by Sally Laces
“What do you say?” I teased.
Christina started gasping for air. I leaned up, wondering if I was laying too hard on her stomach. The moment I did she slipped off the couch and was up on her feet two seconds later.
“I say you tickle like a girl,” she said with a victorious grin.
“Look who’s talking,” I said with a smile of my own, laying on my back and turning my head to look at her. Her body shone in places where my seed had dried on her supple skin. She had her hands on her hips and tilted them to the side in a sultry posture that had me wondering how soon it’d be before I could fuck her again.
“Shower’s through there, right?” She said, pointing to the door with her panties crumpled in one hand.
I nodded. She sauntered off in nothing but her bra toward the bathroom. I watched her go; the jiggle of her ass was too much of a sight to pass up.
She turned back to me once she got to the door.
“Harrow… Is it okay if I stay here tonight?”
I leaned up on the sofa.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Christina blew me a kiss, then slipped into the bathroom.
I knew if I joined her that we’d never get clean, so I went to the bar to make us a drink. Two sidecars, just like we’d had in VIP. By the time I was finished mixing, Christina had slid into my bedroom. I peeked in on my way to the shower and saw her rifling through my closet with the door ajar.
“Need anything?” I asked.
“I got it!”
With a shrug, I headed into the bathroom and scrubbed myself clean. On any other night, this would be the time I’d jerk off, thinking about girls who couldn’t match Christina in personality or allure.
What a fool I’d been to think I didn’t deserve the best.
I slung on the robe hanging on the bathroom door, a complimentary addition to the rental house. The cozy piece of clothing warmed me through the four steps it took to get into the bedroom, where Christina idly brushed her hair in the mirror wearing one of my t-shirts.
She turned her head to me, looking a bit unsure.
“Do you mind if I wear it to bed?”
I blinked. What was she talking about? She waved the hairbrush - another compliment of the host - at her temple.
“Oh, right. I don’t see why not.”
She looked back at herself in the mirror.
“I think I could grow it out on my own.”
I laid down on top of the comforter. My eyes ran down Christina’s bare neck down to her smooth legs.
“I wonder what people would say,” she murmured, laying the hairbrush down.
“Does it matter?” I asked.
She turned around, a delicate smile on her face.
“No. It doesn’t.”
Christina crawled up the bed, moving her knees in time with her hands until she was straddling me. I put my hands behind my head and stared up at those liquid green eyes and that devilish grin. She kissed me once and I placed my hand on the back of her head.
“Mph!”
“Couldn’t resist,” I said, smacking my lips.
“Your tongue has a mind of its own, I swear,” she said, hiding her smile behind her wrist.
It took mere seconds for Christina to get into bed next to me, both of us under the covers with her pressed up tight against my body, laying her head in the nape of my neck with one smooth leg over my thigh. I could feel her clit against my hip and did not mind one bit.
“Harrow, can I ask you something?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
Christina’s nails gently dug into my chest. “Why did you decide to rent an apartment out here? I mean, it’s kind of far from the Business District.”
I tilted my head from side to side, working some of the tension out.
“Forum West reminds me of where I grew up,” I said. “Back home I have a place in Manhattan, but so does everyone else in the company. Most of them grew up there, or somewhere like it in the US.”
“I love Manhattan,” she said.
“It has its charms. Still, sometimes you need to remember where you came from.”
She kissed my shoulder. “You came from Forum West?”
“Well, a place like it, yeah. In Kansas City. Only place my mom could afford on her salary with four kids.”
“No wonder you work so hard.”
I laughed. “Aside from that meeting I’ve basically been on vacation since I got here.”
Christina leaned up on one arm, stretching her other arm across my chest.
“Harrow, no one gets to the top floor of Inverness without being a major player in the business world. They knew that when they sent you.”
“Actually, I kind of insisted on this assignment.”
“Why?”
I looked at Christina, then stared up at the white ceiling.
Why indeed.
“Everyone knows Femnos is the place to make money,” I said. “I’m well-off now, but once this deal goes through, I can give my mother everything she deserves, especially with those medical bills. She took on a lot of debt to get us through school. My brothers and sisters too. They’re good people, smart, and burdened by massive student loans. Always wanted to go to the best schools, just like their big brother. I love ‘em to death.”
“And you’d need a fortune to pay off what they owe.”
“That’s America.”
“You’re a good person, Harrow.”
People had told me that before. I never put much stock in what they said.
Christina was harder to doubt.
When I kissed her, I had to admit, maybe I wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
Chapter 23
CHRISTINA
“You’ve been to America before, right?” He asked.
I shut my eyes softly. “Yes.”
“Manhattan.”
“Did I say that?”
“You said you loved the place.”
I smiled. “Yeah. I did, I and I do.”
“Visting?”
I shook my head, the blonde locks covering my wistful expression. “No. I mean, I went to all the sights - Statue of Liberty, MOMA, all that. But mostly I was studying.”
“Studying what?”
“Art.”
Harrow was silent. I opened my eyes and punched him lightly on the chest.
“I’m serious!”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
I sighed, laying back down on his broad pecs. “Sorry. You wouldn’t be the first one to doubt me.”
“I’ve never seen your work, but I bet you’re creative. We are talking about painting here, right?”
“What else would we be talking about?”
“Make-up art?”
I had to laugh at that. “I’m just an amateur. Yeah, painting and photo collage. When the whole ‘our President defrauded investors’ thing went down last year, I had a chance to slip out of Femnos for a while. They didn’t want me around while the company was basically on fire, and I was more than happy to leave. I managed to snag a semester abroad at NYU.”
“Pricey.”
“Actually, the offered me a scholarship.”
Harrow’s body moved when he leaned up to stare down at me.
I met his eyes with a placid look. “I’m serious, Harrow.”
He paused, then laid back down. “I know. I trust you.”
I kissed him on his sterum. “I turned them down. The scholarship went to someone more deserving. Not that my portfolio was bad or anything, just… well, I could afford the tuition.”
“Most people would’ve taken it anyway.”
“Well I’m not most people, am I Harrow?”
He chuckled, putting his hand on the side of my head. “No. You’re definitely not.”
I’d never really told anyone about this part of my life. No one at Inverness gave two shits about my artistic ambitions, except when they were telling me to put the canvas away and get back to looking over financi
al statements that were a. utterly complicated and b. Tampered with by the ex-President and his cronies. None of that mattered at Inverness, where the only art that mattered was the kind you could buy for millions. Making your own only took time away from more work.
As Harrow pet me along my cheek, I felt the need to tell him everything.
“That was the best six months of my life. No one knew who I was in America. They treated me like a normal person. I started crossdressing over there. Plenty of other people were transgender or LGBT in the art department. Even the cis-gendered folk were totally accepting. It was nothing like here.”
“Is Femnos really that repressive?”
“Well, we have gay marriage, sure, but few people at Inverness are out. It’s like that at all the big firms. We’re just a very old-school nation.”
Harrow enveloped me in his arms.
“You can go back some day,” he said softly.
I nodded, but there were tears at the corners of my eyes.
“I hope so, Harrow.”
I did.
Even though I knew I never could.
Not when I was the heiress to the company crown.
Chapter 24
HARROW
“Where did you get that?” I mumbled, wiping the sleep from my eyes. Christina had woken up before me, standing beside my bed in a purple floral shift. She crouched down, then knelt beside my bed, face to face with my drowsy eyes.
“From my purse,” she said. “I brought it just in case, y’know, something happened to my dress.”
She picked up the item from the floor and held it up to me. I could see a few stains and a tear down the bodice.
I groaned. Damn thing looked hella expensive.
“I’ll reimburse you,” I promised.
She giggled. “Don’t worry about it. Just promise me you’ll never use the word ‘reimburse’ in front of me again.”
“Fair enough,” I laughed.
Christina ran her fingers through my messy hair. “Is it okay if I see you again before you leave?”
Her words chilled me. The sun was barely up and although I’d slept well, I wanted a few more hours of my girl pressed against me while I slumbered.
“Christina, I want to see you every fucking day,” I said, leaving out the part about me leaving. I hadn’t booked the ticket out yet, but at best, all I could do was extend my stay until Saturday - Sunday at the latest. Once the deal went through, I’d have to be in Renault’s NYC office on Monday to lead the next part of the merger.
I’d thought about what would happen if Christina came back with me, or at least met me in New York soon after we bought out her company. I couldn’t ask her outright to leave behind her life and her fortune here, along with whatever other responsibilities she had. All I could do was hope she’d bring up the topic on her own.
She hadn’t. We’d fallen asleep soon after she’d told me about her real passion in life. Her mind was on the immediate future.
“Okay,” she said.
I blinked at her. “Just okay?!”
“What if I’m busy?” She said with that wicked little grin, moving to my bedroom door. “I have a lot going on, you know.”
“Like what?” I asked, slowly shifting my legs out of the covers.
“I dunno, business stuff. Maybe I’ll have a date…”
“Like hell!” I knew she was teasing me, but still, I had to rise to the bait. Christina squealed and ran for the front door, her heels clacking against the tile and slowing her down until I scooped her up in my arms from behind. She helped me get her into my arms, carrying her like a bride.
“Okay, I don’t,” she admitted. “But I do have to get to work.”
I could accept that. “I’ll see you tonight, then.”
She stared up at me for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll be here at 5:30. Is that alright, Mr. Tanning?”
I put Christina down on her heels. “Works for me.”
She smoothed down her shift. “And what will you do all day?”
“Jerk off and think of you?”
She gave me a half-smirk. “I’m serious.”
So was I.
“Tourist stuff,” I said with a shrug. The only work I had left to do was seal the negotiation and that wouldn’t happen until Friday. Until then, the entire week was mine. My first vacation in years, and I’d be spending it alone in a foreign country.
Still, I had to make the best of what I had for the day. Lord knows I couldn’t lay in bed all day.
Not without Christina.
“Maybe I’ll check out some art galleries,” I said. “I think I’ve found a new interest in the subject.”
Christina raised an eyebrow at me.
“If you’re serious, I can send you some links. The Femnos Museum of Art should be your first stop but there are some smaller galleries that aren’t on the brochures that you should definitely see.”
“That’d be great. I’ll look forward to getting a text from you.”
“Right.” She turned toward the door. “Just texts.”
“No pictures, of course.”
“What could I possibly show you that’d be better than modern art?”
I lifted the hem of her shift.
“Oh, look, you brought an extra set of panties too.”
Christina batted my hand off of her clothing before I could squeeze her ass.
“You’re the worst!” She said, stomping her little foot against the floor.
I leaned down and kissed her. Christina threw her arms around me and backed up against the door.
“Harrow,” she groaned while I kissed down her neck. “I really… have to…”
“I know,” I said, finishing off with a tiny bite to her nape. “Go before I drag you back to the bedroom by your feet.”
She pursed her lips, opening the door.
“I think I’d like that,” she teased. “Tonight, Harrow.”
“Tonight.”
When she shut the door, tonight seemed as far as way as the next millennium.
——
True to her word, Christina texted me the details of a half dozen small art galleries - and nothing else. No sexy pics, no sultry videos, not even x’s and o’s at the end of her message. Much as I wanted those, I wasn’t going to beg like some horny teenager.