by Blythe Reid
He gripped the sheet, yanking it out from between us. I raised myself up as he positioned his cock at my entrance. As I lowered myself, he pushed into me. We were a perfect fit. His hand moved to my stomach, rising up to the center of my chest. I pressed his hand against my breasts as I rocked over him.
We started slow. I swayed over him like we had swayed together at his office Christmas party. His hands seemed to stimulate every section of my skin as they explored me, moving over my breasts and down my ass. When I leaned down to kiss him, my clit pressed against his groin, and I could feel the tiny heartbeat between my legs, begging for more friction.
I leaned closer to him, my breasts rubbing against his chest, my clit rubbing wonderfully against his skin. His hands moved to my hair as he kissed me, quicker but fiercer than before.
I could live like this forever, but I felt that ache between my legs growing, and I knew it couldn’t last. When I kissed him again, I took in every detail. I memorized the texture of his lips, his woodsy scent, the feeling of his sweaty skin against mine, and the absolute perfection of his cock inside me. I moved faster, my slow dancing turning into a desperate samba.
His fingertips dug into my hips. I kissed his chest right before my back arched, and I let out a low, sweet note as my pussy gripped onto his cock. I felt his cock spasm inside me as pleasure erupted in my body, spreading through me like a wildfire.
As I lay down beside him and his hand brushed against my arm, I felt like I could have orgasmed all over again. I could have spent a lifetime circling around him, waiting for him to be ready for another round. We could turn these white sheets into a whole different kind of winter wonderland.
After a few minutes, Chris sat up. He looked around us. “All the blankets are on the floor.”
“Hmm,” I said, looking over the edge of the bed. “I guess we were a bit too energetic.”
“I like how energetic we are,” he said, kissing my cheek. “I’m also a fan of how you wake me up.”
“I’m usually not like this,” I admitted. “I’ve never been like this. For a long time, I thought maybe I didn’t feel the same sexual urges as other people. It turns out I needed someone like you. As soon as I knew you were coming over, everything in my head told me I should get naked. So I did. I’ve never wanted sex as much as I do with you. It's kind of embarrassing.”
He rolled on top of me, bracing his weight on one arm. “That’s a compliment any guy would love, but it's even better coming from you.”
We kissed again. As hard as I tried to memorize everything about him, every time he kissed me felt like the first time.
“We should get something to eat,” he said, clambering off the bed. “You’ve built up my appetite.”
“Do you think the Chinese has gone bad?”
“I wouldn’t trust it,” he said. “Besides, it’s breakfast time, and we’ve never gone on an actual date. We’ve done this whole romance thing backward. So, if you get dressed, I can take you to the best diner in Chicago.”
“Is it in your bedroom?” I teased. “Because maybe I have a different appetite than you.”
He moved back toward me, touching my bottom lip with his thumb, and then moving his hand down to my shoulder and down my arm.
“We can do that soon too,” he said. “But I can’t have you fainting from starvation in my bed.”
“True.”
He pulled open one of my dresser drawers and threw me a pair of jeans and underwear. He looked down at his body, and I couldn't help admiring how incredibly toned his whole body was.
"Is it okay if I use your shower first?" he asked.
"Go ahead."
"Do you want to join me?"
"Maybe another time," I said. "I can't promise we wouldn't end up fucking again, so it's best if we don't get wet together."
"Another time then." He stepped over to me and gave me a kiss before retreating to the bathroom.
As I heard the water turn on, it hit me how intimate this was. The sex, of course, was intimate, but this was a level of intimacy I hadn’t ever known before. Chris was someone who stuck around, someone who put the extra effort in to make sure I had something to eat in the morning, someone who took the time to figure out where my clothes were in my dresser. My mother couldn't even do any of those things.
This was a dangerous place for my heart to wander, but I liked it.
Chapter 15
Christopher
I kissed Sarah, and there was the taste of blueberry muffin on her lips. As we left the diner, the weather seemed to become a little warmer. It was brisk but warm enough that I could leave my jacket open and Sarah’s hand could slip under my shirt.
Sarah popped one of the diner's mints into her mouth. "So, when I came back to Chicago—"
“Wait, wait. So, you moved here when you were eight, you moved away when you were ten, and then you moved back here when you were twelve. Then, you left again for another year?”
“Yeah. The first time I left, it was because my grandparents took care of me from the time I was ten to twelve years old. They lived in Springfield. But my grandma got sick, and my grandpa was never really a part of raising me, so I moved back in with my mom. Then, I left when I was fourteen because I wanted to live with my cousin in Ohio, but it turns out that a nineteen-year-old and a fourteen-year-old can be really bad at paying rent and affording all the other necessities. She was also a terrible roommate. She actually reminded me of my mother a lot except she managed to be even more irresponsible.”
“Wow,” I said. “All of that is a lot for a kid. I’ve lived in Chicago my whole life. I can’t imagine moving around that much. Your mom didn’t mind you moving around?”
She shrugged. “My mother wasn’t … my mother was complicated.”
I noticed the past tense. “I’m sorry. Did she pass away a long time ago?”
“No, it was a little more than two years ago. It’s not a big deal. We weren’t that close.”
“Still, she was your mother.”
“She was a mess,” she said. She removed her hand from my back, cradling her arm against her waist. “What about your family? Are you an only child like me or were you surrounded by siblings?”
“Uh, no.” I looked down at the burn on my hand she had noticed when we first met. “I have a younger sister. But, like you, I’m not that close to my family. I haven’t talked to them in years.”
She nodded. “I get it.”
I took a deep breath. Maybe if I opened up, she would too. “It’s not like—well, my family is fine. They’re normal. But …”
I wanted to explain things to her. I wanted her to see I was willing to open up to her, so she would feel safe opening up to me. But it was harder than I thought.
Her hand moved toward mine. I grasped it and squeezed it.
“When I was a teenager, I was a bit of a screw-up," I said. "I messed around with drugs, got drunk a lot. Actually, I continued to get drunk a lot until I got this job at Synthesis Spirits. But my parent's reaction toward it was always a quiet sort of disappointment. I never got in trouble with the law or anything, and they didn’t know the worst of it, but they suspected I was doing worse things than getting drunk. Still, after the first couple of years of stern speeches, they just ignored my bad behavior. When I was eighteen, three days before Christmas, I’d left my lighter that I used to smoke on the kitchen counter. My sister, who was fourteen at the time, ended up messing around with it because she wanted to burn these photos of her ex-boyfriend and all these other things. Somehow, the Christmas tree ended up catching on fire. I was outside, messing around with my car when I heard the fire alarm. I ran into the house. Lena, my sister, was trying to put the fire out as our living room was burning down. So, I grabbed her—that’s when I burned my hand--and convinced her to get out of the house. I finally found the fire extinguisher and put out the fire. I found my lighter and figured out what she had done, so when my parents returned from Christmas shopping, demanding to know why half our liv
ing room was burned, I told them I had done it.”
“Don’t you think they would have gone easier on your sister if she had confessed to it?” Sarah asked. “She was younger than you.”
“My sister was perfect in my parent’s eyes. It was better if their screw-up son was the culprit.”
“And your sister hasn’t confessed after all this time?”
I shook my head. “No. I’ve spent decades convincing her it’s best if everyone believes what they’ve believed this whole time. If she confessed now, everyone would still think I was a screw-up from all my past actions, and they would think she was a screw-up too. It’s better if she keeps her angelic status. It helped her a lot. My father went on to pay for her college tuition at Harvard. She’s a prosecutor now, so I imagine if this kind of story got out, it wouldn’t help her cases.”
“Still, I would think she’d feel guilty for letting you take the blame and causing a rift in your family.”
“It was inevitable,” I said. “At one point or another, I would have done something that would have made my father kick me out. It’s truly not a big deal. I still talk to my sister once in a while. Occasionally, my mother calls. I have no desire to talk to my father. It’s just the way it is.”
She wrapped her arm around me, kissing my cheek. “Well, I think it’s very sweet. Does that mean you have no Christmas plans?”
“Nope. What about you? You and your friends going to hang out?”
“No,” she said. “My only friend is Melody, and she’s going to be with her family.”
The thought of suggesting we spend Christmas together lingered in my head, but we had already moved so fast, it seemed like it could be a step too far. I didn’t want to scare her.
We stopped at the edge of the street. I hailed a taxi.
I turned to look at Sarah as a taxi stopped in front of us, but a movement across the street caught my eye. At first, I thought it was a skinny, middle-aged Babe Ruth, but as the man turned his head, I realized it was Linc. I stepped in front of Sarah, trying to shield her from seeing him and him from seeing her. I may not have read the contract he gave me, but I was fairly certain he would not be happy if he believed Sarah was on a date with me and he wasn’t getting anything for it.
Linc’s head turned as Sarah peeked over my shoulder to see what I had been looking at. I sensed her stiffen at the same time Linc’s face dawned with recognition.
I nudged Sarah to get into the taxi. After she got in, I followed her inside. The whole taxi ride was silent. When I offered her my hand, she ignored it. I had a million things I wanted to say, but I knew all of them would be worthless.
Chapter 16
Sarah
There were four golden rules at Linc Platinum Company—or, as he referred to them, three platinum rules:
(1) If the police discover you’re doing something illegal, that is your own problem, and you better not point a finger back at the company.
(2) Do not under any circumstance try to screw Linc out of his pay cut.
(3) Do not disrespect Linc.
(4) No boyfriends or girlfriends because there's too much potential for jealousy and most clients prefer to live in the fantasy that they’re in a genuine relationship with certain escorts.
Linc was silent as he led me back to his office. As he closed the door behind me, I could see the tension in his shoulders and the rigidness of his jaw. He indicated for me to sit, eerily silent. I sat down, but he remained standing, leaning against his desk with his gaze avoiding me. He stared over at the filing cabinets on the other side of his office.
“You know,” he started, his voice startling me. “When I first started this business, I made sure I followed every law. Every single one. Do you know why?”
I looked down at my knees. They were trembling. “Because it was the legal thing to do?” I said.
“Because the rules are there for a reason. First, you learn the rules. You make yourself out to be the perfect law-abiding citizen. Then, when the police get off your back, you can start by breaking a rule now and then, make sure they still aren’t watching, and then you can do whatever the hell you want. Once your reputation is good, it takes a hell of a lot to stain it black. Once people see you as good, they would need an endless supply of evidence to convince them you're not.”
I had no idea where this conversation was going. I put my hands on my knees in the hopes of making them be still. They kept trembling.
“So, I imagine that’s how you felt. You learned the rules. You pretended to be a good girl. And then you broke my rules. After I was so good to you, you broke my rules. You truly believe you had convinced me so thoroughly that you were a good girl that you could do whatever the hell you want.”
His voice had become more aggressive. As he turned to look at me, it was my turn to avoid his gaze.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“Bullshit. You’re a lying whore.”
“I didn’t—”
“I saw you with that client Christopher Day. I saw you with him today. You didn’t have an appointment with him. How much was he paying for you? Huh? Was it worth it? Did you finally fuck him because he gave the right price? Are you a high-class prostitute or a street whore?”
“He wasn’t paying anything—”
Linc grabbed my arms so suddenly, I didn’t have time to move away. He shook me so hard that my head bounced against the chair.
“You’re even more in debt now, you know that, right? You owe me. You owe me for fucking him, you owe me for every minute you spent with him, you owe me for making me think you were some celibate saint. You’re just another whore, willing to do anything for the right price.”
“I’m not,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m not a whore.”
“Don’t talk back to me.” As he raised his hand, I had a dozen flashbacks of my mother saying and doing the same thing. As his hand swung down, I knocked it away with my own arm. I pushed the chair backward, standing up.
“I’m done,” I said. “I’m done with you, with this company, with escorting. You can go fuck yourself.”
I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm. As I tried to pry his fingers off, he jerked me closer to him.
“You listen to me. If you leave, the Ouroboros will track you down, and they will do more than fuck you. They will torture you and—”
“Let them,” I said. He released me in surprise, taking a step back. “You know, I always doubted that story. I’ve seen the cars you drive and the house you live in. I have a hard time believing you’re in business with the Ouroboros or else they would have been taking too big of a cut of your profits that you wouldn’t be able to afford half of your car. And from the look on your face, I’m right.”
I grabbed onto the door handle and jerked the door open. Freedom never smelled so much like air freshener.
Then, I felt the stinging pain of my hair being pulled, and I stumbled back into the office. I spun around as Linc’s fist pulled back. I launched my knees as hard as I could between his legs.
His hand dropped, and his scream filled my ears as I ran out of his office and out of the building. I kept running. Even as I felt like Linc would never be able to catch up to me, I kept going. I ran and I ran and I ran until the only thing between Linc and me was a bad history.
***
I pulled my blankets tight around me, waiting for my water to stop boiling, so I could drink hot cocoa and pretend I was still a kid with no regrets yet.
As my eyes began to close, tired after everything, I heard my cell phone vibrating against the kitchen counter. I got up, keeping my blanket pulled close to me, and shuffled to the kitchen to retrieve it. It was Melody.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hey,” she said. “So, have you been around to see Linc today?”
“Um, yeah. I saw him briefly today.”
She paused. “Was he losing his mind while you were there?”
“Uh, what do you think he would do while he was
losing his mind? Mel, why are you asking this?”
“Well, I went to the office and the police were there. Apparently, he had been destroying the office, smashing things and swearing up a storm. Somebody ended up calling the police because they thought he was some vandal trying to destroy the office. Did something happen while you were there?”
I took a deep breath, and I told her everything that happened, leaving out the part about the Ouroboros and Linc’s threats because I wasn’t quite ready to tell her why I started working for Linc in the first place.
“You kicked him in the balls?” she repeated.
“Well, kneed him in the balls, but yeah.”
“No wonder he was losing his mind.”
“Well, you should also know the police were investigating him before this. Apparently, there were rumors he was blackmailing women into working for him and using drugs to get them to work for him and all this bad stuff.”
She let out a low whistle. "I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. It's just, like, I knew there was something bad in him, but the money was too good to not accept. Do you think that makes me a bad person?"
"No, of course not."
"If he does go to prison, we'll have to find new jobs. I mean, how hard could it possibly be to find another job that pays eighty dollars an hour?”
I blanched at her comment. Apparently paying me barely above minimum wage allowed him to give a higher percentage of his profits to other girls. Not being an indentured servant apparently had its hefty perks.