by Zoey Parker
It seemed so right, so natural. So normal. Being in bed with a man, talking about life, kissing and having sex in between. Just a perfectly regular night.
Only, this wasn’t perfectly regular.
Even as I kissed him, even as I sighed and tilted my head back to allow his mouth to roam my neck, I had second thoughts. We’d been at this all night. It wasn’t right. There couldn’t be anything between us, but with every word and every kiss I felt myself becoming more attached to him. That would never do, ever. We had no future.
But then his hand caressed the curve of my backside and I moaned, gasping for air. His fingers were like fire, setting me ablaze with every touch. My body writhed on top of his without my meaning it to, because that was what felt right. I needed him again. And I would again and again if he didn’t stop touching me and teasing me the way he did.
His hand cupped my breast and squeezed gently before he lifted the nipple to his waiting mouth. I cried out, holding his head in place, wishing I had the guts to beg for more. I was still too shy to ask for what I wanted, and I needed him to understand what I wanted without my saying it. He seemed to, since he sucked harder the louder I cried out.
I had to. I needed him. I let him roll me over onto my back and I opened my legs to him. He slid inside without warning, and I cried out in a mix of pain and pleasure when he entered me. It was still too new to it, and this was the third time that night. I was sore and tight, and he was so big.
But the pain went away ever faster then than it had before, and soon I was clutching him as hard as I would clutch a life raft in a stormy sea. He rocked me slowly, sweetly. It was almost agony the way the pleasure built, driving me crazy. Every time he filled me I gave a little gasping cry. I couldn’t believe it felt so good.
Then he started grinding his hips, and I nearly screamed with pleasure. He hit a certain spot in me with every grind just perfectly. I bit down on his shoulder, moving with him. “Yes…yes…” I whispered, trying to get the courage to tell him how good it felt.
“You like that?” he grunted, grinding into me again.
“Uh-huh,” I whimpered.
“Yeah? When I do this?” Another grinding thrust, another whimper from me.
“Tell me how you love it,” he ordered. “Tell me you love it when I’m inside you.”
“I…I love it when you’re…inside me!” I gasped, throwing my head back and tensing all over as another climax threatened to wipe me out completely. He went harder, faster, pumping in and out.
“Tell me you love it! Tell me you want to come!”
“I wanna come!” I screamed, then shuddered as I did come. I held him, arms and legs wrapped around him, and shuddered again and again as he rode me in a blinding flurry of thrusts until he stiffened and groaned, then collapsed against me.
God. He was so big, so massive under my hands, inside me. I ran my hands all over his back and shoulders, kissing his neck. Reveling in the bliss he brought me. I wanted to hold onto him forever, to hold onto this moment together forever. I had never understood passion before. I knew it when he took me and unleashed it in me.
He raised himself up on his arms, allowing me to breathe freely again. I didn’t know it would be so hard bearing a man’s weight like that, but then again he was a big man, all muscle. I wanted nothing more than to wrap myself around him and stay that way all night. I closed my eyes, just about snuggle up against him again.
Then my eyes flew open. What the hell was I doing? I was making love, that’s what I was doing. I didn’t have much experience, but that was what we were doing. Cuddling, kissing, telling stories, making love. Oh, my God, I thought. This isn’t right at all. How did I let myself go so far?
I had to get out of there, and fast.
I sat up, looking around the room. It was nearly pitch dark. That didn’t help when I needed to find my all-black clothing. I leaned over the edge of the bed to find my underwear.
“What’s up?” he asked, tracing a line down the center of my back from neck to tailbone. I shivered in pleasure, but stayed strong. I couldn’t give in to him again. I stood up.
“I have to go back to the warehouse.”
He frowned. “That’s where you’re going? At this time of night? What are you, crazy?”
I turned away from him, reminding myself this was just a business deal. Nothing more. I didn’t need to look at him again or do anything with him again. We were two ships passing in the night. It was a profitable arrangement, but still just an arrangement.
“That’s where my money is.” I slipped into my panties, then searched around in the dark for my bra.
I was stunned to hear his laughter in the darkness. “Are you serious?”
“Why not? That was where I was told I could get it.”
“So that’s all you can think about right now? The money?”
I found my bra and put it on. “What else? Eric, you know why I did this. I never lied to you.”
“No, of course. And I understand that. I just don’t see where the fire is. Why do you have to get up in the middle of the night and leave like this? You know who does that?”
I stopped what I was doing and turned to him. “You’d better not say what I think you’re going to say.”
“Why not? Does it hit a little too close to home? Being called a whore?”
My hands clenched, my nails digging into my palms. “How dare you. What, is your pride hurt because I don’t want to lay here and cuddle with you all night long? Which of us is the man, and which is the woman?”
“Don’t talk to me that way.” His voice would have scared me enough if I had heard it in a well-lit room. He sounded almost murderously angry, barely keeping his emotions in check. “Nobody talks to me that way.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but you don’t get to call me a whore. Not when you know damned well why I did this. I’m sorry if it hurts your pride, I really am, but I have to get the money and get back home to my mother.”
“No, you just have to get your money and forget how you went slumming. Get the hell out, then.”
“I will. Not like I want to be here. Not like any woman would want to be in this fucking pigsty of a house. Why don’t you try having a little personal pride?”
“From the woman who sold her virginity tonight.”
I was holding my shoes in my hand, and it took every ounce of self-control not to hurl one of them at his head. “From the man who bought it. Classy.” I turned away, tears burning in my eyes and throat. I had to get away before I started crying. He would know he won if I started to cry in front of him. I couldn’t let him see how he got to me.
I went downstairs, and he didn’t follow. I was relieved. I pulled out my phone to call a cab, then sat outside until it came. No way I was going to wait inside the house. I would have rather frozen to death out front.
Well, that was the end of that. I’d been insane to think he was anything other than a user, an opportunist. I would never, ever see him again.
Chapter Ten
I could have killed him for being so crass and nasty. What right did he have to make fun of me? He was the leader of a biker club, for God’s sake, and he’d been in prison. I knew he had. He wasn’t fooling me with the “I was away for a while” story. I still didn’t know what he had done, but considering the way bikers weren’t known for being good citizens I could only imagine. I hoped it wasn’t anything like murder.
And he was the one who bought me! That was the worst part, that he had the nerve to make fun when he was the idiot who bid thirty grand. What a double standard. But weren’t men full of double standards? They could run around acting like sluts, sleeping with anything they saw, but let a woman do it and she was lower than low. It never failed.
He made me feel like a whore. That was the worst part. That was what really got under my skin and made me want to claw his eyes out. He had given me an experience I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest, dirtiest fantasies…then made me feel like a whore for wanti
ng the money that had led to it.
Okay. Maybe that did make me a whore. But he knew why! It wasn’t for drugs, or a shopping addiction. I was trying to make my mom’s last days as good as I could. Where was the crime in that?
I should have known he was just as he appeared on the surface. Arrogant, heartless, callous. I was ashamed of myself for ever having slept with him. Of course, the fact that it was my first time made it even worse. I wanted to take a scalding hot shower.
First, however, I needed to get my money.
The cab dropped me off in front of the warehouse. I asked the driver to stay—I didn’t love the idea of waiting here for another one, no matter who was still inside. Now that the area was mostly deserted it was beyond creepy. The high-end sports cars parked there earlier in the night had made it a little more inviting.
There were no cars there now. Nothing at all, in fact. The little grate at the top of the metal door was dark. When I’d arrived earlier in the evening, there had been a warm light glowing from inside the building.
I knocked on the door, looking around for a buzzer but coming up empty. I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering despite my heavy coat. I didn’t like the feel of any of this. I knocked again, harder this time.
“You okay, miss? I mean, it doesn’t look like there’s anybody there. It doesn’t look like there’s ever anybody there.”
I shot him what I hoped was a reassuring smile and knocked for a third time, feeling like the world’s biggest fool. How could there be nobody here? Why the hell hadn’t I found out exactly what it was I’d needed to do when the deed was finished? Damn it!
I saw a random man hanging out just past the building, near an alley between the warehouse in question and another one beside it. “Hi, sorry to bother you,” I said, hating myself for walking up to a total stranger but seeing no other way out of the mess I was in. “Do you know if the people who work in here are still here? I was with them earlier tonight, at an event inside. I had expected them to still be here.”
He looked at me like I had two heads, and I knew I wouldn’t have otherwise spoken to him. He made Eric look like a priest. “Uh, no.” He looked around, scratching his arms. “I ain’t seen nobody. You better go now.” He looked terrified, like he thought I was setting him up for something or trying to get him in trouble. I hurried away without another word.
Tears burned in my eyes, threatening to spill over. I wanted to scream, cry, rage against something or somebody. I wanted them to feel as terrible as I did. I wanted them to hurt and feel like a whore, the way I did. I hated myself for letting myself be tricked. That had to be the answer. I had been tricked into sleeping with Eric, and I had nothing to show for it. Mom would live out the rest of her days knowing she was leaving a terrible burden behind for me, and there was no way for me to make her more comfortable and see that she got better care. I was a loser, a naïve simpleton for believing it was all going to be so easy. Nothing in life was that easy. Hadn’t I learned all about that by now?
I stood with my back to the warehouse door, my head in my hands. I had never known self-hatred as strong as what I was feeling in that moment. I was so ashamed. I’d given my virginity to a heartless bastard, and for nothing.
How could they do this? I realized I had no idea who “they” were. I couldn’t even track them down to give them a piece of my mind if I wanted to. They could get away with it. I wondered if the other girls had done their research, or if they had jumped at the chance the way I had. They had to be as desperate as I was if they were willing to auction themselves. Besides, it wasn’t like the event had a website, I was sure. It was underground. Secrecy was the whole point.
So I never should have done it in the first place. Especially not with somebody like Eric. What was wrong with me? Had I burned out so entirely that I couldn’t think straight anymore?
I had to go home and curl up in bed after a long shower. I had to get the feel of his touch off me. Maybe Mac would stay with me and talk with me, help me understand the way I was feeling. I needed a friend then more than ever.
My hand was just on the handle to the cab’s back door when headlights bathed me in glowing light. I put my hand to my eyes, shading them from the glow. Oh, terrific, I thought. This jerk.
“What are you doing?” Eric climbed from his car, tension visible throughout his body.
“I told you! I need my money!” The cab forgotten, I turned to face him.
“And you thought you would get it here? I didn’t think you were serious. Christ.” He shook his head.
“What are you talking about?”
“What do you think? Nobody’s here, are they?”
“No.” I looked at the ground, wrapping my arms around myself again. I felt very small, and very stupid, and I needed to protect myself.
“Did you think we all forked the cash over at once? And they would hold money like that, here? What if somebody found out about it? They’d rob the joint, right? That makes no sense.” He sighed in frustration, his breath making a huge billowing cloud in the air.
“So what, then? What do I do?”
“They didn’t tell you?” He smiled softly.
“No! Of course not. Jesus. Why would I come all the way down here if they had? For my health? Because it’s so damned beautiful here?” I was screaming, ranting, pouring out all the hurt he had thrown upon me when he made fun of me. Now I really understood why he had—I’d been acting like a fool. I hated it, too, hated that he looked at me the way he did. I wasn’t a fool. I was a smart person. I was thinking with my heart and not my head, though. That was my downfall.
“Calm down.” His voice was flat, dangerous. “I don’t like being screamed at.”
“Like a give a shit,” I spat fiercely. “Don’t tell me how to talk to you. You don’t deserve that kind of respect.”
His eyes widened like I’d hit him. “I’m the person with your money. And I think that gives me the upper hand. Wouldn’t you agree?”
I fought the tears that still threatened to flow. He was right, the creep. He had the power. I was just a girl, something to screw. I needed him. Not the other way around.
“Whatever. Do you have the money, or don’t you? I want to go home.” I was exhausted, emotionally spent. I had no idea what time it was. It could have been three in the morning, and probably was, considering how much time Eric and I had spent in bed together.
He smirked, and my heart sank. I knew that smirk even after only knowing him a handful of hours. “Yeah, I have it. I told you I did.”
“So where is it?”
“You don’t get it yet.”
My jaw nearly hit the ground. “What?” I wished I had something to hit him with. My fists certainly wouldn’t have done the trick. A crowbar, maybe.
“You don’t get the money until I’m fully satisfied with you. And I’m not remotely done yet.”
Even as bile rose in my throat and I wished I could beat him to death, a shiver ran down my spine. What else did he have in store? The look on his face and the tone of his voice barely masked so much promise. I could only imagine what other pleasure he had in mind.
No! I couldn’t give in like that. He was trying to turn me on, silence me, make me into some quivering sex slave. I wouldn’t do it. I stiffened my resolve.
“How dare you. What are you, some kind of sex maniac?” I lowered my voice, glancing back at the cab driver. I was sure he would have plenty to tell his wife when he got home from work. “I already spent the night with you. That’s it. You took what you paid for.” I glared daggers at him.
“Yeah, and that was good. But I’m not satisfied. I mean, thirty grand for virginity? That’s a little steep, wouldn’t you say?”
I didn’t reply. I was too busy being furious at him for tricking me, and at me for being tricked. I never asked him exactly what the money entailed; then again, he could have said one thing then and changed his month later on anyway. I had no power in the situation. He was in charge, and loving it.
“No way. To that pigsty?” I tilted my head to the side. “Do you really think I’m that low?”
“No, but I think you’re that desperate.” Again, his voice changed to that cold, commanding tone I heard earlier. Again I shuddered at the sound of it. It was the voice of a man who could do anything he wanted. There was nothing I could do to stop him.
All right. I couldn’t stop him, then. I accepted that. What I could do was make things as difficult for him as possible. Two could play at this game.
“Fine,” I said, turning abruptly to the cab driver and handing him my fare. It had climbed quite a bit from when I first got out of the cab, of course, and I gritted my teeth at having to hand over so much money. But I didn’t let Eric see how frustrated I was. I flashed him a wry smile.