, he means. It is a pretty nice ass, and it should be after all the squats I’ve endured. I wriggle it and move my hand down between my legs to finger myself. Truth is, this man turns me on far more than I’d like to admit and since he isn’t touching me—well, someone’s got to.
“Please,” he rasps. “Stop.”
Stop? Stop what? Touching myself? Wriggling my ass? I know from prior experience that this man can hold his semen if need be. I don’t want to show him my face but I glance over my shoulder anyway.
He’s stroking his cock and licking his lips. His eyes are glazed as he stares at my hand moving against my clit. There we go. He just needed a little incentive without my beat-up face getting in the way. I turn back and squeeze my eyes shut. I have to think of something other than that image of him behind me, his muscles rippling as he strokes himself. I can’t orgasm with anyone. But this isn’t really the same thing, is it? I mean, he’s not touching me. He’s just watching. I’ve done that before, masturbated for men and for women. Dozens of times. The difference between those times and now is that I’ve always faked it and this time I’m having trouble not coming.
“Sydney, please stop,” he growls but his breathing, his panting, shallow breaths say otherwise. “I . . . can’t think . . . with you doing that.”
“You’re not supposed to think,” I purr. “Pump that hard cock for me. I want you to cover my ass with your come.”
“I . . . want . . . to . . . talk.” He’s close, and that turns me on in a way I’ve never experienced with a john before.
“Talk later, come on me. Or better yet, fuck me and come inside my pussy.” I waggle my ass at him again.
“Oh Sydney, I want to touch you. Can I touch you?”
“Yes, please, fuck me!” I scream.
He puts both of his hands on my ass and I move my hand away. “No, put your hand back, keep playing with yourself.”
Shit. I do as he says reluctantly. I want to come but I can’t let myself. I clear my mind and turn it toward what I need to in order to keep from having an orgasm. Pushing myself out of my body and into my mind is the easy part; it’s staying there that becomes challenging. I’m able to enter the lockbox I keep deep inside and focus on math problems, old video games and the rotten smells I’ve collected throughout my life.
These thoughts, these hidden places have never failed me before.
Niall presses his face in between my ass cheeks and inhales. Is he a rimmer? I wouldn’t have pegged him as one. But instead of tonguing my anus, he breathes out heavily, loudly, making a humming sound that vibrates my pussy and almost pushes me over the edge. The sounds of him pumping himself again excite me even more and all thought, all common sense, all my years of training fly right out the brothel window.
; “Come for me,” he snarls and slaps my ass.
I bite it back, clenching my pussy. Then there’s the sound of a condom wrapper tearing open, and a second later his cock presses into my opening. “Let me in,” he commands and I can’t help loosening my pussy for him. “Put your hand back and touch your clit for me. You will come for me.”
I do as he says, even though I know I shouldn’t. Everything inside my brain is screaming for me to stop but I can’t. His cock teases my entrance without pressing in his full length. Just the tip and then back out again, exactly the way I like it. The way I touch myself when I want to come. He uses his hand to circle his member around my wet entrance and up over my clit. I make a move to grab his cock but he circles my waist with his other hand and slaps mine away, bringing my hand back to my clit like he’s my master and I can’t defy his command.
“Niall, please . . .” I pant.
“Please what?” he grunts. “Please make you come?”
Oh fuck me. “Yes.” No!
He moves my hand faster while his cock keeps up its maddening tease, pressing in and out a mere inch. It’s obvious he’s frigged many women before me and the moment before I’m about to burst, he shoves himself all the way inside of me. My orgasm explodes, harder and stronger than any I’ve ever given to myself. It races like napalm through my nerves as each one fires again and again. I am ravaged by the sensations, completely unfamiliar and yet oddly comforting, as if this is exactly what I needed to finally relax. To get off the merry-go-round of pretend and make-believe that is my life. To stop performing and, for the first time ever, start living instead. I shake my head once to clear these dangerous thoughts.
Niall pulls himself out of my pulsing snatch without finishing himself and drops to my side, bringing my fingers to his mouth and sucking on them. His eyes are locked on mine and I’m sure I look a mess, panting and drooling with a black-and-blue face, but the way he’s looking at me I can almost forget how hideous I am. He moves up to my face and cradles it. I want to move away but I’m too stunned to do much else than fuck the air with my ass.
Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection Page 92