by Logan Fox
“You know, I’ve had a lot of girls through these doors.” Tanner tossed back another shot, keeping the rim of the empty glass pressed against his mouth as he spoke. “I’ve told the guys to make the paperwork as comprehensive as possible, you know, so the girls all know what they’re getting themselves into. I don’t want someone suing me for sexual assault.” He let out a sigh. “Those trials are godawfully boring.”
He used two fingers to push the shooter glass over the table toward her.
“Oh, really—”
“I insist.”
Pearl compressed her lips, throwing Tanner a quick glance. He was watching her with hooded eyes, his mouth a straight line. She broke eye contact and took up the glass, throwing the oily liquid down her throat and stifling the inevitable grimace with an effort.
“Most of the girls Owen recruits for me are a bit more… brassy than you.”
“Brassy?” Pearl lifted her eyebrows at him, but he just gave her a shrug and poured them another round.
“I’m guessing what you lack in confidence you more than make up for with your skills, whatever those might be.”
Pearl took the shooter glass, her fingers brushing against Tanner’s when he didn’t release the tequila.
She looked up into stormy gray eyes.
“So what skills do you have, Pearl?”
“I’m a dancer.”
“I know that.”
“So what else do you want me to tell you? That I can pull a quarter out of your ear?”
“I’m sure, after another tequila or two, I’m bound to find out.” Tanner held a shot glass alongside his cheek. Then his eyes slid to the glass and back to her.
Pearl sighed and tossed back the tequila. “Are you trying to get me drunk?”
“I don’t have to.”
When her eyes found his again, there wasn’t a trace of mirth in them.
“Of course,” Pearl said. “How could I forget? You own me. You could fuck me right here on the table if you wanted to.”
Her stomach boiled, heating her skin. She probably looked flushed already — with red-tinged cheeks and glassy eyes.
Tanner’s hand closed over the top of her thigh. This time, Pearl didn’t jump. She simply turned to him, her eyes narrowed.
She’d never liked tequila. It always made her angry. Angry for letting herself get drunk. Angry for dancing on the counter. Angry for letting a guy fondle her on her dance floor. Tanner didn’t know that, of course, but he would if he pressed another drink on her.
“You’re right. I could. Question is…” Tanner murmured. “Will I?”
Pearl drew a short, sharp breath. A retort formed on her lips, but before she could speak, the serving girl reappeared carrying two fluted glasses. She paused, taking a step back when she saw Pearl’s stiff shoulders and Tanner’s snake-like grin.
Tanner drew away from Pearl, his hand sliding off her thigh.
“Scotty off sulking?” he asked as the serving girl set down Pearl’s dessert.
“Yes, Sir. I mean, no, she’s—”
Pearl could hear the girl’s teeth clacking shut as Tanner caught her wrist again.
“Relax, baby girl. It was a joke.”
With a squeal, the girl landed in Tanner’s lap. Pearl shifted back in her seat, the girl’s stockinged legs flashing up in front of her as she struggled for balance.
“Sssh…”
The girl’s struggles subsided. She sat on Tanner’s lap, her breasts rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath. The man had an arm around her waist, holding her down, the other brushing away the few strands of pale hair that had escaped her ponytail.
“Pearl, this is Suzie. Suzie, say hello to Pearl.”
Suzie swallowed. “Hello, Pearl,” the girl whispered.
Pearl’s eyes flashed between Suzie’s and Tanner’s. The man wore only the faintest outline of a smile, his gray eyes wide and unreadable.
“I employ Suzie to help in the kitchen. Tell Pearl what you do, Suzie.”
“Me?” Suzie shifted on his lap, licking her lips. “I… wash dishes.”
“And?” Tanner prompted, leaning over the table and pouring another two shots of tequila.
“I chop veggies. And peel potatoes. And…”
“…make pasta…” Tanner whispered.
“Make pasta, yes.” Suzie nodded enthusiastically at Pearl. “Whatever Scotty asks me to do.”
Tanner brought a shot glass to the girl’s mouth. She didn’t even hesitate before parting her lips and letting Tanner tip the liquid into her mouth.
“And what else, Suzie?”
Another squirm. Her cheeks were growing pink, and she dropped her green-eyed gaze to the floor between her feet. Tanner gave the girl a shake.
“What else?”
“I…” the girl’s voice dropped to a bare whisper. “I keep you warm at night.”
“Damn right, you do.” Tanner jerked the girl’s arm out toward Pearl. “Touch her.”
“What?” Pearl’s voice was a twisted, shaking thing.
“Just touch her.”
Pearl reached out an unsteady hand and pressed two fingers to the girl’s skin. Her flesh was warm. No… not just warm: it was hot.
“She’s a little furnace, isn’t she?” Tanner nuzzled his face into the crook of the girl’s neck. She giggled, writhing until he tightened his arm around her again. “Saves me a buck or two on heating, I’ll tell you that.”
“And whores.” The words slipped out before Pearl could stop them.
Tanner’s fond smile solidified. He turned away to pour another two drinks, gently urging Suzie off his lap.
“Go clean up, will you?”
Suzie threw Pearl a shocked glare before hurrying out of the dining room.
“You two can wait outside,” Tanner said.
Pearl jerked as the two bodyguards lumbered away. Tanner slid another shot of tequila toward her. She tipped it back, pressing her lips closed against the burn.
“Suzie turns eighteen in three months.” Tanner spoke facing the windows, his eyes hooded and his mouth in a straight line again. “Something I can’t tolerate in this place is rumor. It seems to crop up whenever more than two women are clustered together, and I fucking hate it.”
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and tossed back his tequila.
“She’s still a virgin, and I intend for her to stay that way until she’s old enough to decide otherwise.”
“And if that happens two months from now?”
“Then she’s fired.” The bottle of tequila clinked against the glass as Tanner upended another shot from it. “Do you think I’m completely incapable of self-control? Do you think, because my business is supplying sex, that I’m some kind of lecher? That I spend my days sticking it into any girl I happen to have at hand?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
Pearl took her shot glass, but she didn’t drink. Her stomach felt uneasy, coiling and churning as it was, and the tequila wasn’t helping. It also wasn’t helping her brain or her mouth, who seemed to be conspiring against her.
“Hmmm… You make a valid point.”
She lifted her eyes. Tanner straightened in his chair, putting his elbows on the table as he leaned over his dessert.
It was chocolate mousse.
He shoved a spoonful of the dessert into his mouth, his jaw moving as he ate it.
“I mean, if it’s what’s expected of me,” he mused, “then I’m probably disappointing a lot of people by not living up to those expectations.”
Pearl drank her shot and slammed the glass down. It had been an accident, of course — the alcohol had severely impacted her motor functions — but Tanner spun to her with flaring eyes.
“Fuck expectations,” Pearl said. “I’ve never even slept with anyone for money before I got here. How’s that for spoiling expectations?”
Tanner studied her then, one elbow still on the table and the other suspended in the air holding the spoon. He waggled
the cutlery in the air, a slow smile spreading over his mouth.
“Fucking A.” He stuck the spoon into his dessert and took out a heap of it, watching it for a second before turning to her again.
“Tell you what…” His gray eyes sparkled dangerously. “I’ll live up to mine if you live up to yours.”
17
Expectations & Assumptions
This close, Tanner smelled of tequila and chocolate mousse. Pearl shivered, but that was only because the alcohol raging through her had messed up her body’s ability to regulate temperature.
“You look nervous,” Tanner whispered in her ear.
They were on a balcony outside his bedroom, the late night air a cool caress against her bare legs and arms. It had taken him less than a minute to tug her out here, ignoring her bleated protests. He stood behind her, close enough that the proximity of his body washed her in delicious, goose bump-inducing waves.
“I shouldn’t be,” Pearl said. “This’ll be the third time I’m doing this.”
“Having sex?” This with a chuckle.
“Being paid for it.”
Tanner laughed quietly and slid his arms over her shoulders, tugging her against him. The world bobbed, and Pearl closed her eyes against a sudden flash of vertigo.
The balcony’s railings were low, low enough that she could tip over them and plummet to her death on the paving stones far below. But the balcony itself was several feet wide, so it would have to be intentional.
“Didn’t take you for the notches-on-your-belt type,” Tanner said. “This isn’t a prison sentence, you know.”
Pearl wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. She’d come here of her own free will, fully knowing — at least to some extent — what she was getting herself into.
Tanner’s hand touched the outside of her thigh. He dragged his fingers over her dress until he reached the seam and then slipped his hand underneath the fabric. He traced the curve of her ass, the line of her underwear, and her hipbone while his chest expanded and contracted against her back.
“Why yellow?” Pearl asked.
“I like it,” was the billionaire’s whispered reply.
“And the foxes?”
His hand stilled, fingers still investigating the hollow below her hipbone.
“I like them.” He shrugged against her. “Any more questions?”
“You like them enough to have us all dress up in tails and ears?” She wanted to turn around and look into his eyes, but the arm around her collarbones held her tight.
He continued his exploration of her body, his fingertips brushing over her bellybutton. With her dress hiked up like this, cool air fidgeted around her skin and made her shiver violently.
“Have you ever owned your own company, Pearl?”
She decided to ignore his condescending tone and shook her head.
“You need to define a unique selling proposition for your company if you want success. Something that sets you apart from the rest.”
“So, better hookers?”
He lifted his hand away from her stomach and ran his knuckles down the side of her face.
“Better hookers. Better experiences. Utter discretion. But, above all, something unique.”
Tanner’s thumb traced the bottom curve of her lip. Pearl’s eyes fluttered closed as she swooned against him.
Too much tequila.
Her body trembled under its onslaught, her mind thrumming with incessant white noise that threatened to block out Tanner’s quiet murmurs.
“Something you won’t get anywhere else.”
“Does it say that on your website?”
“It does. Right under your photo, in fact.”
Pearl stiffened, her ears ringing.
“What did you say?”
Tanner’s hand slid around the front of her throat. For a moment, it wasn’t him gripping her but the wolf — her wolf — and her flare of resistance melted like a block of butter left in the sun.
He gripped her, the arm around her chest sliding to her waist and yanking her against him.
The billionaire was hard for her.
The scent of his breath changed — becoming sweet and intoxicating — as he touched his lips to her ear.
“Are you scared of heights?”
Pearl managed to shake her head. The world wobbled unsteadily, and her legs buckled. Tanner caught her effortlessly.
“Drank too much,” she mumbled, as the man scooped her up.
The Fox Pit rotated around her, the sky wheeling into streaks of white light above. Her skin prickled with ice, and her stomach began coiling ever tighter.
“Stating the obvious there, baby girl.”
Warm air replaced cool; darkness the light. Something soft against her back, as cool as the night air had been.
“Guess we’ll be dashing expectations again tonight,” Tanner said, somewhere above her.
“Girls said you wouldn’t screw me,” Pearl murmured, more to the pillow beneath her head than the invisible man standing over her.
“Did they now?”
“Maybe later. A week. Two.” Pearl rolled over, nestling into the soft folds of a silk-covered duvet. She let out a sigh, sleep enveloping her.
“I’ll be sure to mark my calendar,” Tanner said with a smile in his voice.
Warm breath washed over Pearl’s neck, tickling the hairs beside her ears. Her eyes opened, a few blinks eventually resolving the darkness into a large, shadowy room.
She pushed herself up.
An arm slithered off her thigh. Her head pounded along to some unknown deep house track, every lub-dub bringing a new wave of pain. She could taste the remnants of tequila in her mouth and could smell it wafting off the man lying behind her. Tanner: as handsome in sleep as he was in waking.
Pearl turned, trying to make sure the sheets didn’t tug the man awake. Then she froze, her eyes moving past his sleeping form to that of another. Smaller, slimmer. Blond.
Suzie.
Pearl compressed her lips, shaking her head with a glower on her face as she stared at the young girl. Granted, it looked like she was wearing some kind of pajama set — not yellow, thank God — but that didn’t mean the girl had been wearing it all night. Especially after she’d left the man with a hard on and nothing to stick it into.
She slid out of bed, stifling a groan when she came to her feet.
A familiar shape on the nightstand: a glass of water. Beside it, two pills. Pearl drank them down, yanked straight her creased yellow dress, and left with a last scowl at Tanner.
He wasn’t so intimidating in sleep, one arm still draped over her empty slot on the bed. As if sensing eyes on him, Tanner let out a soft grunt and turned around, blindly finding Suzie and drawing her against him.
Pearl shook her head again, unable to force the disgusted sneer off her face.
The two bodyguards were waiting outside. She’d forgotten about them and almost yelled when one of them turned to her as she pulled the door closed.
“God, you scared me,” she whispered, a hand on her hammering heart. The shock had ramped her headache into high gear, and she moved her hand instead to a throbbing temple, squeezing against the thrumming vein her fingers found.
The two men didn’t respond, both merely straightening again and facing the blank wall on the opposite end of the hallway.
Had to be the most exciting job in the world.
Pearl hugged herself and padded down the hallway. Then she paused and looked back at them.
“Where’s the bathroom?”
One of them pointed to a door further down the hall. Inside, Pearl found a bathroom almost identical to the one Seth prepared her in before her scenes. The comparison made her shudder. When she’d emptied her bladder and rinsed her mouth out with the mouthwash she found in the cupboard, Pearl slipped out again.
For a moment, she was so disorientated that she stopped and stared down both ends of the hall. The bodyguards were gone. Either that or she’d somehow exited via a
portal into another dimension where the bodyguards didn’t exist.
Plausible, but not very likely.
She eventually found her way out of Tanner’s apartment and down to the ground level of the villa. It had to be very early in the morning: the sun wasn’t up yet and a hush lay over the interior of the Fox Pit as if it was still caught up in its own spectral dreams.
As she alighted on the villa’s ground floor, a flash of movement made her freeze. It had just been a flicker, but she was sure there was someone dressed in white who’d just slipped around the corner, headed toward the library.
A person in white… or a ghost?
Pearl managed a small smile and started after the figure. It would be impossible to sleep until the aspirin kicked in — might as well take the time to scope out the Fox Pit when she didn’t have a chaperone tugging her around. She arrived at the wall where she’d seen Mr. White disappear and peeked around it. Another flicker: he — or possibly she — had just exited the villa.
She waited for a few counts, using the thumping in her head to mark the intervals of time, and then hurried to the door. For a second, she thought it wouldn’t open. But then it did, and she had to stifle a gasp as cold air closed around her like the fist of an ice giant. Ferociously hugging herself, Pearl scanned the villa’s gardens for an indication of where the figure had disappeared.
Was it one of Gia’s mythical servants? It would make sense that the girl thought they were ghosts if they went around in pale hooded robes all the time. Or was it a guest, out for a little pre-dawn fresh air?
The last thought made Pearl hesitate. What if it was her wolf? How long did the guests stay, anyway? A day? A week? What would happen if she were to catch sight of one of the guest’s faces?
It might be a fucking fantastic way to wriggle out of her contract.
That thought slammed into her mind like a sledgehammer and for a moment she reeled, eyes wide and shivers briefly abating.
A way to get out.
Pearl pushed herself forward, staggering a step or two on legs that hadn’t quite caught up to the idea of forward motion yet.