“Did you enjoy your time off?” I kicked off my wedges. I couldn’t keep the venom out of my voice.
Did you have sex with someone else again?
“Not as much as you did.” He walked over to a Parisian bar cart and fixed himself some whiskey, heavy on the rocks. He didn’t offer me any. Our unspoken connection, that fragile bond that was created when he realized how deeply I’d been wronged by my family, had snapped like a wishbone.
“I find that hard to believe.” I started unbuttoning the front buttons of my dress. He’d played this trick so many times with me, it was only fair I’d reciprocate and get undressed in front of him. But his back was to me, so he couldn’t see. “Last time you took time off, a woman got compromised against the suite’s window.”
Ransom turned on his heel, nursing his drink, his eyes narrowed in disdain. “And you kissed Max because it kills you that you’re not that woman.”
“Nice story.” I tried my hand at a calm smile.
“It’s the truth, and the fact it was your doing, your fuck-up, is the only reason why I didn’t fire his ass on the spot.”
Ransom saw right through my charade. He knew I wanted him. Knew I was damaged just like him.
“I kissed Max because he’s cute and because I wanted to have some fun.”
“And yesterday?” Ransom cocked an eyebrow and referred to our almost-kiss.
Flipping my hair, I said, “No offense, Ransom, but you’re too old for me.”
The only thing getting old was the bullshit I was spewing at the speed of light. I was delirious with need, and nothing, and no one else could make it better but him.
He waltzed over to where I stood, my dress half undone. He smirked, crushing a perfectly transparent ice cube between his white, straight teeth.
My spine melted in that moment, it was so hot.
“What do you want, Princess?”
I blinked, considering the possibility of telling him the truth, versus feeding him another lie. I decided the truth was better. Ransom never shamed me for my truth. Not for my dyslexia, and not for my life choices.
“I want…” I craned my neck, trying to appear regal and dignified. “I want what you did to her.”
It felt good to let the truth out. Even if I couldn’t understand my reaction to this man.
“I want to do to you what I did to her,” he surprised me by saying, his voice matter-of-fact. I allowed myself a moment of breathlessness at his words.
Yes. Finally.
“But I also don’t want to mess up my life, either. Guess which option appeals to me more right now?”
“Nothing wrong with a little walk on the dark side.” I mustered the courage to run my hand over his chest. He clasped my wrist, pushing it away. My back was pinned against the wall. He stood close enough for me to smell his breath, the whiskey on it, his aftershave, and that singular, sour-sweet sweat of a man.
“You’re not worth it,” he sneered.
“Is that why I can feel your erection digging into my thigh?” In my boldest move yet, I cupped his cock through his slacks. He was hard and terrifyingly large. I’d never touched a penis before. Willingly, anyway. I kept my hand there, even though I didn’t know what to do next.
“Hallie,” he warned.
“What?” My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “Nothing’s happening here,” I said innocently.
He studied my face. I could tell he was at war with himself.
“I don’t fuck gentle,” he hissed.
“No one’s asking you to.” I swallowed. “I want the fantasy. The degradation. I want you to break me completely, and then me to pick myself up without anyone’s help.”
I started rubbing at his shaft. It was clumsy—my hand was at a weird angle—but after a few seconds I felt his cock twitch in my palm in response.
“Nothing’s happening here,” I repeated.
“Nothing?” His silky voice caressed every inch of my body, his lips so close to mine.
“Nothing.” I licked my lips, waiting for him to kiss me. I looked up, tilting my head so that our mouths were perfectly aligned.
“You want a kiss, don’t you?” A mean smirk graced his lips. “I don’t think so. Not after you exchanged saliva with Max.”
I felt his fingers brush the inside of my thigh. My knees became weak. I opened up my limbs like a flower, inviting him to come and play. My hand rubbed his cock harder. I couldn’t believe we were doing this. But then I also couldn’t believe it had taken us so long.
I’d always wanted him.
From the moment I saw this stranger looming over me while I was on the balcony, sunbathing, a twisted, sick part of my brain had wanted him to pin me to the sunbed and fuck my mouth while I lay there, helpless.
“Take your tits out,” he ordered dryly.
I withdrew my hand from his cock to work at the final few buttons, but he cupped my palm, keeping it pressed against his shaft.
A sardonic smirk touched his beautiful lips. “I trust you can multitask.”
My left hand fumbled with the rest of the buttons of my dress, until I gave up and tore it open. My breasts spilled out. I didn’t wear a bra. My boobs were always my best asset. Perky and pear-shaped, my pink nipples as small as two diamonds.
Ransom stared, taking them both in.
“And you?” I asked groggily, sounding drunk, even to my own ears. “Have you kissed someone today?”
He scooped an ice cube from his whiskey tumbler and trailed it between my tits, swirling it around one of my nipples. We both watched as it puckered, straining with sensitivity, begging to be sucked and licked.
“What am I going to do with you?” he hissed.
“Lick it better?” I smiled innocently at him.
“Only good girls get rewarded. Bad girls, however…”
He removed the ice cube from my nipple, moving it down, along my inner thigh—going up, up north. “Oh, and while we’re on the subject, I don’t kiss my hookups. Too many germs.”
“That’s not what I was asking.”
“That’s the answer you’re getting.”
“Who told you I want to do anything with you if you just had your dick in someone else?”
He gave me an awful look of indulgent compassion as if I were a stupid child. “No problem there. You’re not getting dicked tonight.”
His fingers and the ice cube stopped at the center of my panties. A pool of cold water formed over the fabric. I stopped rubbing him, but only because no part of me could function I was so aroused.
“Remember, Brat, nothing’s happening here.”
I shook my head. “Nothing,” I panted. “Nothing. Please.”
With his expression still glacial and bored, he tucked my panties to one side, sliding whatever was left of the ice cube—and his index finger—into me.
I let out a feral moan, chasing his touch, writhing against the wall. My virginity, at least in the technical sense, had been taken by a dildo when I was seventeen years old. And though I’d given myself many orgasms in my life, nothing had ever felt as acutely good as what he was doing to me.
“What are we doing?” His lips hovered over mine teasingly. Every time I tried to reach to kiss him, he moved away.