WHEN THE EVENING WAS OVER, we got into the back of his town car.
“My place or yours?” He sat near the window and looked at me with indifference, like it didn’t matter if I wanted to go home or spend some time with him at his penthouse.
I had a bunch of questions for him. “Yours.”
He told the driver where to go.
There was a lot of traffic that evening since it was a Saturday, so we sat in silence for the next twenty minutes until we arrived at his building. We took the elevator to the top then stepped inside his silent living room, no longer surrounded by the obnoxious sounds of traffic or mingling people.
He stripped off his jacket and tossed it over the back of the armchair. “Would you like a drink?”
“I’ve done enough drinking for the night.”
He poured himself a scotch before he came back to me. “If your dress is still on, then you haven’t.” He took a drink then handed the glass to me.
I took a sip then licked my lips.
He took it back and eyed my mouth, like he wished he could have been the drop of liquor that was there just a moment ago.
“I have questions.”
“I figured you would.”
“That story is true?”
He set the glass on the end table then loosened his tie. He pulled it out of his collar and set it on top of his jacket. His fingers worked his shirt next, popping all the buttons and revealing his beautiful tanned skin. “Yes.”
“That sounds traumatic.”
“It was definitely unexpected. I keep a gun in my desk now.”
“Hopefully, you never have to use it.”
“I changed security measures after that happened.” He peeled off the shirt and tossed it onto the chair. “Different rules, different cameras, different passcodes…stuff like that. This guy had managed to set up a wire transfer that couldn’t be detected by the federal government…which was pretty impressive.”
“Were you scared?” I asked.
“There was no time to be scared. All I could think about was the right moment to knock the gun out of his hand.” When he was shirtless, he took another drink. “But enough of that.” He stood in his slacks and his belt, his upper body so tight, lean, and muscular.
“Dinner with your brother was painfully awkward…”
He shook his head. “We aren’t doing that either.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.” He held the glass in his hand and shook it slightly, making the ice cubes move.
I lifted the halter piece of my dress and pulled it over my neck so the dress fell to the ground. I wore no bra because that wasn’t possible. I only wore a tiny black thong.
He slowly looked me up and down, taking in my tits the most. “You have the perfect body, you know that?” He set the empty glass down and walked toward me, his palms reaching for my boobs. He gripped them both and swiped his thumb across the nipples. “Tiny waist…big tits…perky ass…beautiful face.” His eyes moved to mine again, their dark color drilling into mine.
“Answer my questions.” I lowered his hands from my body.
Disappointment flooded his gaze. “That’s mean.”
“You know I like to tease you.”
“You mean torture. You like to torture me.” He glanced at my tits again before he stepped back and lowered himself onto the couch. “What do you want to know?”
“How long ago did that happen?”
“What?”
I moved close to him, my legs touching his knees. “The gunman.”
“About three years ago.”
“Have you ever seen a therapist about it?”
He scoffed. “No, sweetheart. I don’t need a therapist. The memory of that day doesn’t give me nightmares. It doesn’t keep me up at night. It doesn’t bother me at all.” He relaxed against the back of the couch, his tight body still sexy despite his posture. His broad shoulders were wide and strong, and his powerful chest was like a brick wall.
“What happened with your brother?” I pushed down my thong and pulled it over my long legs until it turned into a pile at my feet.
He stared right at my pussy. “I don’t like to think about my brother when my dick is rock-hard.”
“This seems to be the only way I can get you to talk.” I moved into his lap and straddled his hips, feeling his hard dick underneath me. His slacks kept his dick contained, but the outline couldn’t be denied.
“I talk all the time.”
“About serious stuff.”
“We’re just friends, right? Do we really need to talk about serious stuff?”
“I think we do when we have dinner with your brother and you don’t say a single word to each other.” I planted my hands against his chest, feeling how warm and hard he was. I could feel his rock-hard length underneath me, so thick it seemed like his slacks couldn’t contain him.
He rested his head against the back of the couch and sighed. “It’s not a good story.”
“I figured.” My hands glided to his shoulders. “Now, tell me.”
“Alright.” His hands rested on my hips as he looked me in the eye. “That woman he was with is his fiancée.”
“Yeah, she mentioned that at dinner.”
“Well, five years ago, before she was his fiancée…she was my girlfriend.”
Since I couldn’t picture Slate in a relationship at all, I couldn’t believe what he said. All he did was pay to fuck virgins, but prior to that, there was a single woman in his bed. “Really? You and her?”
He nodded. “We were together for a few months. I wouldn’t say it was serious, but we were exclusive. Then she started putting on the pressure for marriage. I thought that was strange because we’d only been together for six months. I told her I wasn’t in that headspace at all, that marriage didn’t interest me. Shortly after that, I caught her cheating on me—with Coen.”
I gasped at the betrayal. “Oh my god…”
“I wasn’t angry with her, even though what she did was wrong. I was livid with him because he’s my brother…and his actions were wrong on so many levels. On top of that, we were close. We weren’t just brothers…but friends. I confronted him about it, and he said it’d been going on for a while. I might have been able to let it go if she’d disappeared and we’d moved on from it, but he’s been dating her ever since. Now they’re getting married. He basically chose her over his own brother…and I’ve never been able to get over that.” His eyes drifted down to my thighs, while he rubbed his thumb against my hip. “My hatred and resentment have only grown. Now he wants to marry her without a prenup, and that directly affects me. She wants to be part of the company when she has no business doing anything.”
“She sounds like a gold digger.”
He nodded. “That’s exactly what she is. When she didn’t get what she wanted from me, she went to him. Unfortunately, my brother is too stupid to see it. She’ll own half of his shares, and when they divorce, she’ll be a legal shareholder in the company. She’ll get enormous checks for the rest of her life—and make my life a living hell.”
“I can’t believe your brother is so naïve.”
He shrugged. “Pussy does strange things to men sometimes.”
“Now it all makes sense…” I expected their disagreement to be something small that was blown out of proportion, or maybe a disagreement over money or company choices. I never expected a betrayal of this magnitude. “He’s an asshole. A real asshole.”
“I think so too. Not that this really matters, but…she was the girl I lost my virginity to.”
“Then you’ve known her for a long time.”
“On and off throughout the years.”
“Does Coen know that?”
He nodded. “He knows everything. I used to tell him everything. There were times when we would go out to the bars and women would make passes at me, but I never did anything since Simone was in my life. But during that exact time period, Coen was sleeping with her. It�
��s memories like that that make me despise him. He didn’t even have the balls to tell me himself.”
“No, he didn’t have the loyalty to say no to begin with.” This story was worse than the first one. Family wasn’t supposed to betray each other like that. Brothers weren’t supposed to be assholes to each other.
“If she and I’d broken up, and then he told me he liked her, I wouldn’t have stood in their way. Like I said, it was never about her. I was never heartbroken over the thing she did. But the way everything unfolded…just made me hate him.”
I didn’t want to encourage that hatred, but I couldn’t blame him for feeling that way. What Coen did was wrong, wrong on so many levels. It was unforgivable. And now it might affect their company. “Why is your brother so stupid?”
“I have no idea.”
“So after Simone left, you started doing this…?”
“Yes.” He lifted his gaze and looked me in the eye. “Simone was the only relationship I ever had, but it taught me that relationships aren’t real. People can’t be trusted. She only wanted me for my money, and then my own brother stabbed me in the back without thinking twice about it. I wanted to have my fantasy without risking anything. So…now I pay for sex. It’s easier this way.”
I couldn’t tear him down for his reasoning, but his perspective was heartbreaking—and wrong. “Not all people are like that, Slate. Not all women would betray you. And not all men would be so disloyal. I know those people hurt you—”
“They both turned me into a fool. When the media picked up the story, I looked like some loser who couldn’t keep a woman.” He spoke without emotion, speaking of the past like it didn’t bother him anymore. “This way, there’s no way a woman can get to me at all. If she’s a virgin, I’ll fuck her. But that’s it. I just wish I could get my brother out of the company.”
“Could you buy him out?”
Slate shook his head. “He might be stupid, but he would never be dumb enough to take that deal. The company is too lucrative. If we sold it to a third-party buyer, that would be different. But selling his half to me isn’t the smart move.”
“What if you sold your half to him?”
He sighed. “I’ve thought of that before. But I put in a lot of effort to make that company great. Frankly, I did a lot more work than he ever did. It would suck to give that up when he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Yeah…”
“So now I’m stuck with both of them. When my mother passes away, I’ll never spend another holiday or celebration with him. We’ll just see each other when we have to at work—nothing more.”
“That’s so sad…that a woman destroyed you like this.” If she really cared about either one of them, she wouldn’t have done that. She wouldn’t have gotten in between two brothers and forced them apart. It was selfish and cold.
“I always thought money would come between us…not pussy.”
I rubbed his chest and felt his cock soften underneath me as the arousal disappeared. His story was heartbreaking, enough to make anyone depressed. “I’m sorry. That must be so hard…”
“There are good days and bad days. But I think I hate my brother…” He shook his head. “My mother always told me that hate is too strong for people to feel. It has no place in our vocabulary. It has no place in our hearts. But I do…I hate him.”
I rubbed his chest then his shoulders. “You know, if you hate someone, that’s usually because that person had a piece of you, a piece of your heart. They meant something to you, which is why they were able to hurt you in the first place. So, if you hate someone…that could be because you also love them.”
“Not in this case. People hate people all the time, and there’s no love underneath it. I think that’s an ignorant thing to say.”
“Okay, it’s not true in all cases. But in situations like this…you’re upset because he’s your brother. You love him—”
“Loved him,” he corrected. “He means nothing to me now. And he deserves every bad thing that’s coming his way. Simone will rip out his heart, humiliate him in front of the entire world, and then castrate him. A part of me wants this to happen, just so he can suffer and tell me I was right.” There was no shame in his eyes. “You can think less of me all you want. But people don’t appreciate forgiveness or kindness. They only understand cruelty. That’s the only thing that ever sticks with them.” He gently moved me off his lap so he could stand. “I think you should go. I’ll have my driver take you home.”
“What if I want to stay?” I wanted to keep talking to him, to soothe the aches and scars all over his heart.
He grabbed my dress and panties and tossed them at me. “I don’t care. I want you to go. So, go.”
15
Slate
ANYTIME MY THOUGHTS lingered on my brother and Simone, it brought out the bitterness in me.
It made me want to be alone, to sit in my silent apartment and pretend I was the only person left on the planet. Perhaps if I didn’t have to work with my brother on a regular basis, I could actually let this go. If he moved across the country and started a whole new life, I would never have to think about him again.
But now I had to look at him on a regular basis—that whore on his arm.
Monroe was only trying to make me feel better, but her comfort annoyed me. I shouldn’t have asked her to leave, not if I wanted to get laid, but I was in too much of a bad mood. Even if she were finally ready to put out, I would have turned her down.
Days passed, and I went to work like usual, enjoying the parts of my job that had no interaction with my brother or his tramp. He was in the building often, but his office was on a different floor, and we never bumped into each other in the lobby. There were two sets of elevators on opposite sides of the building. He always used one, while I used the other.
Now that I knew Coen would marry her at the end of summer, I dreaded the passing of time. With every new day, his nuptials came closer. If that prenup were signed, I wouldn’t care about his mistakes.
I hated knowing my brother’s actions had a hold on me in some way. I didn’t want anyone to have power over me in any instance. When they did stupid shit, it directly affected me. The company had been reinvented with my blood, sweat, and tears, but depending on how shitty things got, I might have to sell my portion and start my own company.
It would be nice to run him out of business.
The thought made me smile.
Even though my mom would be pissed.
I sat at my desk and watched my phone ring. Max’s name appeared on the screen. I picked it up and took his call. “Max.”
“Slate, what’s the deal? I’ve got a line of beautiful women ready for you, but you aren’t taking the bait. They keep asking when this is gonna happen, and I’m running out of excuses.”
I had every right to continue my previous ways. Monroe was just another woman I bought, but I had to wait until I got to use her. In the meantime, I should live my life normally, satisfy myself with my specific urges.
But for some reason, I didn’t want to.
My mind was so laser-focused on Monroe that another woman didn’t seem appealing. Her cherry was the only one I wanted to pop. Once I had my way with her, my conquest would be finished, and my interest would evaporate. Then I would revert to my previous behavior since Monroe would no longer be on my mind. But for now, fucking another virgin didn’t feel right, not when I would wish she were Monroe the entire time. “Let’s put all of that on hold for the moment.”
“What?” Max asked blankly. “The entire operation?”
“Yes.”
“Everything alright? We’ve been doing this five years, and now you just stop? Something seems off.”
“I’m just taking a break. Don’t worry about it.”
“So what do I tell the girls? Your shop is closed for the next month?”
A month should be plenty of time. Monroe had to crack before then. “Yes, we’ll resume in a month.”
“Alright…but you
can’t expect these girls to stay virgins forever.”
They were all beautiful and desirable. Men on the streets could sniff them out like wolves. They wanted a piece of the action, to conquer virgin territory. But for every woman who lost their cherry to someone else, another one emerged. And their attributes didn’t seem important in comparison to Monroe’s. “A month, Max.” I hung up and tossed the phone on the table.
Jillian spoke to me through the intercom. “Sir, I have Simone here to see you…” Everyone in the building gossiped, so they all knew about the bad blood with my brother. They all knew Simone and I used to fuck before she started fucking my brother.
I couldn’t believe that tramp had the audacity to come to my office. This was the beginning of the nightmare, the exact bullshit I wanted to avoid. Just because she was marrying Coen didn’t make her an executive of this company, but Coen didn’t have the balls to straighten her out. “Send her in.”
Jillian escorted Simone into my office before she walked out quickly, trying to get away from the drama about to unfold.
Cherry Popper Page 10